Worst of all, he's good at using stereotypes and generalizations when calling for those he's stereotyping/generalizing to stop stereotyping and using generalizations about LGBT people. He also displays an over-reliance on platitudes and catch-phrases. Sadly, he's too impressed with generalizing from his autobiography (it's not a totally improper strategy, but Kaltenbach doesn't bring in anything to buttress his arguments). Kaltenbach illustrated this with episodes from his own childhood and what he's seen in the pastorate. The first few chapters outline the problems between the perceived (and, sadly, sometimes real) destructive attitudes of Christians towards LGBT people and the perceived (and, sadly, sometimes real) combative stances and attitudes of LGBT people towards Christians. Particularly his use of "messy" and it's connection to grace, and his insistence that there's a "tension" between grace and truth - but I'll return to that in a bit. By page 5, I was grimacing at his phraseology. There is a looseness to his language that I can't tolerate on theological matters - I, like the noted Richard Rogers, serve a precise God*, and it gives me hives to read people who don't - though I readily acknowledge (and lament) that he's speaking in the Evangelical Vernacular. Kaltenbach and I approach things very differently.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |