So don't bake cakes for divorcees. Right?

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. "

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That's from the Good News translation, right?

It's the original Koine Greek. Everyone translates it wrong.

Who is not entering the bakery? And who is keeping who from entering?

this bill isnt about serving them in a restaraunt, just about marrying them right

keeping whom

FYP

There is potential that ones conscience could take them to this point. I dunno man, matters of conscience are complicated. It comes down to what peoples' true motivation is. Are people simply using "conscience" to prop up their discrimination? - I don't know?

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. "

Is this in reference to something specific?

I screw that one up even when I know how to do it right.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/who_vs_whom

I think that reference is very good, and there are plenty of other sayings of Jesus that could be referenced against a morality that allows the kind of discrimination we're talking about.

So many of Jesus' words and actions were against segregating people based on a moral judgement against them. His complaints against the pharisees were always about doing so, while being unrighteous themselves. They said of him that he was unlawful because he went around eating with "tax collecters and sinners". Or think of the story of the woman caught in adultery. Or "Go and learn what that means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice", or "be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect, who makes it rain upon the just as well as the unjust", or "it is not the healthy, but the sick, who are in need of the physician", or the parable of the Good Samaritan, or the parable of the debtor, or just quite plainly as "do not judge", etc etc.

There is also this idea in Judaeo-christian morality of holiness as "separation" from sin or from "uncleanness", and usually where you see people defending the kind of discrimination we're talking about the argument (when it's not strictly expressing disapproval) involves a fear of falling into sin "by osmosis", so to speak, or that any non-repudiation of "sin" (whichever ones we have mind) is wrong because God just can't tolerate it at all.

But I think Jesus spent quite a bit of time at least qualifying those ideas, if not outright rejecting them. He was quite strict in the application of morality internally, with one's own self: "if your eye offends you, pluck it out!" but not in its application to others, where love, and forgiveness, mercy and a tolerance and bearing with faults is completely emphasized over law and judgement. I don't really know how any other conclusion is possible from a reading of the gospels and the NT generally. There is also a fairly long tradition in Christianity, especially in monasticism from the Desert Fathers onward, towards dispassion towards and tolerance of the faults of others.

Spiritually, psychologically, socially, politically, and morally that approach seems far better to me than refusing to serve someone who you believe to be "sinful". I'm pretty sure even thinking of people in such terms is already well on the wrong path. Take the beam out of your own eye...

im in for the mayonaise party

LOL grammar nittery; LOL spelling.

I haven't really been following this thread or this story, but I pretty much agree with all of this.

This is why I think that Joseph Prince, though maybe theologically unsound sometimes, is doing great work with his "radical-grace" movement. Down with the southern baptists!

That all seems pretty reasonable. It does leave us with the question, why have so many deviated from this message?

I don't really believe you. That is, this may well be a sort of normative goal for you and other Christians, but I don't think it is actualy practiced this way. As in, when someone goes to mow the lawn, I doubt they are even thinking of God or spirituality or anything like this, they are just doing a common chore. Perhaps when reflecting on their day in prayer or at church they will append some spirituality after the fact or something like this.

According to the view put forward, even the things that non-Christians do are spiritual acts... just spiritual acts that are often moving in the "wrong" direction.

It's not that one *thinks* of it as a "spiritual act" when doing it. But rather, the claim is simply that it *IS* a spiritual act.

When I get dressed in the morning, it's (partly) because I need to be presentable at work. And working is what provides me with income so that I can buy food. And food is necessary for survival. But I don't think of getting dressed as an act of survival, even though it is.

I think you misunderstand me. I am saying man is spiritual and therefore whatever he does is spiritual. There are no commons tasks and spiritual tasks.

The idea that one needs to append prayer later on to attach some type of spirituality is exactly what I am calling into question. Thinking about God or spirituality is not what makes man spiritual. We are spiritual in our nature.

EDIT: Aaron slow ponied me with a good example above.

From the Fourth Conversation of "Practicing the Presence of God" by Brother Lawrence:

http://www.dunedin.elim.org.nz/uploa...nce_of_god.pdf

This is just posted to say that there is "more" to it, that there are distinctions about attentiveness and whatever, so that Uke is also right in there being a normative sense in which Christians do aspire to live in a conscious way of their activities as spiritual. But this is something different from the declarative position that everything already is spiritual.

I doubt that I could provide a satisfactory answer

One thing that comes to mind is that religious ideas (holiness as mentioned) can be fairly easily coopted in service of the kind of tribal allegiances and thinking that seem to come fairly natural to humans. That is, there seems to exist a natural tendency in humans to view the world through a "my group versus other groups" lens. I assume things are not so simple, but it could be a factor. You could view such a thing as a consequence on some level of an evolutionary process. Christians might consider it under the idea of original sin.

