I totally get your point, but I think there is validity in calling into question your right to identify as a member of a given religion when you go directly against your religion’s teachings.
Except what are the “real” teachings? How do you know? Who is the authority? Where is the solid evidence. The god of the Bible is silent on the matter of our interpretations over the centuries (if he even exists).
The Bible seems to condemn homosexuality in a few places and condemns “sexual immorality”. But interpretations of these passages and how they relate to many other passages are numerous, each person claiming to have it all figured out. Some think the OT doesn’t count anymore. Some think it still does but Jesus is essentially a get out of jail free card, some think Jesus is all about love, some define love to include various levels punishment, some believe God creates pre-damned people. Some think homosexuality is fine but the passages refer to sexual abuse. So we come back to the question: which interpretation is “correct”?
These books are translated from content written millennia ago. The gospels were written a generation after Jesus and we don’t have the sources. The oldest version of books in the OT dates centuries after the originals. Thus, evidence is weak that the originals said the same thing as the current version. We have insufficient evidence for divine inspiration in the writing, copying or translating of said materials.
When evidence is lacking then the only alternative, belief (faith) provides a very unreliable source of information.
Yes there’s no reliable manual, but generally people who were actually educated in the text mean following what has been written about Jesus: loving everyone independently of identity, forgiving people who offend you, helping the poor and the weak, refusing violence, doing funny rituals with fermented grape juice etc.
I should have mentioned I was a Christian for 40 years and did quite a fair bit of bible study so I’m coming at this as a former “insider”.
Certainly the things you list are among the main tenets that I suppose many Christians follow. Those were the main things I prioritized.
But in those decades I was exposed to a number of different schools of thought and I observed that the messages believers prioritized were not universal.
Jesus talked very little about LGBT and a lot more about not forcing your beliefs onto other and not being a dick to people simply because they do things differently from you.
Not to mention that their stance on God hating gays is literal blasphemy, because again, there isn’t much said about being gay by Jesus
To add on, the parable of The Good Samaritan also highlights his opinions on how Christians should treat people that are of a different, “reviled” culture than their own (Samaria in the story) by defining who a “neighbor” is and emphasis on loving your neighbor as yourself.
People do some wild backflips to try to wriggle out of accepting the good Samaritan story. They’ll say it’s an elaborate metaphorically for blah blah instead of a simple story that shows the point in plain text.
But a lot of alleged christians don’t really follow the texts. Don’t pray in the closet. Don’t treat the least among them well.
Jesus as far as I know didn’t address homosexuality at all in the gospels.
Yet there’s the OT to contend with. You can find passages that, at least in English translations, condemn homosexual acts. Find a concordance and search for homosexuality and Bob’s your uncle. And there are quite a few “sexual morality” statements in the NT. (Does that include homosexuality? No idea).
And there’s also the rest of the NT to deal with. Believers are commanded to proselytize. And not just once or twice. That isn’t forcing your beliefs on others but it is definitely not being quiet and keeping to yourself either.
There are also many passages in OT and NT that condemn those who “do things differently”. Christianity is not necessarily a “live and let live religion” looking at those passages. It is often more of a “my way or the highway (to hell…)” kind of thing per most common denominations (but not all).
You may think you have an accurate interpretation but there are many others who say the same thing about their own unique interpretations that differ from yours in various ways.
From the modern viewpoint of secularists, sure it is. But if we take the values or Christianity on face value, they don’t say that.
The fact that so many Christians are hateful towards LGBT+ does present a difficult bind though: is true Christianity the writ values, or the modern zeitgeist? The pope himself ran into this very question recently when he started firing Catholic priests for not towing the progressive line that he has drawn. Who is right, the pope or his flock?
(Also, see the great answer that someone gave on No True Scotsman in this same comment tree)
In the case of the Catholics, at least, the doctrine of papal infallibility decrees that, at least on paper, the Pope as the successor to Peter and Paul is always correct on matters of doctrine. In practice, if the flock disagrees they can always schism again. shrugs
There is no such thing as a religion having objective “teachings.”
It’s always been subjective.
Normal people are Jews and Muslims, and extremists like the genocidal Israeli colonizers, and the similarly genocidal Wahhabist/Salafi terrorists are still Jews and Muslims.
There is no “true” understanding of these religions.
The Bible is an assembled collection of curated religious stories and traditions. I can’t speak to the history of all of it but the first books of the OT were drawn from religious stories and traditions of north and south Judah and adapted to create religious (and thus political) unity by the king at the time in the face of the threat of rival, neighboring countries. Of the many gods worshipped at the time the OT books essentially retcon two of them to be one god, denounce polytheism, and create a mythical historical narrative of the country’s population. Mythical because archaeological evidence contradicts a great deal of the stories.
The NT is a collection of Epistles, gospels, etc., chosen from a large pool of similar sorts of writings and assembled into what we have today. I don’t know a great deal about what drove those selections and only vaguely know that some of the other writings were quite different theologically.
If someone claims to be “a Christian,” they are. There is no other qualification. Whether such a person adheres more or less to common Christian principles is a separate issue, let alone that there are so many splinter groups of “Christians” that the phrase “common Christian principles” barely has any meaning anyway.
See it’s pretty easy to square the “I’m a lamp” circle, though. What do you mean by “I’m a lamp”? You could mean basically anything, even things you don’t mean it to mean, I could just come up with random shit it could mean and I’d be no less wrong. In a vacuum, much like identifying as a christian, it’s a pretty meaningless claim, the only commonality of the claim as it exists is that you decided to use that specific word. You know, much like a christian.
Are you a lamp cos you get turned on when I twist your switch?
Excommunicated Catholics can still be Christians. The term means someone who believes in Christ, and everything else is negotiable. No one Christian or sect can decide what Christianity is for everyone else.
The term means someone who “follows the teachings of Christ”, not simply that someone believes in Christ. There are plenty of people/figures that believe in Christ who are not Christians. Satan, for example, is a believer in Christ who is also not a Christian.
That sounds like semantics to me, because everyone gets to interpret the teachings of Christ for themselves.
Satan is a good example, considering that the character is an amalgam of several biblical references to evil forces like the evil spirit tempting Christ, the Snake in Genesis, and the Red Dragon in Revelations. Most of the mythology of Satan is an invention of Catholic writers.
Also, not for nothing, but Satan (presuming he’s real) would not be a “believer” as much as a colleague. Satan would know for sure that Jesus was real, was really God, and was the only path to Heaven. Of course, if we presume Satan is real, and the Bible is the literal word of God, then the only rational conclusion is that Jesus is Satan. But that’s an entirely separate discussion.
LOL. I’m very intrigued by that last paragraph but I’ll ignore it for now so as not to get off on a tangent. Feel free to expound on that, though.
semantics
It’s not about the interpretation, though, it’s about the ideas underpinning the interpretation. There are some things about Jesus’ philosophy and what it means to be one of his followers that aren’t as open to interpretation specifically because his followers supposedly asked these questions. The Golden Rule, for example, although it can be phrased in many different ways is unequivocal in its meaning (especially considering that similar ideas existed long before the Bible) - treat others the way you want to be treated. Likewise, “take the log out of your eye…” can be phrased differently but, regardless of language, is understood to mean “worry about yourself”. The idea of the religious Satan even, although open to lots of visual interpretation, is impossible to interpret as a being for good, for example, if you believe that Jesus is “good” since he’s meant to be the antithesis of Jesus’ ideals. This extends to several ideas including “hate”, “wealth”, and “prayer” and underpins the stories of people like Lazarus and Mary Magdalene. So, unless the semantic argument is that “following” Jesus doesn’t include taking his actions as a guide, I don’t actually think it’s semantic.
Also, you don’t have to convince me of the rest of what you said. I don’t believe in any of this and, in my mind, all of it is an invention of Catholic writers. It makes no difference to me at all if people call themselves Christians because that means nothing to me. I only care how they act and whether those actions are charitable and kind. It’s no different to someone calling me a “sinner”. If God’s real, guess what? I’m a sinner. Until you prove he/she/they are real, though, it doesn’t matter to me even if whether or not I’m a sinner isn’t predicated on my belief in them.
I would concede that a self proclaimed Christians ought to act in a manner consistent with the teachings, but Christianity has a massive penitent-man-shaped hole in the rules for conduct. On top of that, there are literally thousands of sects that each have their own interpretation of what rules they must follow and which rules are optional. Many consider other sects of Christianity to be heretical. So who has the last word there? Who decides the rules for everyone else? The answer is that every Christian decides for themselves. And when they fall short (which is almost universally accepted across all variations that it will happen), a Christian need only ask forgiveness for their transgressions to rejoin the flock. Sometimes there’s a pennance, but that’s also built on the honor system. It’s not a situation that allows for outsiders to evaluate the soul of a believer.
Now, if you’re saying that many Christians are feigning faith, I would not have a hard time believing that, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest. Whoever is the final arbiter of the accuracy and sincerity of Christian bona fides, I know for absolute certainty that it ain’t me. I’m not going to tell someone who claims to be a Christian that their faith is insincere, or their beliefs are inaccurate to biblical proscription. For practical purposes, and mostly because it’s easiest for me to remember, anyone claiming to be a Christian is a Christian. Full stop.
If any Christians out there want to stake exclusive claim on the term, their beef is with the pretenders. They need to work it out and get back to me, because it’s not up to me to make those determinations.
Excommunication is a political tool. That’s why victims of priest sexual abuse are excommunicated for speaking out, while priests are rewarded and given a new church/batch of victims
That’s not correct in any way. The word “Christian” has a specific definition. If someone claims they’re a “Christian” but don’t believe in Jesus, then they’re not a Christian. They can’t be. If someone claims to be a “Catholic” but doesn’t “accept” Pope Francis as the legitimate Pope, they’re not a Catholic. I can claim to be a musician but, if I can’t play any instruments, I’m not.
