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Oh, I am no saint---and several others posting on this thread knowof my public confession that makes dear Paul look far more saintly than me when he was killing Christians.
But then one who has been a viper knows how to spot kindred reptiles.
So now you're a bigger sinner than Paul. You seem intent on competing with other with your faith.
Anyway, it seems to me that your differences with conservatives are more about how to achieve earthly objectives than about what the objectives themselves are, and are not as large as you seem to think. I'd bet you could find much common ground with your conservative brothers and sisters if you focused on that instead of your differences.
Last edited by Glenfield; 09-21-2014 at 06:54 AM..
I feel like most of the so called "Christian left" are Christian in name only. They go to church every Sunday, but never make it known they are Christians outside of church. Many claim to be the "better Christians" compared to the "religious right" because they "love all people and help the needy"(even though they help the needy in secular establishments as opposed to Mission trips) yet many of them don't read the bible or pray regularly. I feel like President Obama is one of those "Christians In Name Only" along with a lot of other Democratic politicians. Religion doesn't seem to be as important to them even though they may attend church every Sunday. I know people in my church who are like that.
Like sex, prayer is a difficult thing to track - statistically speaking that is.
Pollsters are familiar with the tendency of people to lie about their activity whether it be in the bedroom or the prayer closet. Respondants want to appear to be more active than they may be. Television has proven to detrimental to both activities. Those who attempt to track religious activity have begun to rely upon sheer head count, attendance numbers, rather than question forms. Motivations for attendance in church, as well as sex, remain subjective.
It's also a well known fact that politicians, like movie stars, display their public faces for personal gain. For the movie star, its an opportunity to sell the latest film project or to be hired for the next one. For the politician, its an opportunity to gather support for the next reelection, to pander to special interests or to spin some questionable activity or controversy. Few modern presidents have made a public show of religious activity. Fifty years ago, it was different. Religious figures, like Billy Graham, were often invited to the White House (and in turn enjoyed the notoriety of the invitation). Richard Nixon put an end to that when he betrayed the trust of the American people as well as the religious community. Regular visits of religious leaders to the center of the Washington political maelstrom in the White House have been rare since then.
But the Bible offers a test by which the spiritual temperature of any man may be judged. It says you will know them by their fruits. The denizens of the moral jungles of Hollywood as well as Washington seem to be almost completely devoid of integrity and honor. They tap dance on the razor's edge of illegality and in some cases hop back and forth across it.
Moderator cut: Keeping the politics out of the Religion forums.
and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...
Last edited by mensaguy; 09-21-2014 at 07:54 AM..
Reason: getting the politics out
So now you're a bigger sinner than Paul. You seem intent on competing with other with your faith.
Anyway, it seems to me that your differences with conservatives are more about how to achieve earthly objectives than about what the objectives themselves are, and are not as large as you seem to think. I'd bet you could find much common ground with your conservative brothers and sisters if you focused on that instead of your differences.
I have played the flute and you have not danced, I have played a dirge and you have not mourned. Your content with being discontented.
One of my best friends--a missionary whom I attended college with--is a fundamentalist. My sister is a fundamentalist. Difference being, they are not idiotic fundamentalists. We have common ground because neither of them believe fundamentalism IS Christianity, and people who are not fundamentalists are lost.
As far as "earthly" objectives go, if they are not to follow in the steps of Jesus--- help the helpless, stand up for the powerless, embolden the weakest---then we aren't putting the practicalities of Jesus' teachings on the front burner anyway--and we are lost and do not know it.
Let me transfer a partial quote that points up the difference between "liberal" and "conservative" perceptions:
Quote:
Originally Posted by bulmabriefs144
Trying to live selflessly on Earth so you can have some sort of Christian Heaven, means you are actually at odds with yourself. Christianity needs to value love and dreams before salvation, because such people would find "Heaven" is just more bowing and scraping if they went in with that mentality.
As far as "earthly" objectives go, if they are not to follow in the steps of Jesus--- help the helpless, stand up for the powerless, embolden the weakest---then we aren't putting the practicalities of Jesus' teachings on the front burner anyway--and we are lost and do not know it.
How about a person who believes we should "help the helpless, stand up for the powerless, and embolden the weakest", but feels that using big government to do so is wrong because it won't succeed; will this conservative pass muster with you? Because that describes the position of many conservative Christians.
That's the number one myth that conservative Christians don't care about the poor. The don't believe lazy people who are capable of getting a job should live off of others. They believe in helping others through the church, not the government. They gladly give their offerings which a certain percentage will go to the needy. All races, genders, and sexual orientations are welcome in most churches, so I don't know where you got that from.
I was not thinking about being in church. I was speaking of EQUAL rights and how religion is used to deny people equality.
