This is a genuine question, because one of the reasons I left Christianity (I was raised Christian) was that I didn’t like how they hate gay people, are pro-life, etc., and overall are pretty hypocritical. But as I got older, I realized there are Catholics who are pro-choice, aren’t homophobic, and don’t have an issue with having sex before marriage, etc., and basically are not stereotypical religious people at all. But I have to ask—how do they justify this? I mean, it must be very confusing, because if the Bible does say being gay is a sin and you are not homophobic and are pro-LGBTQ+, then you are basically saying sinning is okay, which goes against their very religion. How about Catholics who swear? Basically, how do liberal Christians/Catholics justify their religion? Why be religious if you aren’t going to go all in?
I’ve met Christians who have explained their train of thought.
Their strongest argument, in my mind, is that the Christian god created the universe for humans to choose to live well. This god is not intervening and simply created the universe’s initial conditions, much like a clock-maker. In this view, Christians simply choose what kind of life they want and they hope it will get them closer to their god.
It would seem that the choice of being progressive does not stop many Christians from meeting their god. In fact, I’ve met people who say that progressive causes are the way we build heaven on Earth.
Another argument I’ve heard is that the Christian god has said lots of things to lots of people over long spans of time. These utterings have not always been exactly the same. Sometimes the Christian god says some things to some people and some other things to other people. Therefore it is a good Christian’s duty to dutifully reinterpret the Christian god’s words.
I don’t particularly like this second argument because it seems unnecessarily complicated.
But the first one seems more coherent and with less moving pieces.