Yeah… if we used the definitions of social media, then the existence of trans people is a religious belief and wokeness is a religion. It’s the single stupidest chain of sentiment to come out since the belief in a flat earth.
If someone claims to be a “Catholic” but doesn’t “accept” Pope Francis as the legitimate Pope, they’re not a Catholic.
That’s not true. There have been quite a number of schisms in the catholic church which resulted in a split on who people thought was the pope. The guy who doesn’t come out on top in that situation is called an antipope. Sometimes it was difficult to decide in history which person was the pope and which was antipope. There have been about 40 of them with the last being in the 15th century.
Yes it is. Catholic dogma dictates that the Pope is the true representative of God and that he functions as the literal mouthpiece of God. Schisms might be true but, according to Catholicism, there can’t be a mistake when it comes to the Pope and what he says when speaking on doctrine. It’s called Papal Infallibility.
Accordingly, that means any schisms from Catholicism, by definition, aren’t Catholic because they break the promise Jesus made to Peter.
That doesn’t change the fact that Palmerians consider themselves the one true catholic church and that they consider their members catholic. They would claim their anti-pope is the infallible one, not Pope Francis.
It doesn’t matter what they consider themselves, though. That’s the point. If the Pope is the mouthpiece of god and is infallible, then their sect (and by extension their anti-pope) cannot be Catholics since dogma and doctrine dictate that the actual Pope is infallible and beyond contestation.
If both churches consider themselves with infallible popes declaring gods will on earth, who is right? Do you see the dilemma? Neither can say that the other sect are true Catholics.
So if someone claims to be catholic but doesn’t accept Pope Francis that doesn’t make them not a catholic, it just means they don’t think Pope Francis is the legitimate pope. They would consider him an antipope and his statements ex cathedra are therefore fallible since they aren’t really statements ex cathedra in their minds.
No it doesn’t. It leans on Catholic dogma being defined by Catholics. Papal infallibility comes from Jesus’ promise to Peter that whoever leads the Church will always be guided by God. Since it comes directly from Jesus, the figurehead of Catholicism, the only “truth” that needs to be accepted is that Jesus + Pope (Peter) is Catholicism. There’s no question of truth or victory. The very foundation of the idea of Catholicism relies on the idea that the Pope is never wrong on issues of doctrine and dogma.
If someone claims they’re a “Christian” but don’t believe in Jesus, then they’re not a Christian.
That’s fair. It still hinges on a belief claim only. Based on a person’s other actions, you can doubt that claim, but the singular authority for what a person actually believes is what that person claims to believe.
That’s only true if that claim is made in good faith. I can claim to be a Christian all I want but, if I don’t believe in god, then my claim isn’t coming from a place of good faith (literally). I can’t make the claim and that claim be true if I’ve twisted the definition of what I’m claiming in order to make that claim. If I claim to be vegan but I have redefined “vegan” to ignore the use of animal products and am only focused on eating animals and animal products, then I’m a liar rather than what you’re inferring which is that my claim is true because I believe it to be true. A “vegan” walking around in leather pants is not a vegan, regardless of what they believe or claim.
Whether someone is a “vegan” depends on behavior in ways that “Christian” doesn’t. Even so, being “vegan” - even when the person does not directly and knowingly consume animal products - completely ignores the fact that they are indirectly making use of animal products, because they depend on a society that currently uses animal products, and where that society got to the technological level it’s at through the use of animal products over many millenia.
And we’re back to No True Scotsman, adjusting the definition to fit the circumstances.
No it doesn’t. Being vegan doesn’t mean that you believe you’re not using or consuming animal products. It means you don’t consume animal products. Period. It’s why the Vegan Police came after Todd. The only person adjusting the definition to fit the circumstances is you. If a central tenet of being a vegan is that the very first vegan ever said that anyone who eats or uses an animal product can’t be vegan, then that person isn’t vegan whether they intended that or not. The Catholic Church is founded on the idea that the Pope is the mouthpiece of god. To say that any Pope chosen in the lineage of that church is “not the real pope” is blasphemy and, by definition, not Catholic.
The Catholic Church is founded on the idea that the Pope is the mouthpiece of god.
Who decides who the “right” Pope is? You must certainly know that issues of succession (oh so topically) are often contested, and the Catholic Church is not immune to that.
No, it does not. What ways does it depend on? You either follow the tenets and doctrine of the religion or you don’t. If your actions directly contradict the meaning of the word, then it doesn’t depend on anything. It’s a binary concept.
If your actions directly contradict the meaning of the word, then it doesn’t depend on anything.
Using this weirdo logic to define whether or not a person is a Christian means that you have to know the entirety of actions of their whole life to see if they entirely followed the tenants and doctrine of the religion or not, because the instant they don’t they’re not a Christian.
Since only God would be capable of such knowledge, only God would be capable of labeling people Christian or not…so effectively nobody’s a Christian.
Seems wrong in an obvious and fundamental way (because it makes the categorizations all pointless), but hey whatever grips your gourd, friendo.
That’s not correct in any way. The word “Christian” has a specific definition.
Webster isn’t any more of a dictator of truth than anyone else. There’s a reason why Socrates spent a lot of time debating definitions with people. They’re hard to actually get right.
If someone claims they’re a “Christian” but don’t believe in Jesus, then they’re not a Christian. They can’t be.
But what if they also claim to believe in Jesus? How do you measure or test belief? How do you know what’s in the mind or soul of a person?
If someone claims to be a “Catholic” but doesn’t “accept” Pope Francis as the legitimate Pope, they’re not a Catholic.
What if they attend Catholic mass? Hell, what if they’re a member of the priesthood?
I can claim to be a musician but, if I can’t play any instruments, I’m not.
Even this is a bad argument. Aren’t singers musicians? How about rappers?
All of this debate is really over whether or not something is no longer a thing if they’re not a high quality version of that thing. I think it’s a fairly shallow debate because a wobbly stool is still a stool. A shitty singer is still a musician. A broken chair is still a chair, and similarly just because someone’s a bad Christian doesn’t mean they’re not a Christian.
We’re not talking about the definition from Webster. We’re talking about the definition from Jesus that was given to Saint Peter, the very first Pope. The definition here is not in question because the idea was defined by the people who founded the religion.
How do you measure or test belief?
You don’t have to. Being a Christian isn’t only predicated on believing in Jesus. If that was the case, then Satan is also a Christian because he’s personally met Jesus and, therefore, would be forced to “believe” in him. Luckily, Jesus himself supposedly stated and passed down what it means to be a Christian and those people supposedly wrote it down.
What if they attend Catholic mass? Hell, what if they’re a member of the priesthood?
Also irrelevant. A priest who molests children cannot be a Christian whether they were inducted into the priesthood or whether they attend Mass because the very rules of the religion, as instructed by their figurehead, remove them from the group based on their actions. It’s repeated numerous times throughout the Bible that Christians will be known by their actions.
Even this is a bad argument. Aren’t singers musicians? How about rappers?
It’s not a bad argument, you just misunderstood it. The voice is an instrument.
All of this debate is really over whether or not something is no longer a thing if they’re not a high quality version of that thing. I think it’s a fairly shallow debate because a wobbly stool is still a stool. A shitty singer is still a musician. A broken chair is still a chair, and similarly just because someone’s a bad Christian doesn’t mean they’re not a Christian.
No. Again, you’ve misunderstood the argument. If I started a religion today and I said that the only qualification of the religion is that people have to kiss me on the mouth, then it’s not possible for someone who has not kissed me on the mouth to be part of the religion. They can follow everything else I’ve said to the letter but, as long as they haven’t kissed me directly on the mouth, they cannot be a part of this particular religion because they are missing the central qualification. It’s not about whether someone is “good” or “bad” at doing something. It’s whether they’re doing that thing at all.
It’s not a bad argument, you just misunderstood it. The voice is an instrument.
Ok then, so who is this person that can “claim to be a musician” but isn’t?
As for the rest of your load of gish gallop: the bible, like all other texts, is up for interpretation and has been re-interpreted many times with many different takeaways. It’s not even the original text, was translated multiple times, and there is no way we can be assured that the King James Bible (Taylor’s Version) is the real deal. Definitions from it aren’t more authoritative than Webster…they’re even less so.
Someone who doesn’t play any instrument, including singing. There are unending numbers of people who will tell you they’re not musicians because they don’t even try. Anyone who doesn’t try but tells you they’re a musician is a liar. That’s the point.
load of gish gallop
Nothing that I’ve said should have been overwhelming or inundating. My premise is incredibly simple. You just keep misunderstanding it repeatedly because it seems that you’re not even reading what’s being said.
We’re not talking about interpretation from the Bible. We’re talking about the definition used by Catholics that is part of their dogma and doctrine. We’re talking about quoting the (supposed) words of Jesus in places where there is no debate on the meaning. You can try to dismiss and downplay what I’ve said all you want but none of what I’ve said is inaccurate whereas your response is full of inaccuracies and misunderstandings.
Someone who doesn’t play any instrument, including singing.
Lol, so someone who wants to claim to be a musician but can’t even sing badly (or rap badly, because rappers are still musicians)? That’s who we’ve excluded? Wow, what a useful definition for musician. 🙄
Who is this person who wants to go around claiming musician creds and then can’t attempt a couple of bars?
… if they’re not a high quality version of that thing.
And who is the arbiter of quality, and who draws the line in the sand?
I know this has all kind of devolved into a semantic argument, and a weird discussion about Popery, and I think at this point it’s worth reiterating my initial point: If someone claims to belong to a religion, they do. Whether that claim enables anyone to make predictions or judgments about a person’s other statements or actions is another question entirely.
If someone claims to belong to a religion, they do.
I think this is 100% true for generic things like “Christianity”. When they’re more official organizations…still maybe, but if someone’s been excommunicated from something it makes sense to me from a practical standpoint that they no longer belong to that thing.
I understand your point and generally agree, with an aside: The actual Nazis weren’t socialists, just because they added that to their faction’s official title.