Wonder what would happen if two men walked into a fundamentalist church holding hands?
How about a person who believes we should "help the helpless, stand up for the powerless, and embolden the weakest", but feels that using big government to do so is wrong because it won't succeed; will this conservative pass muster with you? Because that describes the position of many conservative Christians.
Yes, they believe that way because right wing politicians have literally taken over many evangelical denominations. It wasn't always that way. I was saved in a Southern Baptist Church, licensed to preach in the denomination in an SBC, attended an SBC college and came three hours short of having a double minor that would have included Bible, have preached in dozens of churches of several denominations both here and overseas, and I can tell you with no hesitation that the "conservatism" of today is not what it used to be. The denomination was hijacked by politicians led by Jerry Falwell, who, once the takeover was complete joined the SBC himself. The upshot is that the denomination is now in decline.
The message of old-time Southern Baptist churches was, "You, sitting right there in that pulpit, need to get your life right with God, then go out and live your faith in front of the world."
Now it's "Those horrible sinners out there, the homosexuals, those who want to destroy the Ten Commandments, those trying to kick God from the courthouse, those who won't let you pray in school, are the ones we need to be resisting and standing against." Standing against always means voting a particular way on election day.
I read an article by one of Falwell's right hand men that Jerry told his staff about his intent to form the moral majority and involve their church in political action one of the members on his senior staff said, "Please, Dr. Falwell, don't do this. Our job is to win the lost to Christ." Falwell's reply was, "Well, we're going to proceed with it.
The rest is a sad story for evangelical Christianity.
If you want to read about how to put Jesus' works into action, I recommend a relatively old book, entitled God's Politics. It will give you great insight as to what our responsibilities are to see how our government acts in a fair and impartial way.
Now I'm sure you won't read it, so consider this instead, God's judgment falls on the United States with regularity about every seven years. It comes mostly in the form of financial collapse, but sometimes with other events. Do you know the importance of the seventh year? This New Year on the Hebrew calendar is not just any new year. It is the Sabbath year or “Shemitah” year. Just as the seventh day was laid out by God as a day of rest in the Hebrew Old Testament, every seventh year was designated as a Sabbath year. The word “Shemitah” is most often translated as “the release” or “the remission” and applied to the wiping away of debts as well as the resting of the labor. Nearly every major U.S. stock market collapse since the early 1900s has occurred during a Shemitah year, as did the terrorist attack and stock market collapse of September 2001 and the financial collapse of 2008. The next Shemitah year begins September 24 and runs through Sept. 13, 2015.
There is also something special about the day of Elul 29 on the Jewish calendar. This is the last day of the Hebrew month of Elul, when all debts were canceled and all credit released, and the nation of Israel’s financial accounts were wiped clean. This is the day that ushers in the month of Tishri and the Feast of Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah. The first shaking was 9/11 and a stock market crash on Sept. 17, or Elul 29 on the Jewish calendar. The second was in 2008, seven years later to the day. At end of September 2008, the greatest stock market crash in U.S. history, again on Elul 29, touched off the Great Recession.
So the two worst stock market crashes in U.S. history both happened on Elul 29 to the day.
Shemitah means in Israel the orthodox Jews were canceling out their debts symbolically, while God is cancelling out the debts, there’s this giant Shemitah, across the world, both times, to the day. On Rosh Hashanah it is customary to blow the trumpets once each day as a type of a warning, and the sound of the trumpet is a symbol of alarm and judgment throughout Scripture. Elul is all about warning, it’s about trumpets, it’s about getting right with God and it’s about repentance.
But the nation we live in is about greed. It's about helping the rich get richer, blaming the poor for being poor, having middle class people trying to "store up" wealth instead of praying as Jesus taught to "give us THIS DAY our daily bread." It's about closing ones eyes to all the poverty so that we can enjoy our football games and pizza parties. It's about cheating the government--and no matter how many "welfare" cheats we may have, the big corporations get more tax money than all the welfare for all people in our nation.
It's about not understanding how to prioritize God's requirements for our lives over our own desire to lead our lives as we wish, and show up for church on Sunday to have the pastor tell us about how bad everyone else is.
God's judgment is coming again. It usually arrives at the end of the Shemitah year.
Yes, they believe that way because right wing politicians have literally taken over many evangelical denominations. It wasn't always that way. I was saved in a Southern Baptist Church, licensed to preach in the denomination in an SBC, attended an SBC college and came three hours short of having a double minor that would have included Bible, have preached in dozens of churches of several denominations both here and overseas, and I can tell you with no hesitation that the "conservatism" of today is not what it used to be. The denomination was hijacked by politicians led by Jerry Falwell, who, once the takeover was complete joined the SBC himself. The upshot is that the denomination is now in decline.
The message of old-time Southern Baptist churches was, "You, sitting right there in that pulpit, need to get your life right with God, then go out and live your faith in front of the world."
Now it's "Those horrible sinners out there, the homosexuals, those who want to destroy the Ten Commandments, those trying to kick God from the courthouse, those who won't let you pray in school, are the ones we need to be resisting and standing against." Standing against always means voting a particular way on election day.
I read an article by one of Falwell's right hand men that Jerry told his staff about his intent to form the moral majority and involve their church in political action one of the members on his senior staff said, "Please, Dr. Falwell, don't do this. Our job is to win the lost to Christ." Falwell's reply was, "Well, we're going to proceed with it.
The rest is a sad story for evangelical Christianity.
If you want to read about how to put Jesus' works into action, I recommend a relatively old book, entitled God's Politics. It will give you great insight as to what our responsibilities are to see how our government acts in a fair and impartial way.
Now I'm sure you won't read it, so consider this instead, God's judgment falls on the United States with regularity about every seven years. It comes mostly in the form of financial collapse, but sometimes with other events. Do you know the importance of the seventh year? This New Year on the Hebrew calendar is not just any new year. It is the Sabbath year or “Shemitah” year. Just as the seventh day was laid out by God as a day of rest in the Hebrew Old Testament, every seventh year was designated as a Sabbath year. The word “Shemitah” is most often translated as “the release” or “the remission” and applied to the wiping away of debts as well as the resting of the labor. Nearly every major U.S. stock market collapse since the early 1900s has occurred during a Shemitah year, as did the terrorist attack and stock market collapse of September 2001 and the financial collapse of 2008. The next Shemitah year begins September 24 and runs through Sept. 13, 2015.
There is also something special about the day of Elul 29 on the Jewish calendar. This is the last day of the Hebrew month of Elul, when all debts were canceled and all credit released, and the nation of Israel’s financial accounts were wiped clean. This is the day that ushers in the month of Tishri and the Feast of Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah. The first shaking was 9/11 and a stock market crash on Sept. 17, or Elul 29 on the Jewish calendar. The second was in 2008, seven years later to the day. At end of September 2008, the greatest stock market crash in U.S. history, again on Elul 29, touched off the Great Recession.
So the two worst stock market crashes in U.S. history both happened on Elul 29 to the day.
Shemitah means in Israel the orthodox Jews were canceling out their debts symbolically, while God is cancelling out the debts, there’s this giant Shemitah, across the world, both times, to the day. On Rosh Hashanah it is customary to blow the trumpets once each day as a type of a warning, and the sound of the trumpet is a symbol of alarm and judgment throughout Scripture. Elul is all about warning, it’s about trumpets, it’s about getting right with God and it’s about repentance.
But the nation we live in is about greed. It's about helping the rich get richer, blaming the poor for being poor, having middle class people trying to "store up" wealth instead of praying as Jesus taught to "give us THIS DAY our daily bread." It's about closing ones eyes to all the poverty so that we can enjoy our football games and pizza parties. It's about cheating the government--and no matter how many "welfare" cheats we may have, the big corporations get more tax money than all the welfare for all people in our nation.
It's about not understanding how to prioritize God's requirements for our lives over our own desire to lead our lives as we wish, and show up for church on Sunday to have the pastor tell us about how bad everyone else is.
God's judgment is coming again. It usually arrives at the end of the Shemitah year.
This has nothing to do with the conversation. Take your End Times fear-mongering to another thread.
This isn't a political discussion. It's about liberal THEOLOGY, not politics.
I would be considered liberal theologically, as would others, but this may or may not affect politics.
I'm speculating about 40%christians are by tiltle only, 15% of messianc jews and gentiles are title only. That leaves millions who really are christians so thats nice.
This has nothing to do with the conversation. Take your End Times fear-mongering to another thread.
This isn't a political discussion. It's about liberal THEOLOGY, not politics.
I would be considered liberal theologically, as would others, but this may or may not affect politics.
My response was to post #75 which spoke of social issues and Christianity. Those who are unable to make a tie-in to the world from theology to social issues haven't got a foundation in "living" theology--and that's the only kind Jesus taught. Perhaps you should read God's Politics, or at least Professor Elizabeth Johnson's book Quest for the Living God, to see how theology and social issues (controlled most frequently by government) are interrelated. The latter is not an easy read, written almost thesis style.
As far the eschatological comments---you are probably correct, and I apologize for posting it. On the other hand it's only "fear-mongering" if you are a fearful Christian which is a bit of an oxymoron when Christ told us not to worry. Those with deep faith are sure how everything works out in the end. And that is liberal theology, too!!
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