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Please don't take HN threads into flamewar. Religious flamewar is among the most tedious, nastiest, and most predictable.

We've had to ask you not to do flamewars on HN several times before. Fortunately it doesn't look like you've been making a habit of it recently–that's good!

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>as literal Gospel

There is a lot in your post that could be responded to, but, if I may, I'll talk about the most important.

There are a LOT of people who don't understand what "The Gospel" is. The Gospel is the bare minimum knowledge to be saved. Here goes:

God made us people to be in a relationship with Him

God is perfect

We are not perfect - and this imperfection prevents us from being with a perfect God

There is nothing we can do to be perfect, or to be with God

God sent Jesus to earth to die for us, so we don't have to die for our imperfections

If we accept Jesus' death for us, we can be in a perfect relationship with God -forever-

That is it. There is no mention of being gay, having abortions, murder, church, voting republican, loving others, believing in evolution, submitting to a husband, respecting a wife. Zilch. Nada.

I say this so that you might know what is the Gospel- and to know it is open to you, but also so that others might know what is the Gospel and what it isn't.

To be clear and relevant: Christians don't need to expel abortion to spread the gospel. And people who have had abortions can still receive the gospel. We can actually come together, while disagreeing about abortion.

While Ephesians 5:21 does say that, verse 25 says:

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”

And verse 28 says:

“In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”

The ultimate idea of these verses is better expressed in Ephesians 5:31, which says:

“However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

Yes but you'll notice, only one side has to submit. Both sides have to love, but the power dynamic, and thus autonomy, is clearly not equal. For that matter, Paul also told slavemasters to treat their slaves well, and told slaves to obey their masters, which is exactly the dynamic he describes between men and women.

And then there's First Timothy...

    "But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint."

I mean, you can insist these verses have been misinterpreted or misconstrued, and that because early Christianity had women in prominent positions obviously such views weren't universal, but it doesn't change the fact that women have been oppressed, and literally tortured and beaten to death over millennia because of them.

Yes, the ultimate power imbalance is still a big one. Having grown up in a Christian house that subscribed to this model, and having seen how that tends to play out, I’m no fan of it either. I’ve also seen churches divided over the issue of women in leadership roles, which is…I don’t even know how to begin to describe how bizarre that is to witness. In my later life I’ve become a Christian again but the inevitability of running into this line of thinking, as well as the homophobic “clobber verses” makes it very uncomfortable. So much of even the New Testament seems contradictory to the way Christ lived and taught, and that’s leaving aside the ugly influence of American conservatism on the Church.

God created us in His own image, and we decided to return the favor.

> Roe vs. Wade showed that laws made and ‘democratic’ decisions settled upon in the USA can be reversed with no warning, no voting, nothing but funding from evil people.

Roe vs. Wade wasn't a law, or really a democratic decision -- it's decision in the first place was pretty much an example of overturning those democratic decisions with no warning or voting (e.g. the texan laws that were placed by those democratically elected members of texan legislature).