Because it’s an immature understanding of life to vote anything as black and white. Life is full color, and a bazillion shades of gray, besides. Grow up.
No one is “voting” anything as black and white, especially with regard to a question from an objective claim. If the claim is that someone is something simply because they tell you they are and you’ve disproved the claim with your example then the claim is objectively false.
Maybe you should stop telling people to grow up until you’ve done so first. In the words of Jesus, take the log out of your eye first.
“No True Scotsman” is when you attempt to protect your generalized statement by placing counterexamples outside the bounds of the statement. But in the case of Christianity, people who don’t love are self-selecting out of that group by the words of the founder himself, who said “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
I’m not saying they aren’t a Christian, and the OP isn’t saying that either. The person who is hateful is saying that they aren’t a Christian, as surely as a person who kicks puppies for fun is saying that they aren’t a dog lover. They could swear up and down later that they can’t be a puppy kicker because they’re a dog lover, but the fact that they’re kicking puppies self-selects them out of that group.
Incidentally, the wording of the fallacy here is an important point to observe. The qualifications for being a Scotsman are that someone is geographically or genetically connected to Scotland; and while there are fiddly gray areas at the edges, no one can say that you’re not a Scotsman because of a thing you do because the qualification is a connection to a place.
But the qualifications for being a Christian are explicitly a thing you do. Well, a thing you do and a thing you believe, but those two things are inherently linked by the fact that the object of belief (Jesus) commands the action (love).
Incorrect. Anyone who says they are a Christian is a Christian, at least in Protestantism. You don’t have to do good works or anything of the kind to be a Christian. You just have to admit that you are a sinner, profess to regret those sins, and “accept Jesus into your heart”. That’s it.
In theory, accepting Jesus into your heart is supposed to improve your behavior, but it isn’t a requirement (obviously, with all of those rapey priests!!). As I’m sure you know, you can be the worst kind of sinner all of your life, but as long as you accept Jesus and confess your sins to Him before you die, you’re all good!
Ah Christianity…the ultimate get-out-of-hell-free card, and no one can gain-say you. It is just between you and your Saviour. It is just so darn convenient, like a drive-thru. No wonder it is so popular.
Incorrect. Anyone who says they are a Christian is a Christian, at least in Protestantism.
No. Anyone who believes in and follows Jesus is Christian; we just usually only have someone’s word to go by.
You don’t have to do good works or anything of the kind to be a Christian.
True, but a lack of love and good works proves that the repentance was a sham. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit.” Seasons of rebellion and momentary mistakes happen, but if a person’s life is marked by constant, unrestrained evil, they’re showing a lack of fruit that probably means they aren’t repentant.
You just have to admit that you are a sinner, profess to regret those sins, and “accept Jesus into your heart”. That’s it.
Yeah, that’s not Christianity. Not historically speaking, at least. It’s a shockingly new development and almost entirely centered on American individualism, and Christians from longer ago than the 1700s wouldn’t recognize any of that. Scripturally and historically, Christianity requires belief and repentance; which look, superficially and in the moment, like admitting you’re a sinner and accepting Jesus into your heart, but prove themselves to be something different over time.
In theory, accepting Jesus into your heart is supposed to improve your behavior, but it isn’t a requirement
Actually, it is. The writer of Hebrews says (13:12) equates sanctification with salvation. Historically, believing that one can happen without the other is just a bizarre idea because they were considered synonymous.
(obviously, with all of those rapey priests!!).
Indeed, they aren’t repentant, and are thus not Christians.
As I’m sure you know, you can be the worst kind of sinner all of your life, but as long as you accept Jesus and confess your sins to Him before you die, you’re all good!
Again, historically and theologically, this is unrecognizable as Christianity.
Ah Christianity…the ultimate get-out-of-hell-free card, and no one can gain-say you.
In America, at least. But the Church has, throughout the ages, excommunicated people for being horrible and “showing their faith to be a shipwreck.” We hear about unrepentant, non-Christian people (particularly among the puritans) who used excommunication as a weapon against those they didn’t like (particularly women), but it has been used correctly throughout history as well; to get the wolves away from the sheep.
It is just between you and your Saviour. It is just so darn convenient, like a drive-thru. No wonder it is so popular.
Individualism is popular now, to our great shame, but a community of faith urging one another toward sanctification is in the Bible, in the early church, and in the continuing line of Christianity throughout history.
Incidentally, the “drive-thru” analogy is pretty close to what Luther was “protesting” against in the first place. I think there’s another Reformation coming, and this one is going to be about the people who value and respect and love breaking away from the people who don’t.
No. Anyone who believes in and follows Jesus is Christian; we just usually only have someone’s word to go by.
This a pointless distinction. You have no knowledge of the true nature of the relationship between a person and their Savior. So, on this mortal plane you only have someone’s word. I, therefore, return to my point that anyone who claims to be Christian is a Christian, as far as any mortal being knows. I though the latter clarification was fairly obvious since I’m presumably talking to another human.
Indeed, they aren’t repentant, and are thus not Christians.
(Quote referring to rapey priests)
See, now there’s the rub. How do you know the priests aren’t repentant? Even if they’ve committed hundreds rapes, they may still ask and receive the forgiveness of Jesus. The Bible does not define how many times you can commit the same sin and ask for forgiveness before Jesus doesn’t believe you anymore. The flesh is weak, but Jesus is forgiving.
The way religious communities have dealt with this epistemological problem of not being able to peer into someone’s heart is by distinguishing between what is acceptable in the community vs. what may be acceptable to God. The community judged their body and left God to judge their soul. Death-bed conversions were and are absolutely acceptable in Christianity and always have been. Indeed, torturing someone until they confess was common practice back in the day, partly because they believed in truth through duress, but also because it was a chance for a Christian to rescue his soul before death. Hate the sin, not the sinner. The sinner’s soul can always be saved right up to their last breath.
I think your grasp of what Christianity actually is may be contaminated by what you want it to be. But even what you want it to be contains the seeds of its own destruction. It is not logically consistent to say that Christianity is based on a personal relationship with God, while at the same time taking it upon yourself to judge who is a “real” Christian.
Luther tried that when the Catholic Church abused its authority and here we are again. Except this time we can’t point to a single authoritarian Catholic Church, but have to deal with a massive de-centralized super-community of corrupt churches. Luther wounded the big Dragon, but replaced it with a Hydra that keeps growing new heads, each one claiming to be the “real” Christians!
This a pointless distinction. You have no knowledge of the true nature of the relationship between a person and their Savior. […] anyone who claims to be Christian is a Christian, as far as any mortal being knows.
You know based upon how they act. If a person says they’re an avid hiker, but after observing them for a decade you never see them hiking, you know their statement was false. If you ask them after that decade and they still profess that they’re an avid hiker, you know they’re lying. This is what Jesus meant by “they’ll know you’re my disciples if you love one another.”
How do you know the priests aren’t repentant? Even if they’ve committed hundreds rapes, they may still ask and receive the forgiveness of Jesus.
Because true repentance brings with it a change in behavior. “Slipping up” once or twice with something minor (edit: oh geez, that’s…a very poor choice of words. How about “something inconsequential”) is one thing. But big abuses, and patterns of abuse over decades, and efforts to hide or dismiss it once it comes to light shows a lack of repentance. This is what Jesus meant by “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” He’s speaking there specifically about false teachers seeking to harm others.
Certainly, they could ask for and receive the forgiveness of Jesus. But by continuing in a pattern of sinful behavior, they prove that they have not, even if they claim to have done so.
The Bible does not define how many times you can commit the same sin and ask for forgiveness before Jesus doesn’t believe you anymore.
No, but Jesus does know the human heart, and will not be fooled by people trying to exploit apparent loopholes to look holy without actually pursuing sanctification. “You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence,” Jesus said. Or John the Baptist, who told the same corrupt religious leaders to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” So the Bible doesn’t give a limit because there’s a judge on the matter with perfect understanding.
Death-bed conversions were and are absolutely acceptable in Christianity and always have been. […] The sinner’s soul can always be saved right up to their last breath.
Sure, but if they believe God is that easily fooled by someone who knowingly waits until the last possible instant to “convert” so that they can sin during their lives, why would they believe even then? We’re not talking about some impersonal magic rules or an easily-befuddled genie, we’re talking about an intimate and infinite God who created the universe and knows your heart better than you do; and if you’re just checking the box at the end of your life in hopes of avoiding the flames, there’s no way it’s true repentance.
Indeed, torturing someone until they confess was common practice back in the day, partly because they believed in truth through duress, but also because it was a chance for a Christian to rescue his soul before death.
Yeah, inquisition is a terrible, dark, vile, truly despicable chapter in the church’s history. And while I think there may have been a few who were hoodwinked into believing that, the people who were teaching it had to have known that it was bunk.
I think your grasp of what Christianity actually is may be contaminated by what you want it to be.
I mean, I’m just reading the founding document, through the lens of the majority of Christians over the course of history and around the world. What it’s become in America in the past century or so flies in the face of what it has always been, and what it was intended to be.
But even what you want it to be contains the seeds of its own destruction. It is not logically consistent to say that Christianity is based on a personal relationship with God,
I don’t say that. The “personal relationship” thing is just not in the Bible. That’s a recent addition to satisfy the independent American, (edit: reintroduced from an ancient heresy called gnosticism) and nobody would’ve recognized that faith before American evangelicals invented(edit: rediscovered) it. Christianity was always intended to be–and has historically been–practiced in community, with people in one another’s lives so that they can see sin in one another and exhort one another toward sanctification.
while at the same time taking it upon yourself to judge who is a “real” Christian.
Once again, I am not making that judgment. The unrepentant person does not bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and thus it becomes obvious over time that they have not repented.
