"Benjamin Walker (“Flags of Our Fathers”) ..."

Fangs of Our Fathers.

(Not as good as Babe Lincoln, but what is?)

Absolute must-see.

And I really don't like vampires. I like them marginally less than I like zombies, which is not even a little bit.

But *this* I have got to see.

I've always felt a little sorry for her, getting the fallout for that. She's an act, and she was invited and did her act. Maybe she should have realized that was unwise, but I can still sympathize with a performer for not being able to judge their own work very well. I know writing is like that, I expect it's similar for other performers. Whenever I've seen something following a comedian it's all about how they adjust their act from the audience performance... they might think something will go over well, but until they test it they don't *know*.

Her agent and whoever and the numbnut who invited and booked her OUGHT to have been detached enough to make a better judgment.

If I'm being attacked I'm not going to care even a little bit about the motivation of the person who saves me.

Honest.

Of course people blame Christians for acts like this. The logic is that Christianity insists on sexual repression (which it does, and I sure wish more preachers would concentrate on the heterosexual sort) and that, somehow, preaching sexual morality and chastity and the denial of our desires gives a moral green-light to violent gang members who aren't Christian at all and are looking for any excuse to be violent.

At no point, EVER, will any Christian leader be calling on anyone to beat up sinners but somehow Christians in general are responsible for controlling the behavior of gangs of criminal youth?

It doesn't work that way. That I'm a Christian does not make me responsible for the criminal behavior of gangs and it doesn't make me responsible for the bigotry of those who insist on it. Taking responsibility for other people's irrational beliefs isn't going to work in any case. The belief is irrational, it won't be moved.

The Christian church works to restrain human behavior, it's working against social and moral decay and a lot of people don't like that. But the church is not cheering feral humans, it's trying to teach something better.

Being forced to say, "Yes, the feral humans are our responsibility," is ridiculous.

Pat Robertson often says crazy things, true enough, but the notion that God judges nations for the morals or lack of faith of their people is Biblical. The error comes in claiming to know the thoughts of God on something that isn't scripture (adding to the words of the revelation), which includes deciding that any particular event is divine judgment and what the judgment is over.

Most Christians, even ones who like Robertson, roll their eyes when he goes off the rails. The people who are only Christian by virtue of not being something else and are likely to beat someone up aren't listening to him at all.

Getting from Robertson to some thugs finding an excuse to beat someone up is a HUGE leap of faith on the part of people who insist upon it. I don't feel particularly obligated to accommodate people who make that sort of willful leap by publicly announcing that I am guilty. It's not even guilt by association, it's guilt by imagination.

It's wrong to beat someone up and wrong not to come to the aid of someone in distress. At what point is any of this more complicated than that?

Your friend Kenny Bryant was a worthy individual that deserves our respect and admiration. He is an example to follow, not an example to be avoided.

How are Christians responsible for the bigotry of those who refuse to believe what is clearly explained?

If you're tired of the left attacking Christians, why does your solution involve insisting that the attacks have merit?

That is my question, too. And people are giving you down dings?

What part of Christian theology is consistent with failing to violently step in to help? Maybe Quakers? There are extreme pacifists, but even (particularly) the extreme pacifist would believe they had a duty to intervene, just not with violence, more likely with allowing themselves to be beaten, hopefully in place of the original victim. But it makes more sense to ask specifically a Quaker or Amish or Mennonite, what their faith requires.

Why is this posed as a "Christian" question at all?

Is there some notion that Christians have a duty to help that other people do not have? We all have a duty to help, don't we? Yes, any person would have to decide if they had any chance of providing useful help to balance the risk, but doing nothing at all is not a moral choice for anyone.

Also, how does the victim being gay pertain to anything at all? Is a person supposed to ask first, to find out if they should intervene?

Perhaps I live with an excess of moral clarity, but I'm dumbfounded by the questions asked.

No one has a moral duty to die for no purpose. Every moral actor has a duty not to allow a crime when they possess the ability to act. Sins of omission, of failure to act, are no different than sins of commission, of performing the act that was implicitly condoned by an onlooker. This is an individual responsibility that can not be abandoned to others.

Unless one is not a moral actor. In which case you're off the hook. In past times we might use the term "man" to explain the moral burden of a fully realized human being.

Nothing accidental or mysterious about Foreskin Man. No one had to find the secret clues when the character is explicitly presented as a Rabbi.