Tried communicating with someone that considers themselves a liberal Christian yesterday..

[Fumesucker]

I don't normally do this but it seemed like a decent opportunity, she was going on about how we are so divided and if we would just unite together we wouldn't have nearly the problems that we do.

So I led her through the growing wealth disparity, the fact that the wealthy are paying less in taxes than they have in a very long time and that the extremely wealthy are trying to divide us on social issues in order to manipulate us into supporting things that are not good for the 99%, the entire enchilada, at which point she tells me "I know all that."..

Now this is someone who watches a lot of television so I said "You are exposed to a great deal of propaganda as well."

"But I don't watch the news." This woman thinks that because she doesn't watch the "news" news that she is not exposed to the divisive propaganda promulgated by the 1% (using shorthand here) for their own purposes..

And yet it was only a very few weeks ago she was marching (driving actually) off to buy a Chick-fil-A in order to "Support Christianity". I pointed this out to her and got a deer in the headlights look, it simply did not compute for her at all that what she was doing that day was divisive in any way.

One thing to be said for her is that she definitely isn't voting for Romney, but I don't think a Ron Paul vote is out of the question though.

I'm so tired of trying to point out the blatantly obvious to the willfully blind..

[SheilaT]

1. It does sound, from what you've posted here, as if this woman

might well be educable.

Just keep at it. Ask her if she's looking forward to CouponCare instead of Medicare a few years down the road when she turns 65.
Show her specifics of how the taxes of the lower and middle classes will go up substantially if the Paul Ryan budget gets enacted Ask her if she thinks her children or grandchildren (if she has neither just put it out there more generally) should be in classes of up to sixty students. Ask her if she thinks it's worthwhile to have paid firefighters, or to repair roads.

It does seem as if this person is willing to give some real thought to things.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

2. What values does a "liberal Christian" have? Maybe

those are the values that you need to consider when you talk with her again.

If she is willing to talk about JC, Christrian values, and the Christian values of her friends - and if you want to talk about the "news" - you may be talking and insisting that she agree with your conclusions without genuinely considering her values and her concerns. Or that is the way that she may perceive it.

If her circle of friends are Christians, she, of course, doesn't have to watch the "news" to be exposed to what they are being exposed to.

[Fumesucker]

3. So many things are a matter of perspective..

Compared to a lot of the Christians around here she is indeed more liberal, pro choice for one thing, but like a lot of people she's liberal on those things where she has personal experience.. I got told all about the "homosexual agenda" when the Chick-fil-A thing was all in the news so when it comes to the gay marriage/equal rights aspect of having liberal values she's not there at the moment.

She does not agree that Muslims and Christians worship the same god, despite the fact that the god of Abraham is common to both religions.

It's interesting, she met her husband's eighty something year old aunt for the first time a few years ago and was shocked to the point of walking out of the aunt's house when the aunt told her that she was an atheist, she had automatically assumed that anyone that old just had to be a Christian. In many ways she's led a sheltered life and particularly from a religious standpoint, she's never really had anything that challenged her faith and practically everyone she knows is also one of the faithful and those few who may not be tend to keep it to themselves down here.

Also while I was talking to her the TV was on but with the sound down low and some show that I didn't catch the name of was comparing Obama with Romney, I don't think she would have considered that a "news" program, it was something like A Current Affair I think, might even have been that in fact.

[cbayer]

4. What in the world makes her a "liberal" christian?

Is she using that as a modifier or just two different words to describe herself.

Someone who doesn't understand the Chik-fil-a issue as being about GLBT civil rights might not be a liberal.

[dogknob]

5. Try this. It really shakes people up.

"It's up to you to decide who the bad guys are, but if you do nothing you are helping them."