And to be clear here: I am not talking about a teenage girl who gets pregnant before she’s married. I’m talking about Fortune 500 CEOs who gleefully fleece their customers and their employees from Monday through Saturday, then show up at church on Sunday in some pretense of piety. I’m talking about police officers who worship next to Black men on Sunday morning and then have them in a chokehold on the curb on Friday night. I’m talking about politicians who claim that they’ve never needed to repent in their lives and that their favorite book of the Bible is “Two Corinthians,” and who tear-gas people protesting the murder of Image-Bearers so that they can have a photo op with a Bible that’s never been opened.
They’re all bearing unrepentant fruit, and I think it’s important to recognize them as such.
Luther tried that when the Catholic Church abused its authority and here we are again.
Indeed. I don’t remember if you’re the one I mentioned this to, but I think there’s another Reformation coming. I hope so, at least.
Except this time we can’t point to a single authoritarian Catholic Church, but have to deal with a massive de-centralized super-community of corrupt churches. Luther wounded the big Dragon, but replaced it with a Hydra that keeps growing new heads, each one claiming to be the “real” Christians!
Yes, agreed. The Second Reformation is going to be a long road to travel indeed. If there is any comfort, it is that there are many more Luthers this time. (And hopefully they’re less antisemitic.)
It’s not exactly a new thing, read up on Christian Gnosticism, that goes back to when what we know as the Bible was being constructed. Largely I agree with your points though. I’d write more but I’m on break at work right now, sorry.
Ah! Fair point about gnosticism, though I think most Christians throughout history would consider that a heresy. But you’re right, that does precede American individualistic Jesus-fandom by many centuries. Good point.
I don’t say that. The “personal relationship” thing is just not in the Bible. That’s a recent addition to satisfy the independent American, and nobody would’ve recognized that faith before American evangelicals invented it. Christianity was always intended to be–and has historically been–practiced in community, with people in one another’s lives so that they can see and exhort one another toward sanctification.
Okay, I didn’t realize that was a more recent phenomenon. I did a quick lookup and it seems that this “personal relationship” thing started during the Enlightenment. And, as you say, some people argue that the “accept Jesus into your heart” thing really got going with American evangelical grifter-preachers like Billy Graham. I will read some more. Thanks for the tip.
I’m not sure if that Second Reformation you speak of will ever happen. Christianity has lost almost all credibility. Something less fraught with horrible historical baggage will have to take its place. Christianity is pre-scientific. Luther and the Protestants were able to shed their brand of Christianity of its Roman imperial trappings, which was due, but half of Christians are still Catholic. But even Luther is pre-scientific. Educated people just aren’t going to go back to believing in some invisible sky daddy. I mean, come on, an all-powerful, invisible, father figure who delivers justice to the oppressed (but only in the NEXT life) and who loves you no matter what? It is too obviously a wishful construct of childish human consciousness. And some Middle Eastern dude whose death saved all of humanity and who said he’s coming back any time now, but that was 2000 years ago? It’s too much. We know too much now to read the Bible as though it is literally true. We’ve moved on. Something more believable will have to take its place.
Also, Protestantism is currently associated with American evangelical right wing nutters. Besides the church scandals, the politicization of Christianity, including the attacks on women’s rights, homosexuality, the book banning, the stacking of SCOTUS with Christian zealots who only seem to want to restrict rights, and the election of a Christian Nationalist to the Speaker role are not putting Christianity in a good light. If anything, the crazy moralistic and hypocritical side of Christianity seems to be taking centre stage. Western populations outside of the US are rejecting Christianity in droves and that rejection is particularly pronounced among young people. If Trump and the Christian anti-science right-wingers take office again, it might well be the final nail in the coffin for religion in most of the West.
Many of the poor countries of the global South are still pretty Christian, but their version of Christianity is very, very conservative. And by “conservative”, I mean the “let’s burn all the gays” type of conservative. Extremist Muslims and Jews massacring each other in the Middle East, and Modi with his Hindu Nationalism, just make the societal mood toward religion worse, leading many to believe that ALL religion is inherently harmful.
Honestly, rather than the Second Reformation you speak of, I think we are more likely see further bans on religious expression in public life, and possibly some form of state protection for children to prevent them from being religiously indoctrinated. If all the “reasonable” people leave religion behind, only the extremists will be left, which will further convince the population that religion is harmful. It seems like Christianity has entered that downward spiral.
[…] it seems that this “personal relationship” thing started during the Enlightenment. And, as you say, some people argue that the “accept Jesus into your heart” thing really got going with American evangelical grifter-preachers like Billy Graham. I will read some more. Thanks for the tip.
Yeah, for sure. Someone else pointed out that it’s also a repackaging of an ancient and widely-discredited heresy called Gnosticism, so perhaps “recent” is an overstatement; but for the vast majority of Christian history, it has not been considered orthodox.
Christianity has lost almost all credibility.
I don’t disagree, though I might clarify that Christianity has lost almost all credibility in the West due to the association with people who claim the name but have nothing to do with its tenets.
Educated people just aren’t going to go back to believing in some invisible sky daddy.
I don’t think that necessarily matches up with the data. Globally, Christians have on average the same amount or more schooling than non-Christians. The association of anti-intellectualism with Christians is also a recent American phenomenon, the Dark Ages excepted.
I mean, come on, an all-powerful, invisible, father figure who delivers justice to the oppressed (but only in the NEXT life) and who loves you no matter what? […] And some Middle Eastern dude whose death saved all of humanity and who said he’s coming back any time now, but that was 2000 years ago? It’s too much.
Yeah, I agree, it’s unusual. But if it was completely explainable, if it matched all of our expectations and experiences, it wouldn’t be divine. A transcendent God would have to do things and know things we don’t expect or understand, or we would be his equal.
It is too obviously a wishful construct of childish human consciousness.
I have to be honest, if I were trying to imagine and craft a religion for myself, it would be a lot heavier on me always getting what I want and a lot lower on the self-sacrifice. (/s, but only a little bit)
Honestly, and I legitimately just realized this, it would look a lot more like the false faith that people like Johnson believe in.
Protestantism is currently associated with American evangelical right wing nutters. […very fair criticism…] If anything, the crazy moralistic and hypocritical side of Christianity seems to be taking centre stage.
Yep. They are. For those of us who try not to be in that camp, it’s very frustrating. But I think they are honestly the loud minority.
Western populations outside of the US are rejecting Christianity in droves and that rejection is particularly pronounced among young people. If Trump and the Christian anti-science right-wingers take office again, it might well be the final nail in the coffin for religion in most of the West.
This has been oft-prophesied. I will say that, if this anti-science right-wing nonsense masquerading as Christianity dies, what small remnant of Christians might continue on will be much healthier with their absence.
Extremist Muslims and Jews massacring each other in the Middle East, and Modi with his Hindu Nationalism, just make the societal mood toward religion worse, leading many to believe that ALL religion is inherently harmful.
I would hope people are able to see the difference between religion and extremism. Not that extremists make that easy.
Honestly, rather than the Second Reformation you speak of, I think we are more likely see further bans on religious expression in public life, and possibly some form of state protection for children to prevent them from being religiously indoctrinated.
In any occasion where religion is suppressed or banned, it flourishes underground. This is well-attested historically, not merely for Christians; and can be seen even today in places like China.
If all the “reasonable” people leave religion behind, only the extremists will be left, which will further convince the population that religion is harmful. It seems like Christianity has entered that downward spiral.
Perhaps. I think the premise is unfounded, but in any case it doesn’t change my plan. All the bad feelings and negative thoughts about Christianity are meaningless if it’s true, and I believe it is; so I’ll just keep on trying to be as loving and helpful as I can.
The qualification for being a Christian is that you believe in Christ. That is literally it.
No, the qualification for being a Christian is that you follow Christ. The Biblical writer James actually addresses this very thing ad absurdum by showing that, if the qualification is only to believe in Jesus, even the demons are Christians. Repentance is the first act of selecting into the group of “Christian.”
You can be the worst person ever and be a Christian.
No, you can have been the worst person ever and be a Christian. Repentance begins the journey and remains a constant throughout; as Martin Luther said in the first of his 95 Theses, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”
In fact, most Christians believe that everyone is a sinner, so being horrible is basically expected and accepted.
I’m so sorry that you’ve been given such a twisted view of this, though I totally understand why (I’ve seen this argument being made, particularly about Trump in 2016). Being horrible is explicitly not expected or accepted; Jesus himself causes people who claim faith but do awful things “vipers” and weaves a whip to use on them to prove he’s serious. The biblical writer Paul asks rhetorically, “shall I continue sinning so that grace may abound? God forbid!” And theologian after theologian for 2,000 years has said the same. If you’re gleefully continuing in being horrible, you’re proving that you aren’t a Christian; and Christians since the first century have affirmed that definition of the faith.
Finally… someone who knows what the fuck they’re talking about around here. It’s so refreshing to see someone who is actually familiar with the texts in question and the historicity of these claims.
It’s people like you that keep me wading through all this sewage and garbage.
No, being horrible is not expected or accepted. The Puritans (read: Evangelicals) like to interpret it that way, and in fact they do that because it absolves them of personal responsibility. “Well, I don’t do that one really terrible thing, therefore I can feel secure and not worry about my behavior.”
In reality, sin just means error, imperfection. It’s an acknowledgement that no human can be perfect the way that God is perfect, no matter what. The correct response to this should be ongoing self-evaluation, humility, and caution against slipping into the many easy faults of humanity. We should all be repenting constantly because obviously we make mistakes all the time, and all we can do is keep trying to be better, do better. This is what you find in classical literature like Thomas Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ.
If you see someone (and I know this is common) running around claiming absolute security in their righteousness with God, then you’re seeing a person who is quite literally actively sinning.
The knock on effect of this whole situation is that Christians who don’t believe they know all and speak for God (another sin: taking the Lord’s name in vain) don’t get public attention because we don’t run around shouting at people about our religious beliefs.
Does the scriptures speak towards why God is perfect, and why we’re imperfect?
This is a close cousin to the problem of pain. Many smarter people than I have debated both around and around for centuries, and come no nearer an answer than when they started. The Bible gives us a how, and a who, but not a why. Honestly I wish there was more, but alas.
Kempis is a very storied and well-respected theologian from right before the Reformation. He’s looked upon fondly by the Anglicans, Methodists, and Jesuits alike. He’s about as Christian as they come, and the fruit of his belief is abundant.
Thomas Kempis is very much Christian. There are a variety of Christian authors in this vein. Modern American Evangelicalism doesn’t comprise the entirety of religious thinking.
Technically, yes. It’s a fallacy to call all of the hateful christians “not real”. Since there’s just so many that identify and are identified as christians that are hateful, it’s mostly an academic distinction.
It IS interesting that so many christains don’t follow their own faith. For it is true that to be an overtly hatefuly or bigoted person is to ignore the core teachings of christianity.
to be an overtly hatefuly or bigoted person is to ignore the core teachings of christianity
And yet the history of Christianity is filled with hatred, and bloodshed. It’s almost like the “core teachings” are a smoke screen for the accumulation and abuse of power.
Also fun is technically, while it is a fallacy in the general sense, in the Christian religion they actually talk about false Christians as part of Christianity. So in a general sense it is a fallacy, but by its own rules they can be called as such and technically isn’t a fallacy. False prophets, pharisees, antichrist and whatnot.
No, they are familiar with it. He just used it wrong. The idea of the entire fallacy is that there can’t be qualifications to being a “true” Scotsman because the definition of a Scotsman is simply “someone who was born in Scotland”.
No True Christian
I totally get your point, but I think there is validity in calling into question your right to identify as a member of a given religion when you go directly against your religion’s teachings.
Except what are the “real” teachings? How do you know? Who is the authority? Where is the solid evidence. The god of the Bible is silent on the matter of our interpretations over the centuries (if he even exists).
The Bible seems to condemn homosexuality in a few places and condemns “sexual immorality”. But interpretations of these passages and how they relate to many other passages are numerous, each person claiming to have it all figured out. Some think the OT doesn’t count anymore. Some think it still does but Jesus is essentially a get out of jail free card, some think Jesus is all about love, some define love to include various levels punishment, some believe God creates pre-damned people. Some think homosexuality is fine but the passages refer to sexual abuse. So we come back to the question: which interpretation is “correct”?
These books are translated from content written millennia ago. The gospels were written a generation after Jesus and we don’t have the sources. The oldest version of books in the OT dates centuries after the originals. Thus, evidence is weak that the originals said the same thing as the current version. We have insufficient evidence for divine inspiration in the writing, copying or translating of said materials.
When evidence is lacking then the only alternative, belief (faith) provides a very unreliable source of information.
Yes there’s no reliable manual, but generally people who were actually educated in the text mean following what has been written about Jesus: loving everyone independently of identity, forgiving people who offend you, helping the poor and the weak, refusing violence, doing funny rituals with fermented grape juice etc.
I should have mentioned I was a Christian for 40 years and did quite a fair bit of bible study so I’m coming at this as a former “insider”.
Certainly the things you list are among the main tenets that I suppose many Christians follow. Those were the main things I prioritized.
But in those decades I was exposed to a number of different schools of thought and I observed that the messages believers prioritized were not universal.
How is anti lgbt sentiment anti Christian? It’s very Christian.
Jesus talked very little about LGBT and a lot more about not forcing your beliefs onto other and not being a dick to people simply because they do things differently from you.
Not to mention that their stance on God hating gays is literal blasphemy, because again, there isn’t much said about being gay by Jesus
To add on, the parable of The Good Samaritan also highlights his opinions on how Christians should treat people that are of a different, “reviled” culture than their own (Samaria in the story) by defining who a “neighbor” is and emphasis on loving your neighbor as yourself.
People do some wild backflips to try to wriggle out of accepting the good Samaritan story. They’ll say it’s an elaborate metaphorically for blah blah instead of a simple story that shows the point in plain text.
But a lot of alleged christians don’t really follow the texts. Don’t pray in the closet. Don’t treat the least among them well.
Most things Christians believe have absolutely zero to do with Jesus. It’s a big book.
That’s like saying most of the things people like about Lord of the Rings has nothing to do with Frodo, no shit, but he’s still the main character.
Jesus as far as I know didn’t address homosexuality at all in the gospels.
Yet there’s the OT to contend with. You can find passages that, at least in English translations, condemn homosexual acts. Find a concordance and search for homosexuality and Bob’s your uncle. And there are quite a few “sexual morality” statements in the NT. (Does that include homosexuality? No idea).
And there’s also the rest of the NT to deal with. Believers are commanded to proselytize. And not just once or twice. That isn’t forcing your beliefs on others but it is definitely not being quiet and keeping to yourself either.
There are also many passages in OT and NT that condemn those who “do things differently”. Christianity is not necessarily a “live and let live religion” looking at those passages. It is often more of a “my way or the highway (to hell…)” kind of thing per most common denominations (but not all).
You may think you have an accurate interpretation but there are many others who say the same thing about their own unique interpretations that differ from yours in various ways.
From the modern viewpoint of secularists, sure it is. But if we take the values or Christianity on face value, they don’t say that.
The fact that so many Christians are hateful towards LGBT+ does present a difficult bind though: is true Christianity the writ values, or the modern zeitgeist? The pope himself ran into this very question recently when he started firing Catholic priests for not towing the progressive line that he has drawn. Who is right, the pope or his flock?
(Also, see the great answer that someone gave on No True Scotsman in this same comment tree)
In the case of the Catholics, at least, the doctrine of papal infallibility decrees that, at least on paper, the Pope as the successor to Peter and Paul is always correct on matters of doctrine. In practice, if the flock disagrees they can always schism again. shrugs
There is no such thing as a religion having objective “teachings.”
It’s always been subjective.
Normal people are Jews and Muslims, and extremists like the genocidal Israeli colonizers, and the similarly genocidal Wahhabist/Salafi terrorists are still Jews and Muslims.
There is no “true” understanding of these religions.
So what is the Bible? Or the Qur’an?
Aggregations of objective teachings which contradict each other (within the same book).
The Bible is an assembled collection of curated religious stories and traditions. I can’t speak to the history of all of it but the first books of the OT were drawn from religious stories and traditions of north and south Judah and adapted to create religious (and thus political) unity by the king at the time in the face of the threat of rival, neighboring countries. Of the many gods worshipped at the time the OT books essentially retcon two of them to be one god, denounce polytheism, and create a mythical historical narrative of the country’s population. Mythical because archaeological evidence contradicts a great deal of the stories.
The NT is a collection of Epistles, gospels, etc., chosen from a large pool of similar sorts of writings and assembled into what we have today. I don’t know a great deal about what drove those selections and only vaguely know that some of the other writings were quite different theologically.
Fiction.
If someone claims to be “a Christian,” they are. There is no other qualification. Whether such a person adheres more or less to common Christian principles is a separate issue, let alone that there are so many splinter groups of “Christians” that the phrase “common Christian principles” barely has any meaning anyway.
I’m a lamp. Fight me.
Yeah, but are you oil based, or electricity based? That matters you know.
See it’s pretty easy to square the “I’m a lamp” circle, though. What do you mean by “I’m a lamp”? You could mean basically anything, even things you don’t mean it to mean, I could just come up with random shit it could mean and I’d be no less wrong. In a vacuum, much like identifying as a christian, it’s a pretty meaningless claim, the only commonality of the claim as it exists is that you decided to use that specific word. You know, much like a christian.
Are you a lamp cos you get turned on when I twist your switch?
“Lamp” is not a religion.
Illuminating comment
IDK, some people are pretty religious about their software stack.
and ‘woosh’ is not a noise.
But a double woosh will create a gentle breeze.
Then why are things like excommunication (where you get kicked out of the religion for going directly against beliefs) a thing?
Excommunicated Catholics can still be Christians. The term means someone who believes in Christ, and everything else is negotiable. No one Christian or sect can decide what Christianity is for everyone else.
The term means someone who “follows the teachings of Christ”, not simply that someone believes in Christ. There are plenty of people/figures that believe in Christ who are not Christians. Satan, for example, is a believer in Christ who is also not a Christian.
That sounds like semantics to me, because everyone gets to interpret the teachings of Christ for themselves.
Satan is a good example, considering that the character is an amalgam of several biblical references to evil forces like the evil spirit tempting Christ, the Snake in Genesis, and the Red Dragon in Revelations. Most of the mythology of Satan is an invention of Catholic writers.
Also, not for nothing, but Satan (presuming he’s real) would not be a “believer” as much as a colleague. Satan would know for sure that Jesus was real, was really God, and was the only path to Heaven. Of course, if we presume Satan is real, and the Bible is the literal word of God, then the only rational conclusion is that Jesus is Satan. But that’s an entirely separate discussion.
LOL. I’m very intrigued by that last paragraph but I’ll ignore it for now so as not to get off on a tangent. Feel free to expound on that, though.
It’s not about the interpretation, though, it’s about the ideas underpinning the interpretation. There are some things about Jesus’ philosophy and what it means to be one of his followers that aren’t as open to interpretation specifically because his followers supposedly asked these questions. The Golden Rule, for example, although it can be phrased in many different ways is unequivocal in its meaning (especially considering that similar ideas existed long before the Bible) - treat others the way you want to be treated. Likewise, “take the log out of your eye…” can be phrased differently but, regardless of language, is understood to mean “worry about yourself”. The idea of the religious Satan even, although open to lots of visual interpretation, is impossible to interpret as a being for good, for example, if you believe that Jesus is “good” since he’s meant to be the antithesis of Jesus’ ideals. This extends to several ideas including “hate”, “wealth”, and “prayer” and underpins the stories of people like Lazarus and Mary Magdalene. So, unless the semantic argument is that “following” Jesus doesn’t include taking his actions as a guide, I don’t actually think it’s semantic.
