Thousands of Southern Baptists overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to advance a formal ban on women pastors in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, sending a clear message that men alone should preach to these conservative evangelical congregations.
Did what? I’m curious what you think the obvious answer is here.
Without wading into the core tiff you guys are having, I do need to push my proverbial glasses up my nose and point out that the Romans were pagans - polytheists. From what I’ve seen they were pretty tolerant of other gods being worshipped, which is why there was a temple, and the Sanhedrin, and the Pharisees, and so on and so forth, in occupied Jerusalem.
So I think the answer to your rhetorical question above is that the Roman’s famously absorbed or accepted other religions, as long as they didn’t disturb the peace and as long as they weren’t in direct conflict with their laws - which I think Judaism and most early sects of Christianity mostly were - in part because they were intolerant of other gods.
To the degree that there was persecution, it seems like it was mostly linked to Jews or Christians in other cities who refused to make sacrifices to the local gods. If the harvest wasn’t great one season, the locals might start to blame those weirdos who only want one god for some reason, and who offended their local gods. So even this was almost more about disturbing the peace then theology.
Even then, they were often offered amnesty if they would change their minds. They just had to stop doing the thing that was pissing off the locals and their gods.
Obviously Nero Neroed all over the Christians later on but there are good reasons for thinking that was all about framing them for the Great Fire of Rome, which he supposedly started himself so that he could build his Golden House.
Anyway, carry on with whatever this is.
Nah, that’s good points and all true.
My remark was more toward societal use and punishment of religions which varied hugely and was literally opposite of true or reputationally true depending on the Caesar.
Like, Christ was ultimately killed because the Romans were being so chill, “I don’t get it, but if it means that much to you, let’s kill the guy.” Though, Christianity’s own gospel establishes itself on that whole “Go the extra mile” peg aligned to that era’s oppression.
So really, what I said was just broad and kind of valueless since we know what the Romans were like in that period.
And as for what that is; wasn’t ever sure. It seemed like a whole lot of regurgitated doctrine that was unfortunately very easily triggered and presented in a gigantic everything salad. I think it’s still going, but it really depends on fatigue levels. My only investment was around the misrepresentation and not the details, since these are all recorded and widely known. It’s never nice to see history weaponised and cherry picked, but in there lies some irony.
I think at this point it’s just a typical “The devil’s advocate is the devil” scenario. Faceless target dummy and all.