For clarity, I was objecting to the bolded:
People can claim that all acts are necessarily spiritual*. But that is different from all acts being them actively trying to please God. There should be some meaningful way to separate an act of charity, for instance, and going to the bathroom (or mowing the lawn). Remember, we are trying to make meaningful distinctions between different actions, trying to decide between, say, baking a cake for a gay wedding and refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding. By this kind of a vacuous definition (every act is spiritual!) both are spiritual acts. But that isn't the distinction being implied here. Its that in some acts we are "trying to please God" and in other acts we are not. Baking a cake might be viewed as an act that while undoubtably spiritual by this definition would not please God.

*although, I don't think this is quite the nomenclature that is commonly used. Usually a "spiritual act" has a more positive implication to it. Something like this wikiquote: "For Protestants, spiritual disciplines are generally regarded to include any combination of the following, in moderation: celebration, chastity, confession, fasting, fellowship, frugality, giving, guidance, hospitality, humility, intimacy, meditation, prayer, reflection, self-control, servanthood, service, silence, simplicity, singing, slowing, solitude, study, submission, surrender, teaching, and worship." I think Lemonzest is refering more to the idea that God is always with us in all that we do, or some variety of such omniscience claims. But this is just a terminology issue, define things however you like.

It can be understood as the choice between a positive spiritual act and a negative spiritual act. That is, the "trying to please God" is a matter of choosing which spiritual acts are in alignment with the particular set of beliefs ("[spiritual] acts that please God") as opposed to ones that are out of alignment ("[spiritual] acts that do not please God").

In the original response to yours:

Right, that is more or less what I was saying. It isn't just enough to say "spiritual act" since by this definition every act is spiritual and it doesn't provide any meaningful distinction. Instead there is some further distinction which you called a "positive spiritual act" and a "negative spiritual act" (and possibly neutral spiritual acts?) which you defined as I did, quoting me in your definition. Only difference between our posts seems to be you gave an explicit label of positive and negative, where it was only implicit for me.

Eitherway, the point was that that this "matter of choosing" between the positive and negative spiritual acts is key. While all acts are spiritual, by this definition, it is not the case that people are actively choosing*, actively thinking* or actively trying* to make this distinction. That was my objection to Lemonzest. Yes mowing the lawn may be considered spiritual, but no people are not actively choosing a positive spiritual act in their attempts to please God. So now we have built up the formalism so we can give a meaningful definition of the "common task" that started this. Namely, a common task is a frequently repeated act which - while spiritual by definition - is one where people are not actively "trying to please God" via choosing a "positive spiritual task" and that even on contemplation doesn't appear to have a significant importance to our larger doctrine. Hopefully, Lemonzest would agree that such things DO exist and mowing the lawn CAN be thought of as a common task is a meaningful sense.

*listing three different verbs as they have each been used at different times

Law failed in Kansas but it passed in Arizona! Victory of discrimination.

By the way, I'm curious why all the discussion was mostly about wedding cakes? An annoyance but benign compared to other discriminations: Gay person sick? Christian doctor can refuse to treat. Gay person need their medications? Better find a pharmacist who isn't religious. A bunch of gay travellers just drove 12 hours and need a place to sleep? Not in our hotel. A gay person's car breaks down and the only garage is run by an evangalist? I guess you're just stuck, son.

And why is the talk limited to Gays? If Christians think Jews murdered Jesus shouldn't they be able (no... shouldn't they be compelled to refuse Jews service too?!)

The thing is you know that if anyone had a religious objection to serving a Christian it would be the apocalypse.

You seem to have actually missed the original point, then.

LZ's point was just to point out that "common task" is itself not a meaningful distinction. How you may view levels of importance (the priest officiating the ceremony is highly important, but the baker is just doing a common task) is not necessarily how others may understand their role.

So you may look at the florist and say, "This is a common task, so this person has no authority to deny bringing flowers without being discriminatory." But the florist can look at the same situation and say "There is no such thing as a common task. My participation in this ceremony is as supportive as if I were participating as the priest, and so it goes against my religious views to be involved in the ceremony."

There are distinctions to be made, but trying to discuss them in terms of "common" tasks (as somehow being different from "central" tasks) is not going to be a meaningful distinction because the language is wrong. I made a similar sort of point about hiring practices earlier in this thread:

Trying to say that the florist is not as important as the priest (in terms of viewing the participation in the ceremony) is like saying that since the secretary is only performing "office duties" that the church cannot use religious beliefs as part of the hiring practices. The distinction is not in the importance of the role, but in the thing that is being supported.

The distinction is subtle, but it's there. It's not like you're "wrong" in saying distinctions exist. They do exist. But using a framework like "common tasks" vs. "important tasks" is a language choice that conveys the wrong picture.