Also, you don’t have to convince me of the rest of what you said. I don’t believe in any of this and, in my mind, all of it is an invention of Catholic writers. It makes no difference to me at all if people call themselves Christians because that means nothing to me. I only care how they act and whether those actions are charitable and kind. It’s no different to someone calling me a “sinner”. If God’s real, guess what? I’m a sinner. Until you prove he/she/they are real, though, it doesn’t matter to me even if whether or not I’m a sinner isn’t predicated on my belief in them.
I would concede that a self proclaimed Christians ought to act in a manner consistent with the teachings, but Christianity has a massive penitent-man-shaped hole in the rules for conduct. On top of that, there are literally thousands of sects that each have their own interpretation of what rules they must follow and which rules are optional. Many consider other sects of Christianity to be heretical. So who has the last word there? Who decides the rules for everyone else? The answer is that every Christian decides for themselves. And when they fall short (which is almost universally accepted across all variations that it will happen), a Christian need only ask forgiveness for their transgressions to rejoin the flock. Sometimes there’s a pennance, but that’s also built on the honor system. It’s not a situation that allows for outsiders to evaluate the soul of a believer.
Now, if you’re saying that many Christians are feigning faith, I would not have a hard time believing that, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest. Whoever is the final arbiter of the accuracy and sincerity of Christian bona fides, I know for absolute certainty that it ain’t me. I’m not going to tell someone who claims to be a Christian that their faith is insincere, or their beliefs are inaccurate to biblical proscription. For practical purposes, and mostly because it’s easiest for me to remember, anyone claiming to be a Christian is a Christian. Full stop.
If any Christians out there want to stake exclusive claim on the term, their beef is with the pretenders. They need to work it out and get back to me, because it’s not up to me to make those determinations.
Excommunication is a political tool. That’s why victims of priest sexual abuse are excommunicated for speaking out, while priests are rewarded and given a new church/batch of victims
That’s not correct in any way. The word “Christian” has a specific definition. If someone claims they’re a “Christian” but don’t believe in Jesus, then they’re not a Christian. They can’t be. If someone claims to be a “Catholic” but doesn’t “accept” Pope Francis as the legitimate Pope, they’re not a Catholic. I can claim to be a musician but, if I can’t play any instruments, I’m not.
Everyone knows words are stripped of their definitions on social media.
Yeah… if we used the definitions of social media, then the existence of trans people is a religious belief and wokeness is a religion. It’s the single stupidest chain of sentiment to come out since the belief in a flat earth.
That’s not true. There have been quite a number of schisms in the catholic church which resulted in a split on who people thought was the pope. The guy who doesn’t come out on top in that situation is called an antipope. Sometimes it was difficult to decide in history which person was the pope and which was antipope. There have been about 40 of them with the last being in the 15th century.
The Palmarian Church is a catholic splinter group that has an antipope.
Yes it is. Catholic dogma dictates that the Pope is the true representative of God and that he functions as the literal mouthpiece of God. Schisms might be true but, according to Catholicism, there can’t be a mistake when it comes to the Pope and what he says when speaking on doctrine. It’s called Papal Infallibility.
Accordingly, that means any schisms from Catholicism, by definition, aren’t Catholic because they break the promise Jesus made to Peter.
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility
That doesn’t change the fact that Palmerians consider themselves the one true catholic church and that they consider their members catholic. They would claim their anti-pope is the infallible one, not Pope Francis.
It doesn’t matter what they consider themselves, though. That’s the point. If the Pope is the mouthpiece of god and is infallible, then their sect (and by extension their anti-pope) cannot be Catholics since dogma and doctrine dictate that the actual Pope is infallible and beyond contestation.
If both churches consider themselves with infallible popes declaring gods will on earth, who is right? Do you see the dilemma? Neither can say that the other sect are true Catholics.
So if someone claims to be catholic but doesn’t accept Pope Francis that doesn’t make them not a catholic, it just means they don’t think Pope Francis is the legitimate pope. They would consider him an antipope and his statements ex cathedra are therefore fallible since they aren’t really statements ex cathedra in their minds.
This assumes that Catholic dogma is objectively true, and leans heavily on history being written by the victors.
No it doesn’t. It leans on Catholic dogma being defined by Catholics. Papal infallibility comes from Jesus’ promise to Peter that whoever leads the Church will always be guided by God. Since it comes directly from Jesus, the figurehead of Catholicism, the only “truth” that needs to be accepted is that Jesus + Pope (Peter) is Catholicism. There’s no question of truth or victory. The very foundation of the idea of Catholicism relies on the idea that the Pope is never wrong on issues of doctrine and dogma.
That’s fair. It still hinges on a belief claim only. Based on a person’s other actions, you can doubt that claim, but the singular authority for what a person actually believes is what that person claims to believe.
That’s only true if that claim is made in good faith. I can claim to be a Christian all I want but, if I don’t believe in god, then my claim isn’t coming from a place of good faith (literally). I can’t make the claim and that claim be true if I’ve twisted the definition of what I’m claiming in order to make that claim. If I claim to be vegan but I have redefined “vegan” to ignore the use of animal products and am only focused on eating animals and animal products, then I’m a liar rather than what you’re inferring which is that my claim is true because I believe it to be true. A “vegan” walking around in leather pants is not a vegan, regardless of what they believe or claim.
Whether someone is a “vegan” depends on behavior in ways that “Christian” doesn’t. Even so, being “vegan” - even when the person does not directly and knowingly consume animal products - completely ignores the fact that they are indirectly making use of animal products, because they depend on a society that currently uses animal products, and where that society got to the technological level it’s at through the use of animal products over many millenia.
And we’re back to No True Scotsman, adjusting the definition to fit the circumstances.
No it doesn’t. Being vegan doesn’t mean that you believe you’re not using or consuming animal products. It means you don’t consume animal products. Period. It’s why the Vegan Police came after Todd. The only person adjusting the definition to fit the circumstances is you. If a central tenet of being a vegan is that the very first vegan ever said that anyone who eats or uses an animal product can’t be vegan, then that person isn’t vegan whether they intended that or not. The Catholic Church is founded on the idea that the Pope is the mouthpiece of god. To say that any Pope chosen in the lineage of that church is “not the real pope” is blasphemy and, by definition, not Catholic.
Who decides who the “right” Pope is? You must certainly know that issues of succession (oh so topically) are often contested, and the Catholic Church is not immune to that.
You can if you sing.
The voice is still an instrument. Stop being a pedant.
You can play any instrument you like. Whether you’re “good at it” is a separate issue.
Sure… but if you don’t play at all, you’re not a musician no matter how much you believe it to be true.
As with “vegan”, “musician” depends on behavior in ways that “Christian” does not.
No, it does not. What ways does it depend on? You either follow the tenets and doctrine of the religion or you don’t. If your actions directly contradict the meaning of the word, then it doesn’t depend on anything. It’s a binary concept.
Using this weirdo logic to define whether or not a person is a Christian means that you have to know the entirety of actions of their whole life to see if they entirely followed the tenants and doctrine of the religion or not, because the instant they don’t they’re not a Christian.
Since only God would be capable of such knowledge, only God would be capable of labeling people Christian or not…so effectively nobody’s a Christian.
Seems wrong in an obvious and fundamental way (because it makes the categorizations all pointless), but hey whatever grips your gourd, friendo.
Webster isn’t any more of a dictator of truth than anyone else. There’s a reason why Socrates spent a lot of time debating definitions with people. They’re hard to actually get right.
But what if they also claim to believe in Jesus? How do you measure or test belief? How do you know what’s in the mind or soul of a person?
What if they attend Catholic mass? Hell, what if they’re a member of the priesthood?
Even this is a bad argument. Aren’t singers musicians? How about rappers?
All of this debate is really over whether or not something is no longer a thing if they’re not a high quality version of that thing. I think it’s a fairly shallow debate because a wobbly stool is still a stool. A shitty singer is still a musician. A broken chair is still a chair, and similarly just because someone’s a bad Christian doesn’t mean they’re not a Christian.
We’re not talking about the definition from Webster. We’re talking about the definition from Jesus that was given to Saint Peter, the very first Pope. The definition here is not in question because the idea was defined by the people who founded the religion.
You don’t have to. Being a Christian isn’t only predicated on believing in Jesus. If that was the case, then Satan is also a Christian because he’s personally met Jesus and, therefore, would be forced to “believe” in him. Luckily, Jesus himself supposedly stated and passed down what it means to be a Christian and those people supposedly wrote it down.
Also irrelevant. A priest who molests children cannot be a Christian whether they were inducted into the priesthood or whether they attend Mass because the very rules of the religion, as instructed by their figurehead, remove them from the group based on their actions. It’s repeated numerous times throughout the Bible that Christians will be known by their actions.
It’s not a bad argument, you just misunderstood it. The voice is an instrument.
No. Again, you’ve misunderstood the argument. If I started a religion today and I said that the only qualification of the religion is that people have to kiss me on the mouth, then it’s not possible for someone who has not kissed me on the mouth to be part of the religion. They can follow everything else I’ve said to the letter but, as long as they haven’t kissed me directly on the mouth, they cannot be a part of this particular religion because they are missing the central qualification. It’s not about whether someone is “good” or “bad” at doing something. It’s whether they’re doing that thing at all.
Ok then, so who is this person that can “claim to be a musician” but isn’t?
As for the rest of your load of gish gallop: the bible, like all other texts, is up for interpretation and has been re-interpreted many times with many different takeaways. It’s not even the original text, was translated multiple times, and there is no way we can be assured that the King James Bible (Taylor’s Version) is the real deal. Definitions from it aren’t more authoritative than Webster…they’re even less so.
Someone who doesn’t play any instrument, including singing. There are unending numbers of people who will tell you they’re not musicians because they don’t even try. Anyone who doesn’t try but tells you they’re a musician is a liar. That’s the point.
