outweighs<\/em> others\u2019 civil liberty claims.<\/p>\nOn what grounds? Set aside the fact that they still haven\u2019t demonstrated any actual conflict between their religious liberty and the civil liberties of others. Let\u2019s just stipulate that such a conflict exists, for curiosity\u2019s sake. What, then, is the basis for the argument that their religious liberty is the trump card in this conflict?<\/p>\n
And here is where these poor Texas evangelicals go spinning off into self-negating absurdity. The Rev. Charles Flowers was committed to this kooky redefinition of religious liberty, and he saw no choice other than to follow it to its bitter end. Flowers said his religious liberty trumps the civil liberties of LGBT people because sexuality is \u201cdifferent\u201d than \u201cimmutabilities like race, sex, where you were born and your creeds, that don\u2019t change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, the Rev. Flowers is suggesting that being gay is a choice and implying that LGBT people can be turned into \u201cex-gays.\u201d That\u2019s factually untrue, hurtful and ignorant, but don\u2019t miss out on the other outrageous claim that Flowers is making here.<\/p>\n
He is arguing that religious belief is \u201cimmutable.\u201d That religious identity does not and cannot change.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s possible that the Rev. Flowers is some kind of hyper-Calvinist who subscribes to some extreme form of the doctrine of election that makes the preaching of the gospel irrelevant and unnecessary, but I doubt that\u2019s what he means.<\/p>\n
I suspect that Flowers is an evangelistic evangelical \u2014 one who believes in missionaries, altar calls, witnessing, and every other form of evangelism. I suspect that when Flowers isn\u2019t tying himself into a pretzel trying to redefine \u201creligious liberty,\u201d he would insist that preaching the gospel can be meaningful. I suspect that the Rev. Flowers would tell you that he has been \u201csaved\u201d and that he believes others can be saved as well.<\/p>\n
There are a thousand absurdities, contradictions, leaps of illogic and outright lies undergirding the perversion of \u201creligious liberty\u201d now enjoying such popularity among everyone from Hobby Lobby to the Manhattan Declarers. We need not enumerate all of those here.<\/p>\n
Here let\u2019s just say this: If you\u2019re an evangelical<\/em> Christian and you find yourself arguing that \u201creligious liberty\u201d means that religious identity is immutable and unchangeable, and therefore that evangelism is unnecessary and impossible, then you need to rethink the trap you\u2019ve set for yourself.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you’re an evangelical Christian and you find yourself arguing that “religious liberty” means that religious identity is immutable and unchangeable, and therefore that evangelism is unnecessary and impossible, then you need to rethink the trap you’ve set for yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[13,17,53,52],"class_list":["post-17733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicals","tag-church-state","tag-equality","tag-gay-rights","tag-homosexuality"],"yoast_head":"\n
Texas evangelicals argue against evangelism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you're an evangelical Christian and you find yourself arguing that "religious liberty" means that religious identity is immutable and unchangeable, and therefore that evangelism is unnecessary and impossible, then you need to rethink the trap you've set for yourself.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/09\/11\/texas-evangelicals-argue-against-evangelism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Texas evangelicals argue against evangelism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you're an evangelical Christian and you find yourself arguing that "religious liberty" means that religious identity is immutable and unchangeable, and therefore that evangelism is unnecessary and impossible, then you need to rethink the trap you've set for yourself.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/09\/11\/texas-evangelicals-argue-against-evangelism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-09-11T15:28:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-09-11T06:51:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/files\/2013\/09\/JFP-219x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/09\/11\/texas-evangelicals-argue-against-evangelism\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/09\/11\/texas-evangelicals-argue-against-evangelism\/\",\"name\":\"Texas evangelicals argue against evangelism\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-09-11T15:28:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-09-11T06:51:34+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"If you're an evangelical Christian and you find yourself arguing that \\\"religious liberty\\\" means that religious identity is immutable and unchangeable, and therefore that evangelism is unnecessary and impossible, then you need to rethink the trap you've set for yourself.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/09\/11\/texas-evangelicals-argue-against-evangelism\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/09\/11\/texas-evangelicals-argue-against-evangelism\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/09\/11\/texas-evangelicals-argue-against-evangelism\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Texas evangelicals argue against evangelism\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; 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<\/a>Thus when San Antonio proposed adding legal protection for LGBT people to its anti-discrimination law, these Christians responded by shouting \u201creligious liberty!\u201d<\/p>\n