Will God destroy America over gay rights? The mythic-literal view, a liberal response, and an integral take

Paradoxy, the anonymous Christian blogger from Eugene, Oregon, recently identified a neglected theological issue in the gay debates. He observes that many conservative Christians based their opposition to gay rights on "the belief that God will destroy any society that becomes even moderately tolerant of homosexuality."

Paradoxy examines this belief in the context of various Biblical narratives regarding God's wrath and concludes that the US national debt should be a much bigger concern to Christians.

Personal soapbox time: That's fine as well and as far as it goes, from a particular perspective, yada, yada, yada. I actually find it easy to take something like Paradoxy's perspective, step into his shoes, and find his blog post thoughtful and on-the-mark. But then I step back and really just yawn and shake my head. Not at this particular post, not at all. But about this particular approach to arguing with religious conservatives. The conservative Christians believe that God smites nations. God destroys them with a wrath of fire and turns evil people into statues of salt. They believe they will be raptured into heaven and avoid the calamity. These are extreme mythic-literalist beliefs.

From my integral perspective, I think Paradoxy (and those like him) are talking past their supposed locution partners. I think that as more liberal religionists they are interpreting the Bible texts allegorically. They don't really believe God is going to rain fire from the skies to destroy America because of the national debt, do they? The real issue, the most important issue, the one issue that simply must be resolved and yet is rarely acknowledged or discussed, is: who is our God? where do we locate Spirit? how is it that we understand the truth about human life and existence and the nature of reality?

Far from being irrelevant or unanswerable questions, we answer these questions all the time, implicitly or explicitly. With disagreement about these fundamental sorts of issues in the background, it simply isn't possible to expect agreement on particular issues such as gay rights. In fact, focusing on specific issues while ignoring the more fundamental ones is, in my opinion, counter productive.

Rather than talking past each other, why not acknowledge the radically incommensurate worldviews first. Christians who interpret God's wrath in the Bible from the "the US should watch its national debt, because that's just like usury which is condemned in the Bible as unjust" are in a different worldview... a different stage or level of development... than those Christians who really think a man in a white robe is going to destroy America if gays win equal rights. But Paradoxy (and other liberal religionists like him) seem to me to be talking down to their conservative religionists in order to avoid some rather unpleasant realities. This isn't a criticism (trust me, if it were you would know it--I'm not shy at making aggressive criticisms); it's an observation to provoke further reflections.

If I'm right, then liberals and conservatives may both use the term "Christian," but they're inhabiting two different altitudes. In other words, they're living in two different worlds. Two different intellectual frameworks. When liberal Christians "respond" and "argue" with conservatives in their denomination, they're not so much waging a battle of right versus wrong. (Bracing myself for the outcry of indignation because this point really is a criticism.) It's like they're picking on children.