Nothing that I’ve said should have been overwhelming or inundating. My premise is incredibly simple. You just keep misunderstanding it repeatedly because it seems that you’re not even reading what’s being said.
We’re not talking about interpretation from the Bible. We’re talking about the definition used by Catholics that is part of their dogma and doctrine. We’re talking about quoting the (supposed) words of Jesus in places where there is no debate on the meaning. You can try to dismiss and downplay what I’ve said all you want but none of what I’ve said is inaccurate whereas your response is full of inaccuracies and misunderstandings.
Lol, so someone who wants to claim to be a musician but can’t even sing badly (or rap badly, because rappers are still musicians)? That’s who we’ve excluded? Wow, what a useful definition for musician. 🙄
Who is this person who wants to go around claiming musician creds and then can’t attempt a couple of bars?
Your argument just sucks dude, get over yourself.
EDIT: Thanks for the downvote!
And who is the arbiter of quality, and who draws the line in the sand?
I know this has all kind of devolved into a semantic argument, and a weird discussion about Popery, and I think at this point it’s worth reiterating my initial point: If someone claims to belong to a religion, they do. Whether that claim enables anyone to make predictions or judgments about a person’s other statements or actions is another question entirely.
I think this is 100% true for generic things like “Christianity”. When they’re more official organizations…still maybe, but if someone’s been excommunicated from something it makes sense to me from a practical standpoint that they no longer belong to that thing.
I claim to be Welsh, and you can’t tell me I’m not.
You’re not
I understand your point and generally agree, with an aside: The actual Nazis weren’t socialists, just because they added that to their faction’s official title.
It’s weird to me that you agree and yet have provided an excellent example disproving the entire point.
Because it’s an immature understanding of life to vote anything as black and white. Life is full color, and a bazillion shades of gray, besides. Grow up.
No one is “voting” anything as black and white, especially with regard to a question from an objective claim. If the claim is that someone is something simply because they tell you they are and you’ve disproved the claim with your example then the claim is objectively false.
Maybe you should stop telling people to grow up until you’ve done so first. In the words of Jesus, take the log out of your eye first.
Do you feel clever? Nuance exists and so do incorrect autocorrects. As far as removing the beam: take your own advice.
I wasn’t trying to be clever. How could I know that was an auto-correct? Also, I’m not a Christian. What do I care about the advice?
It is similar to me calling myself Afro-American (I’m not). No one can stop me, but does it mean anything at that point?
“No True Scotsman” is when you attempt to protect your generalized statement by placing counterexamples outside the bounds of the statement. But in the case of Christianity, people who don’t love are self-selecting out of that group by the words of the founder himself, who said “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
I’m not saying they aren’t a Christian, and the OP isn’t saying that either. The person who is hateful is saying that they aren’t a Christian, as surely as a person who kicks puppies for fun is saying that they aren’t a dog lover. They could swear up and down later that they can’t be a puppy kicker because they’re a dog lover, but the fact that they’re kicking puppies self-selects them out of that group.
Incidentally, the wording of the fallacy here is an important point to observe. The qualifications for being a Scotsman are that someone is geographically or genetically connected to Scotland; and while there are fiddly gray areas at the edges, no one can say that you’re not a Scotsman because of a thing you do because the qualification is a connection to a place.
But the qualifications for being a Christian are explicitly a thing you do. Well, a thing you do and a thing you believe, but those two things are inherently linked by the fact that the object of belief (Jesus) commands the action (love).
Incorrect. Anyone who says they are a Christian is a Christian, at least in Protestantism. You don’t have to do good works or anything of the kind to be a Christian. You just have to admit that you are a sinner, profess to regret those sins, and “accept Jesus into your heart”. That’s it.
In theory, accepting Jesus into your heart is supposed to improve your behavior, but it isn’t a requirement (obviously, with all of those rapey priests!!). As I’m sure you know, you can be the worst kind of sinner all of your life, but as long as you accept Jesus and confess your sins to Him before you die, you’re all good!
Ah Christianity…the ultimate get-out-of-hell-free card, and no one can gain-say you. It is just between you and your Saviour. It is just so darn convenient, like a drive-thru. No wonder it is so popular.
No. Anyone who believes in and follows Jesus is Christian; we just usually only have someone’s word to go by.
True, but a lack of love and good works proves that the repentance was a sham. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit.” Seasons of rebellion and momentary mistakes happen, but if a person’s life is marked by constant, unrestrained evil, they’re showing a lack of fruit that probably means they aren’t repentant.
Yeah, that’s not Christianity. Not historically speaking, at least. It’s a shockingly new development and almost entirely centered on American individualism, and Christians from longer ago than the 1700s wouldn’t recognize any of that. Scripturally and historically, Christianity requires belief and repentance; which look, superficially and in the moment, like admitting you’re a sinner and accepting Jesus into your heart, but prove themselves to be something different over time.
Actually, it is. The writer of Hebrews says (13:12) equates sanctification with salvation. Historically, believing that one can happen without the other is just a bizarre idea because they were considered synonymous.
Indeed, they aren’t repentant, and are thus not Christians.
Again, historically and theologically, this is unrecognizable as Christianity.
In America, at least. But the Church has, throughout the ages, excommunicated people for being horrible and “showing their faith to be a shipwreck.” We hear about unrepentant, non-Christian people (particularly among the puritans) who used excommunication as a weapon against those they didn’t like (particularly women), but it has been used correctly throughout history as well; to get the wolves away from the sheep.
Individualism is popular now, to our great shame, but a community of faith urging one another toward sanctification is in the Bible, in the early church, and in the continuing line of Christianity throughout history.
Incidentally, the “drive-thru” analogy is pretty close to what Luther was “protesting” against in the first place. I think there’s another Reformation coming, and this one is going to be about the people who value and respect and love breaking away from the people who don’t.
This a pointless distinction. You have no knowledge of the true nature of the relationship between a person and their Savior. So, on this mortal plane you only have someone’s word. I, therefore, return to my point that anyone who claims to be Christian is a Christian, as far as any mortal being knows. I though the latter clarification was fairly obvious since I’m presumably talking to another human.
See, now there’s the rub. How do you know the priests aren’t repentant? Even if they’ve committed hundreds rapes, they may still ask and receive the forgiveness of Jesus. The Bible does not define how many times you can commit the same sin and ask for forgiveness before Jesus doesn’t believe you anymore. The flesh is weak, but Jesus is forgiving.
The way religious communities have dealt with this epistemological problem of not being able to peer into someone’s heart is by distinguishing between what is acceptable in the community vs. what may be acceptable to God. The community judged their body and left God to judge their soul. Death-bed conversions were and are absolutely acceptable in Christianity and always have been. Indeed, torturing someone until they confess was common practice back in the day, partly because they believed in truth through duress, but also because it was a chance for a Christian to rescue his soul before death. Hate the sin, not the sinner. The sinner’s soul can always be saved right up to their last breath.
I think your grasp of what Christianity actually is may be contaminated by what you want it to be. But even what you want it to be contains the seeds of its own destruction. It is not logically consistent to say that Christianity is based on a personal relationship with God, while at the same time taking it upon yourself to judge who is a “real” Christian.
Luther tried that when the Catholic Church abused its authority and here we are again. Except this time we can’t point to a single authoritarian Catholic Church, but have to deal with a massive de-centralized super-community of corrupt churches. Luther wounded the big Dragon, but replaced it with a Hydra that keeps growing new heads, each one claiming to be the “real” Christians!
You know based upon how they act. If a person says they’re an avid hiker, but after observing them for a decade you never see them hiking, you know their statement was false. If you ask them after that decade and they still profess that they’re an avid hiker, you know they’re lying. This is what Jesus meant by “they’ll know you’re my disciples if you love one another.”
Because true repentance brings with it a change in behavior. “Slipping up” once or twice with something
minor(edit: oh geez, that’s…a very poor choice of words. How about “something inconsequential”) is one thing. But big abuses, and patterns of abuse over decades, and efforts to hide or dismiss it once it comes to light shows a lack of repentance. This is what Jesus meant by “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” He’s speaking there specifically about false teachers seeking to harm others.Certainly, they could ask for and receive the forgiveness of Jesus. But by continuing in a pattern of sinful behavior, they prove that they have not, even if they claim to have done so.
No, but Jesus does know the human heart, and will not be fooled by people trying to exploit apparent loopholes to look holy without actually pursuing sanctification. “You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence,” Jesus said. Or John the Baptist, who told the same corrupt religious leaders to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” So the Bible doesn’t give a limit because there’s a judge on the matter with perfect understanding.
Sure, but if they believe God is that easily fooled by someone who knowingly waits until the last possible instant to “convert” so that they can sin during their lives, why would they believe even then? We’re not talking about some impersonal magic rules or an easily-befuddled genie, we’re talking about an intimate and infinite God who created the universe and knows your heart better than you do; and if you’re just checking the box at the end of your life in hopes of avoiding the flames, there’s no way it’s true repentance.
Yeah, inquisition is a terrible, dark, vile, truly despicable chapter in the church’s history. And while I think there may have been a few who were hoodwinked into believing that, the people who were teaching it had to have known that it was bunk.
I mean, I’m just reading the founding document, through the lens of the majority of Christians over the course of history and around the world. What it’s become in America in the past century or so flies in the face of what it has always been, and what it was intended to be.
I don’t say that. The “personal relationship” thing is just not in the Bible. That’s a recent addition to satisfy the independent American, (edit: reintroduced from an ancient heresy called gnosticism) and nobody would’ve recognized that faith before American evangelicals
invented(edit: rediscovered) it. Christianity was always intended to be–and has historically been–practiced in community, with people in one another’s lives so that they can see sin in one another and exhort one another toward sanctification.Once again, I am not making that judgment. The unrepentant person does not bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and thus it becomes obvious over time that they have not repented.
