Stedfast Baptist Church, its nature and effective counter strategies. The pathology of homophobic Christianity.
Stedfast is just the pot of Christian homophobia boiling over. They illustrate the disordered nature of anti-Gay Christianity. We need to have expose the delusions that sustain them.
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PART 1
Introduction
To effectively deal with Stedfast Baptist Church we must understand what it is. We need to understand what supports its existence and what drives its activities. The factors that drive people to join it, what psychological needs does the Stedfast Baptist Church satisfy have to be understood without sentiment.
To understand what Stedfast Baptist Church is, we also need to examine the workings of their church without being encumbered by our own sentiments. We need to look at Stedfast Baptist church analytically.
Stedfast Baptist Church is for their members a solution for the challenges inherent in modern living. A very bad choice, a self-serving choice, and a vile choice, but a choice to deal with the challenges in modern living.
It is important not to see Stedfast as being something that is an outlier, an anomaly, something very different than other churches. Stedfast Baptist Church needs to be seen as just the edge of the distribution of homophobic Christianity, incrementally different than the other churches. Stedfast Baptist Church needs to be seen as niche marketing among homophobic Christian churches in general.
Also, though the ideology of Stedfast Baptist Church is abhorrent, it must not be assumed that they don’t have strategies and methods. It must not be assumed that their thinking is an incoherent jumble of rage. Just because they don’t view life as we do, doesn’t mean that their mental processes are just an ongoing seizure.
Churches and Modern Life
The problem of modern life with all its changes in social, political, and economics is the problem of individuals facing a meaningless life where they are essentially alone. Their situation in the modern world isn’t secure. Economically they don’t have a strategic position or place or something meaningful. They generally don’t have the education, skills, or abilities to do something extraordinary. They face the anonymity of modern life with perhaps just their immediate family to rely on.
A church is an immediate solution to their emotional needs. There is a ready-made social group. Instead of being the disposable unit in the modern economy, they are told that “Jesus loves them” and the god of the universe had time for them personally when society often has no interest. Further in Christianity you devour your god’s body and blood in a weekly ritual. It is a fairly intimate relationship. It makes Christianity very different from other relationships.
There is often modest support for those needing economic assistance and perhaps job contacts. A modern world with its changes and turbulence and is made comprehensible and secure. For persons who are single, there is the opportunity to meet others and get married.
Most importantly, their lives aren’t meaningless, they are now on an adventure, they now have a cosmic role, they now have a relationship with a god, they are crusaders for Christ. With the homophobia present in society and in themselves, they can imagine being the crusaders for Christ against the ultimate evil, or one of them anyways. They even get to have reincarnation by being “born again.” Unlike playing Dungeons and Dragons, or Comicon cosplaying, this crusade, this cosmic adventure, with the drama of the lost and saved is supposed to be real. Further you have others involved who believe it is real and thus reinforce your belief in the realness of your new personal role in this cosmic drama.
Christianity comes with its own stories and history to place Christianity as center to history of the universe and the church member as part of this universal and millennia long drama.
Drama to provide meaning in the modern world is a big emphasis of these churches with humongous jumbotron screens and all sorts of apparatus in theatrical performances. Every member has some point of participation if only singing in the pews. Unlike some psychotropic, there aren’t potential health affects like LSD or fentanyl.
Christianity also provides a moral code for those perplexed by modern life or find its ethical issues challenging or can’t manage their lives. There is a moral code and it is supposed have been provided by god and so you are freed from having to think about its justification. Often you hear of someone who was excessively drinking until they found Jesus.
It has its own symbols so you can belong and its own distinctive rituals.
As for the turbulence of life, the Christian faith emphasizes that their god is constant, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Something that the believer can cling to.
The stories of persons in the Bible are persons facing persecution, oppression and are downtrodden, something the potential believer can identify with. Christianity when it first enters a society finds its adherents first among the marginal and downtrodden. There are denominations today that work to recruit from those failing in life.
For the modern person facing a meaningless existence, disposable or marginal in the modern economy, lacking in social support, the Evangelical Christian Church is a solution.
Stedfast Baptist Church isn’t seized by demons or some spontaneous outbreak of evil, they are devising a solution, a wrong solution, to the challenges of modern living adapting the general strategies of the Christians to have a competitive and distinctive brand of Christianity for a niche market.
PART 2
What is the Stedfast Baptist Church: Niche marketing.
The competition is very keen for believes with contemporary Christianity. Megachurches have extensive activities and grand spectacles. There are a multitude of different Christianities trying different strategies to reach diverse customer needs. If you want Gregorian Chants there is a church, but also churches where they handle deadly poisonous snakes, roll on the floor and speak gibberish which is imagined to be some language. There is a wide variety of product to meet different customers desires.
One of the most important things about consuming Christianity is that it be real and authentic. To fill your life with meaning and on some cosmic journey, you really need to believe that your church is the real thing. That is why the concept of the “true faith” is so big in Abrahamic religions (Jewish, Christian, Islam.) To escape the meaningless life depends on having an absolute belief in the adopted faith. To later realize that perhaps your particular church was bogus, means the prior activities and role in the cosmic drama was worse than meaningless, it was delusion.
For much of modern Christianity in Europe they murdered each other for not believing in the “true faith.”
Christian narratives in the Bible are full of stories where people have lost the true faith. Jeremiah denounces the Israelites for their behavior. In Exodus, the Israelites wander in the desert because of idol worship. Jesus goes to the temple and vandalizes the operations of the money changers who represent the fallen nature of the temple. Sodom and Gomorrah get destroyed and the whole world gets drowned in the story of Noah. There is a predicted end of the world where destruction is to rain upon the earth because of its fallen nature.
When Stedfast calls for the execution of homosexuals it can differentiate itself from other churches as being authentic. Their competitors can be portrayed as having allowed themselves to be influenced and fallen away and they have remained authentic. Stedfast can be presented as adhering rigidly to the true faith and dramatically so, because they are doing it despite public denunciation.
With the other Evangelical churches, the market space is already fairly crowded with different homophobic offerings. Given their substantial existing memberships, many with relatives that are homosexual, calling for the execution of Gays would result in membership loss to the competing brand of “hate the sin, love the sinner,” type homophobia and its variants.
Having just a small membership relative to other denominations, Stedfast and others like them, can exploit a new niche in homophobic Christianity without competition. They can be the extra-strength brand of homophobic Christianity for those are afraid they are getting ersatz Christianity.
The drama of persecution for the true faith and as an indicator that it is the true faith being adhered to is very key to Christianity. There are the stories of the martyrs. Christ is crucified. In the Old Testament the Israelites are persecuted, enslaved, afflicted. Daniel is put in the lions’ den; Hebrews are thrown in a furnace under Nebuchadnezzar.
Persecution empowers Christianity, because it can be seen as an indicator that it is real and worth suffering for. Christianity took over the Roman Empire probably because they were thrown to the lions, not despite being thrown to the lions. The strength of the churches is much stronger in the former Communist nations versus the West.
Christians like to say things like, “If you were put on trial for being a Christian today, would you be found guilty.”
The Bible is full of things which are straight forwardly murderous in intent towards Gays in both the New and Old Testament. It is easy to market a brand of Christianity which calls for the execution of Gays as being authentic and to represent the other brands as having equivocated or abandoned Christian teaching to avoid persecution and to be popular, perhaps with jumbotrons.
The protests at Stedfast Baptist Church psychologically reinforce the members of the church that their faith is the true faith and really amplifies the drama of them being crusaders for the true faith. And it is safer than lions.
Leaving the church can be framed as aiding the enemy while Stedfast is under siege.
The protests are good to let the local community and the media know about them, but it needs to be considered how these protests support Stedfast Baptist church.
The public denunciations are advertising that it would be impossible to purchase. The public outside of Cedar Hill likely doesn’t know of any other churches in Cedar Hill or just a few maybe, but through out Dallas County and the area which Dallas media services they have heard of Stedfast in print, broadcast, social media.
One every present danger to Christian belief and the credibility of the drama it offers to the believer, is the non-believer. They are living examples that perhaps the whole Christian experience is just a delusion. Historically Christianity is usually fairly vigorous in its history in murdering those who were outwardly non-believers once they achieved political power.
Homosexuals that don’t express remorse or guilt or desire to change are an ultimate refutation of the credibility of homophobic Christianity and a very visible refutation of it. A person who is a member of a different Christian denomination or a different non-Christian religion or is atheist isn’t visible or that visible as a non-believer. Homosexuals are very visible as a living refutation of homophobic Christianity. Religions depend on being transmitted to the next generation and religions do go extinct (Even without Christian persecution.)
In choosing to brand differentiate themselves by calling for the execution of Gays, Stedfast simultaneously makes homosexuals a danger to their brand as living refutations of it. In particular homosexuals who are happily living their lives.
This can make for an ongoing drama cycle of authenticity and danger to the true faith for Stedfast Baptist Church giving them a purpose and never a moment of boredom.
Their faith and church will be in the news and they are part of the news cycle.
The offering of Stedfast Baptist church is their faith is the real thing, the drama is intense without the expense of jumbotrons and big theater productions.
PART 3
Counter Actions against Stedfast Baptist Church and homophobic Christianity.
What should not be done.
[1] In no way should there be acts of vandalism or violence against the church or its members. Such actions would benefit Stedfast Baptist Church and are not necessary. Further violence and vandalism lead to violence in return.
[2] No arguments over what Christianity is or the Bible says or the teaching of Jesus. These arguments might be used by Gay Christians in debates with Christians whether they can fit into Christianity, but that should not be the general argument of the Gay community.
These arguments locate our right to exist in the Bible and further make it contingent on the outcome of a theological argument that will never end. It assumes that our right to exist depends on what Christians decide.
Our policy is that: “It is up to Christians to figure out how they exist in a universe where Gays exist, not for Gays to figure out how they fit into Christianity.”
Arguing with homophobic Christians over what the Bible might or might not say about homosexuality gives both Christianity and the Bible credibility when someone argues over what the Bible says as a defense. It also gives homophobic Christians validity and merely misguided instead of persons with a self-serving agenda.
Also, it precludes some general and specific criticisms of Christianity and its disordered behavior. Our policy needs to be, “If your religion is anti-Gay, it is a stupid religion.” We are not obligated to read whatever holy book you have. The credibility of your religion is nothing if you are anti-Gay.
What should be done.
What needs to be understood is that the agenda isn’t just against Stedfast, but against all the homophobic Christian churches.
Stedfast is just the pot of Christian homophobia boiling over. They just say the quiet part out loud. There isn’t that much difference from the other homophobic Christians. Other homophobic Christians want to destory the lives of Gays, but not so directly. Some want to put Gays in prison where Gays would lose their lives of freedom. They try conversion therapies or believe prayers or faith will extinguish homosexuality. They preach that HIV is god’s punishment for homosexuality. They seek to block provision for Gays of Prep. They seek to make Gay lives miserable and Gays persecuted and deprive Gays of meaningful lives. They seek to destroy Gay lives with guilt. They are all dark raging evil beasts seeking to destroy Gay life.
This church tried to represent themselves as not being like Stedfast, but they really aren’t that different.
There is a local college named after this person who preached that AIDS was god’s punishment for homosexuality.
The following are some of the possible strategies. These are just first proposals. Some ideas will need development. New ideas will be needed. For too long the thinking of the Gay community has been in captivity enclosed by the constraints of the Bible, the wants of Gay Christians. As a result, there hasn’t been the development of effective ideas at all.
These are just the ideas derived from recognizing that homophobic Christianity is a mental disease. There are other strategies to oppose homophobic Christianity. These are the strategies most immediately derived from confronting the homophobia of churches like Stedfast.
[1] Have them face their own delusions and pathologies. The first and second parts of this essay are first starts in doing this. They describe Stedfast as it is, without illusions, its true nature. The members of Stedfast will have to face their reality. Different members of the of Stedfast are on different personal trajectories and some will be realizing what Stedfast is and our descriptions will hasten this realization in others it might start the process of realization. All of Stedfast members will have to face these descriptions and even if they reject them publicly, it will occupy a place in their imagination, grinding against their homophobic faith.
[2] Have others start thinking about the delusions of Stedfast and other anti-Gay Churches.
[A] For some homophobic Christians it will result in choosing different homophobic churches, for others it will be choosing something besides homophobic Christianity. In both cases the flow of new members into churches like Stedfast will drop.
[B] For homophobic Christians it will be something that they might reject, but it will live in their imaginations grinding against their homophobic faith. For the general public, homophobic Christians will be viewed with derision as not just bigoted, but self-serving, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing, self-righteous opportunists.
The public needs to consider homophobic Christians as persons with disordered thinking and as disruptive elements. Homophobic Christians need to face the reality that they are disordered individuals.
[3] Compare other homophobic denominations and churches like Stedfast. Show how short the theological distance is between them and how essentially their agenda is the same, and how their actions enable Stedfast. Bring discredit upon homophobic Christians.
The public needs to consider homophobic Christians as persons with disordered thinking and as disruptive elements.
[4] Expose evasions of Christian responsibility for homophobia. Their adoptions of theological rationalizations to evade confronting Christian homophobia, including their own. Theological rationalizations such as, “We are all sinners, and shouldn’t focus on one sin,” makes homosexuality one of multiple possible sins, but still a sin; and “It is up to god to judge,” avoids the issue of homophobic Christianity.
The following is an example where the evasion of a Christians letter to an editor was pointed out and further the disordered nature of homophobic Christianity pointed out. The author of this evasive letter wrote the editor of the Dallas Morning News in response to an article about Stedfast.
[6] Establish that Christian homophobia is not just intolerable, but contemptible. Burn homophobic literature and video tape it and publish it. Find every opportunity to dramatize their crazed nature.
[7] Make sure that Christians groups can’t get away with stealth homophobia.
This following church changed their webpage to obscure there homophobia.
In this article, the homophobia of “He Gets Us,” is not reported, and further documents how the stealth homophobia of the “He Gets Us.”
Homophobic Christianity should not be allowed to hide and avoid public condemnation and consequences.
The extent of homophobia in Christianity needs to be made known and Christians confronted with the extent of their chronic disordered thinking.
Summary
We need to develop more sophisticated strategies of confronting and defeating homophobic churches. This essay is just a first step in doing so.
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