Christian Moral (ir)Responsibility

I am asked whether I think that all Christianity should be blamed for the immorality inherent in the Byzantine empire that I alluded to in my last post.

Of course not. A person is accountable only for those actions he actually endorses. Few people today would endorse the Byzantine culture.

Modern Christians are responsible only for modern immoralities.

No modern Christian is responsible for Inquisition of the 1400s. However, many are responsible for the current iteration of the inquisition against homosexuals - a church-lead project to pursue policies that add misery and suffering to the lives of millions.

I find myself continuously thinking of a letter that several evangelicals sent in protest to one of their members advocating action against global warming.

Those who authored this letter - many prominent Christian leaders - protested that this was taking resources away from their inquisition against homosexuals. The possibility of severe harm to the earth costing untolled misery around the globe was less important to them than the need to continue this 21st century inquisition.

Of course, they said that the issue of global warming was controversial. Yet, they saw controversy only because they wanted to see it.

The argument, in fact was, "If global warming science is correct, we must divert resources away from our inquisition against homosexuals. We do not want to divert resources away from this inquisition. Therefore, global warming science must be controversial."

I do not hold contemporary Christians responsible for historic moral crimes because contemporary Christians do not endorse those historic crimes. However, to the degree that they endorse modern moral crimes, they can be held morally responsible.