I would never deny that. In fact, my post asked for more coverage of that. Right?

What I noted was that this interpretation was not the ancient, sacramental, creedal norm.

I fear your conversation is getting away from the core fact that many Christians and some Christian churches used the Bible to support slavery before the Civil War, and were at least silently complicit with Jim Crow afterwards. The judge’s stated views may not have been canonical but were certainly within the umbra of this religious “cover.”

Some of those churches have recently apologized for their past behavior. This is history that can’t be ignored.

Was the doctrine in question ancient, universal and linked to creedal belief? Or a sacrament of the church?

Apply that standard and you stay with the core. When you say that there is no one ecumenical council, you are right and wrong. You are right, after 1000. You are right on some issues in the first 1000, on some doctrines. But there is a core in the ancient faith that is hard to shatter.

But over time, I also do believe that there is a “Godly wind” that people are invited to follow. And that “Godly wind” tends to blow away incorrect views of what the Bible is truly saying.

That was a viewpoint and never normative in the wider world of Christian faith. And here’s the key, it was never connected to creed, sacrament or the actual teachings of the Ecumenical Councils. It was never doctrine.

If you enter the post-Reformation period, you can literally find people who taught anything, if you look hard enough.

So your statement that it was THE Godly viewpoint cannot stand, even though reporters may report it.

that’s smoke from the pit of hell.

Of course, for a time, that was considered the Godly viewpoint rather than hellish smoke. Before that some that were pro-slavery quoted scripture in support of their judgement. Shakespeare’s famous quote about the devil quoting scripture should come to our mind not only when considering such examples from history but only when considering current events. And the ACLU could be said to have been doing God’s work when they helped overturn the laws against interracial marriages.

It’s one of my favorite windmills, to be sure, but I really wish we’d see stories not only about the facts, but also about the deeper issues that lie behind the facts. Oh well, time to go for a short ride on Rosinante.

The context in Galations 3 is pretty clearly that of salvation, not some kind of general grooviness about oneness and having no distinct roles at all:

26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

All these groups have people in them who were “baptized into Christ” and are now “Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” This is the same Paul, after all, who also says that men and women are different in regard to a number of things. But here he is saying that with regard to baptism and being heirs of the promise, they are not different.

Personally, were I verse-picking, I’d pick God’s defense of Moses’ choice of wife

Yes, I know, this comment is not strictly about the journalism, but if you can do it in the post, then it’s only fair