It is 2023. I have just read an article on a statement by Pope Benedict. In it he states that reactionary Christians in America have replaced faith with an inflexible ideology.
"The vision of the doctrine of the church as a monolith is wrong", Pope Benedict states.
The doctrine should be flexible and change with the times, Pope Benedict says, and not be rigid and reactionary.
I would like to explain what that means.
The principles that Jesus stood, for, the principles that Plato and The Buddha taught, are unchanging and universal.
But the way in which they are best implamented in society changes, because society changes.
A good example of this is early Christian attitudes that marriage was between a man and a woman.
At the time, marriage was not for everybody.
At the time, in the early middle ages in the Mediterranean, marriage was solely for having children.
If you did not plan to have children biologically by having sex with your spouse, you were not supposed to get married.
If you plan to adopt a child, well, unmarried monks and nuns raised orphan children all the time.
Given this, it just simply did not make sense for two people to get married if they were biologically incapable of having a child.
Society has changed.
In most places in the world today, marriage is something you are supposed to have as an option whether or not you plan on having children.
It is considered normal for two people to get married and never intend to have children.
Society has changed.
The principle that marriage is between a man and a woman only is obsolete, because the place of marriage in society has changed.
Another example is, again, marriage.
In the old days, divorce was frowned upon, and remarriage even more.
But in the old days, a married couple did not have to go it alone.
They had the help of their family, and their community.
They had the help of their family and their community in helping to figure out who to marry.
They had the help of family and community to help them work out problems.
Today a married couple is going it alone far more than in Jesus's day.
They do not get the help of family and community in figuring out whether or not they should marry someone.
They do not have as much of a community to help them through marriage problems, or money problems.
Without as much of a support from family and community, it is no longer reasonable to expect every marriage to work out.
And it is no longer reasonable to expect someone whose marriage has failed to never marry again.
Once again, the principles are unchanged, but how they are applied to a changing society has changed
The principle of selfless Love does not change.
Thou Shalt Not Steal does not change.
Love Thy Neighbor does not change.
But how these principles are best applied in society changes as society changes.
This is what the pope is trying to explain.
This is what should change as the world changes.
The way the same universal selfless Love is applied in a changing society should change as society changes.
Food for thought!
God loves you! That much does not change!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson