Jesus, Christians, and the world

Post Reply New Topic

"Christianity was not responsible for all of the atrocities done in its name, because all of those people were fake Christians!! !" -Christians hundreds of years later

I'm betting a few hundred years from now, a great deal of Christians will say the same thing about the Christians of this time

It is true Christ was blunt when it comes to condemning sin and hypocrisy - but most of his criticism was leveled at the Pharisees, who, with all their legalism and their readiness to level judgement, were the religious right of his day. The people who Jesus courted with forgiveness the most were the people who the religious right today wouldn't even allow to step into their churches today.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

"Christianity was not responsible for all of the atrocities done in its name, because all of those people were fake Christians!! !" -Christians hundreds of years later

I'm betting a few hundred years from now, a great deal of Christians will say the same thing about the Christians of this time

Gee, I was talking about God; I didn't know I was talking modern politics. "Ya, you're right, Jesus was really loving, and people shouldn't think He's mean" would have been more relevant. I'm conservative, and you can take swipes at that all you want, but do it in response to a post or topic about politics.

No, I was talking about Jesus and how parallels can be drawn with his time and today. That Jesus was critical of the Pharisees is indisputable. That the Pharisees were the legalists of his day is also indisputable. I will even concede that Jesus was equally hard on the Sadducees, who corresponded with liberal modernism in modern Christianity.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Okay, I see. And it wasn't that the Pharisees were right-wingers that Jesus had a problem with, it was that their personal practices were hypocritical -- disfiguring their faces to appear to have been fasting longer than they had, making long prayers on streetcorners just to be seen by the people, and sending forth people before them to make noise and get attention whenever they were going to give to charity simply to be seen by lots of people. They also made up different and Bible-contrary laws for the people to follow, which Jesus called them out on because they were, in that capacity, contradicting God who gave those laws. They weren't who they claimed to be, and that was what really irritated Jesus. If they had actually lived up to the ultra-conservative positions that they officially held, Jesus would simply have let them know that an age of Grace was coming, and that, very soon, they wouldn't need to be legalistic in keeping the technicals of the law, but, rather, God would "write [His] law in their hearts", as Jeremiah wrote, and righteousness would naturally flow outward from the heart. Jesus taught people that, whether under the Old Covenant or the New, righteousness starts in the heart, and cannot be produced by the good deeds of a hard-hearted man.

Really, do you expect any bible quotation to hold any water when arguing with anyone who dismisses your magic book?

I'm with Ragtime on this one. How exactly do you define "Christian"? My definition is simply "follower of Jesus Christ." I don't care how much someone claims to be a disciple. If their actions don't reflect the kind of change in a person's life that one would expect by someone actually placing his faith in the atoning work of Christ, then I have difficulty accepting that any such person is a brother or sister in Christ and I would heavily question whether that person is really saved. Merely claiming to be a Christian isn't enough. It seems to me that the definition of "Christian" is "people who claim to be followers of Christ, go to church, and do evil things contrary to Jesus' teachings." And that's just not Biblical.

I was using it to refer to people who follow the religion Christianity.

Are there dark things in our past? Sure. I'll acknowledge that. And that some calling themselves Christians in the past did horrible things does not mean that some of those same people were NOT saved, either. It just means that the evidence that they were is lacking. Whether one's salvation is actually worked out lies between the individual and God. There have always been believers who did evil things because they didn't yet fully understand what being saved means. Christianity has never been about how much good or evil you do. It's about whether you trust that God through Jesus is powerful enough to atone for the sins of all humanity. Those who accept that are saved, and even the most hopeless among humanity--even those among us we consider evil beyond redemption--can still be saved through God's grace. If it is wrong for Christians through lack of spiritual maturity to judge others, it is just as wrong for others to judge us.

Only if the book contains remarkable wisdom, and tells accurate and deeply-insightful things about the world, human nature, and the future. The degree of Jesus' of wisdom found in the Gospels cannot not be faked. The scattering of the Jews from their homeland to all over the earth, and their being regathered to their homeland again, was prophesied before the time of Christ. The first part of that prophecy came true in 70AD, and the second happened in the 20th century. That's a pretty far-reaching prophecy, as well as an unlikely one to come true, given just how scattered they were. Such a scattering and regathering of a single people, while keeping the same God and language all throughout the process, is without parallel in world history. God did it.

I was using it to refer to people who follow the religion Christianity.

...

There you go with the 'calling themselves Christians'...they where Christians, that is the religion they followed, sure maybe they gave it a bad name and did not truly represent what it was supposed to be about but just dismissing it as not a part of the history of Christianity in general. Also I find the notion of doing horrible things with the comfort of knowing you can repent and be saved regardless kind of sick, yet if one lives a nice life not hurting anyone else they'll burn in hell if they don't repent...it's just not a belief system I can subscribe to.

A lot of Christians say that biblical Christianity isn't a religion, it's a personal spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ. The arguments for it not being a religion are that there are nothing but a handful of actual rules (like don't cheat on your wife, lie, steal... basically, don't be immoral), and therefore it's not a heavy and imposingly structured lifestyle, like say with Catholicism -- where you have do EXACTLY this, EXACTLY at this time, and EXACTLY this many times or you're going to Hell. Biblical Christianity isn't like that -- there aren't all these required things to do or use, like wafers, kneeling, ceremonies, strict customs, church attendance, little figurines that supposedly keep you safe, hail-marys, etc, etc, etc. And, anything you do wrong is automatically forgiven by God. You don't have to confess to a "holy father" man, or "do penance". Christianity is very open and liberal compared to most organized religion. There isn't all this stuff you have to do -- more like a handful of things we are recommended to do, to help us lead more fulfilling lives in the service of God and others. You don't have to do anything to be a Christian but worship God and accept Jesus' forgiveness. That's all. And you can't ever lose your salvation, no matter what you do. Try getting away with any of that in the Catholic Church, or other comparable denomination. It's the denominations that lay down heavy rules -- the New Testament itself really doesn't.

These are extremely important verses, in that they relate to eternal destiny. I took great effort to clearly explain what they mean as I understand them, and I continue to attempt further explanation in my follow-up posts, as do others. I am not ashamed of anything about Jesus Christ, including everything He said. He said the harsh-sounding things He said for a loving reason. And I don't believe in re-phrasing Jesus in order to try to achieve some superior, gentler style. He was gentle -- but those are the verses most people know. This thread is about His other sayings -- doctrines that are absolutely vital to life after death.

A lot of Christians say that biblical Christianity isn't a religion, it's a personal spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ. The arguments for it not being a religion are that there are nothing but a handful of actual rules (like don't cheat on your wife, lie, steal... basically, don't be immoral), and therefore it's not a heavy and imposingly structured lifestyle, like say with Catholicism -- where you have do EXACTLY this, EXACTLY at this time, and EXACTLY this many times or you're going to Hell. Biblical Christianity isn't like that -- there aren't all these required things to do or use, like wafers, kneeling, ceremonies, strict customs, church attendance, little figurines that supposedly keep you safe, hail-marys, etc, etc, etc. And, anything you do wrong is automatically forgiven by God. You don't have to confess to a "holy father" man, or "do penance". Christianity is very open and liberal compared to most organized religion. There isn't all this stuff you have to do -- more like a handful of things we are recommended to do, to help us lead more fulfilling lives in the service of God and others. You don't have to do anything to be a Christian but worship God and accept Jesus' forgiveness. That's all. And you can't ever lose your salvation, no matter what you do. Try getting away with any of that in the Catholic Church, or other comparable denomination. It's the denominations that lay down heavy rules -- the New Testament itself really doesn't.

As a Lutheran, I don't believe in irresistible grace, or if you will, "once saved, always saved." Judas, after all, had fallen from grace.

Those Christians who had committed Un-Christian acts had put too much trust in their hold onto grace, and thus had in reality fallen away.

Also, we're not big on the notion that we can "accept" Christ - that is, take an active part in our own conversion. Rather, we believe that our salvation is entirely in God's able hands, not our own - even if it may seem that way if conversion comes in later life.