And to be clear here: I am not talking about a teenage girl who gets pregnant before she’s married. I’m talking about Fortune 500 CEOs who gleefully fleece their customers and their employees from Monday through Saturday, then show up at church on Sunday in some pretense of piety. I’m talking about police officers who worship next to Black men on Sunday morning and then have them in a chokehold on the curb on Friday night. I’m talking about politicians who claim that they’ve never needed to repent in their lives and that their favorite book of the Bible is “Two Corinthians,” and who tear-gas people protesting the murder of Image-Bearers so that they can have a photo op with a Bible that’s never been opened.
They’re all bearing unrepentant fruit, and I think it’s important to recognize them as such.
Indeed. I don’t remember if you’re the one I mentioned this to, but I think there’s another Reformation coming. I hope so, at least.
Yes, agreed. The Second Reformation is going to be a long road to travel indeed. If there is any comfort, it is that there are many more Luthers this time. (And hopefully they’re less antisemitic.)
Re: the personal relationship with God thing
It’s not exactly a new thing, read up on Christian Gnosticism, that goes back to when what we know as the Bible was being constructed. Largely I agree with your points though. I’d write more but I’m on break at work right now, sorry.
Ah! Fair point about gnosticism, though I think most Christians throughout history would consider that a heresy. But you’re right, that does precede American individualistic Jesus-fandom by many centuries. Good point.
Okay, I didn’t realize that was a more recent phenomenon. I did a quick lookup and it seems that this “personal relationship” thing started during the Enlightenment. And, as you say, some people argue that the “accept Jesus into your heart” thing really got going with American evangelical grifter-preachers like Billy Graham. I will read some more. Thanks for the tip.
I’m not sure if that Second Reformation you speak of will ever happen. Christianity has lost almost all credibility. Something less fraught with horrible historical baggage will have to take its place. Christianity is pre-scientific. Luther and the Protestants were able to shed their brand of Christianity of its Roman imperial trappings, which was due, but half of Christians are still Catholic. But even Luther is pre-scientific. Educated people just aren’t going to go back to believing in some invisible sky daddy. I mean, come on, an all-powerful, invisible, father figure who delivers justice to the oppressed (but only in the NEXT life) and who loves you no matter what? It is too obviously a wishful construct of childish human consciousness. And some Middle Eastern dude whose death saved all of humanity and who said he’s coming back any time now, but that was 2000 years ago? It’s too much. We know too much now to read the Bible as though it is literally true. We’ve moved on. Something more believable will have to take its place.
Also, Protestantism is currently associated with American evangelical right wing nutters. Besides the church scandals, the politicization of Christianity, including the attacks on women’s rights, homosexuality, the book banning, the stacking of SCOTUS with Christian zealots who only seem to want to restrict rights, and the election of a Christian Nationalist to the Speaker role are not putting Christianity in a good light. If anything, the crazy moralistic and hypocritical side of Christianity seems to be taking centre stage. Western populations outside of the US are rejecting Christianity in droves and that rejection is particularly pronounced among young people. If Trump and the Christian anti-science right-wingers take office again, it might well be the final nail in the coffin for religion in most of the West.
Many of the poor countries of the global South are still pretty Christian, but their version of Christianity is very, very conservative. And by “conservative”, I mean the “let’s burn all the gays” type of conservative. Extremist Muslims and Jews massacring each other in the Middle East, and Modi with his Hindu Nationalism, just make the societal mood toward religion worse, leading many to believe that ALL religion is inherently harmful.
Honestly, rather than the Second Reformation you speak of, I think we are more likely see further bans on religious expression in public life, and possibly some form of state protection for children to prevent them from being religiously indoctrinated. If all the “reasonable” people leave religion behind, only the extremists will be left, which will further convince the population that religion is harmful. It seems like Christianity has entered that downward spiral.
Yeah, for sure. Someone else pointed out that it’s also a repackaging of an ancient and widely-discredited heresy called Gnosticism, so perhaps “recent” is an overstatement; but for the vast majority of Christian history, it has not been considered orthodox.
I don’t disagree, though I might clarify that Christianity has lost almost all credibility in the West due to the association with people who claim the name but have nothing to do with its tenets.
I don’t think that necessarily matches up with the data. Globally, Christians have on average the same amount or more schooling than non-Christians. The association of anti-intellectualism with Christians is also a recent American phenomenon, the Dark Ages excepted.
Yeah, I agree, it’s unusual. But if it was completely explainable, if it matched all of our expectations and experiences, it wouldn’t be divine. A transcendent God would have to do things and know things we don’t expect or understand, or we would be his equal.
I have to be honest, if I were trying to imagine and craft a religion for myself, it would be a lot heavier on me always getting what I want and a lot lower on the self-sacrifice. (/s, but only a little bit)
Honestly, and I legitimately just realized this, it would look a lot more like the false faith that people like Johnson believe in.
Yep. They are. For those of us who try not to be in that camp, it’s very frustrating. But I think they are honestly the loud minority.
This has been oft-prophesied. I will say that, if this anti-science right-wing nonsense masquerading as Christianity dies, what small remnant of Christians might continue on will be much healthier with their absence.
I would hope people are able to see the difference between religion and extremism. Not that extremists make that easy.
In any occasion where religion is suppressed or banned, it flourishes underground. This is well-attested historically, not merely for Christians; and can be seen even today in places like China.
Perhaps. I think the premise is unfounded, but in any case it doesn’t change my plan. All the bad feelings and negative thoughts about Christianity are meaningless if it’s true, and I believe it is; so I’ll just keep on trying to be as loving and helpful as I can.
The qualification for being a Christian is that you believe in Christ. That is literally it. You can be the worst person ever and be a Christian.
In fact, most Christians believe that everyone is a sinner, so being horrible is basically expected and accepted. You just need to repent eventually.
No, the qualification for being a Christian is that you follow Christ. The Biblical writer James actually addresses this very thing ad absurdum by showing that, if the qualification is only to believe in Jesus, even the demons are Christians. Repentance is the first act of selecting into the group of “Christian.”
No, you can have been the worst person ever and be a Christian. Repentance begins the journey and remains a constant throughout; as Martin Luther said in the first of his 95 Theses, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”
I’m so sorry that you’ve been given such a twisted view of this, though I totally understand why (I’ve seen this argument being made, particularly about Trump in 2016). Being horrible is explicitly not expected or accepted; Jesus himself causes people who claim faith but do awful things “vipers” and weaves a whip to use on them to prove he’s serious. The biblical writer Paul asks rhetorically, “shall I continue sinning so that grace may abound? God forbid!” And theologian after theologian for 2,000 years has said the same. If you’re gleefully continuing in being horrible, you’re proving that you aren’t a Christian; and Christians since the first century have affirmed that definition of the faith.
Finally… someone who knows what the fuck they’re talking about around here. It’s so refreshing to see someone who is actually familiar with the texts in question and the historicity of these claims.
It’s people like you that keep me wading through all this sewage and garbage.
I appreciate your kind words.
No, being horrible is not expected or accepted. The Puritans (read: Evangelicals) like to interpret it that way, and in fact they do that because it absolves them of personal responsibility. “Well, I don’t do that one really terrible thing, therefore I can feel secure and not worry about my behavior.”
In reality, sin just means error, imperfection. It’s an acknowledgement that no human can be perfect the way that God is perfect, no matter what. The correct response to this should be ongoing self-evaluation, humility, and caution against slipping into the many easy faults of humanity. We should all be repenting constantly because obviously we make mistakes all the time, and all we can do is keep trying to be better, do better. This is what you find in classical literature like Thomas Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ.
If you see someone (and I know this is common) running around claiming absolute security in their righteousness with God, then you’re seeing a person who is quite literally actively sinning.
The knock on effect of this whole situation is that Christians who don’t believe they know all and speak for God (another sin: taking the Lord’s name in vain) don’t get public attention because we don’t run around shouting at people about our religious beliefs.
Does the scriptures speak towards why God is perfect, and why we’re imperfect?
Specifically, if we’re made in God’s image, then doesn’t that mean God is not perfect either, or that we were purposely made imperfectly?
This is a close cousin to the problem of pain. Many smarter people than I have debated both around and around for centuries, and come no nearer an answer than when they started. The Bible gives us a how, and a who, but not a why. Honestly I wish there was more, but alas.
A well written response, thank you.
Thank you. I wish I had more, but I won’t pretend like I have answers I don’t.
And who created this definition that you’re referencing? You speak as if it’s the authority on what is and isn’t Christian.
I’m not debating. Just sharing what I’ve been taught.
Ah, well, you were taught that by non-christians.
Kempis is a very storied and well-respected theologian from right before the Reformation. He’s looked upon fondly by the Anglicans, Methodists, and Jesuits alike. He’s about as Christian as they come, and the fruit of his belief is abundant.
Thomas Kempis is very much Christian. There are a variety of Christian authors in this vein. Modern American Evangelicalism doesn’t comprise the entirety of religious thinking.
A rare, great explanation of NTS!
Thank you.
Technically, yes. It’s a fallacy to call all of the hateful christians “not real”. Since there’s just so many that identify and are identified as christians that are hateful, it’s mostly an academic distinction.
It IS interesting that so many christains don’t follow their own faith. For it is true that to be an overtly hatefuly or bigoted person is to ignore the core teachings of christianity.
And yet the history of Christianity is filled with hatred, and bloodshed. It’s almost like the “core teachings” are a smoke screen for the accumulation and abuse of power.
Also fun is technically, while it is a fallacy in the general sense, in the Christian religion they actually talk about false Christians as part of Christianity. So in a general sense it is a fallacy, but by its own rules they can be called as such and technically isn’t a fallacy. False prophets, pharisees, antichrist and whatnot.
I think the people downvoting you might not be familiar with the “No true Scotsman” fallacy.
No, they are familiar with it. He just used it wrong. The idea of the entire fallacy is that there can’t be qualifications to being a “true” Scotsman because the definition of a Scotsman is simply “someone who was born in Scotland”.
Funny, I don’t see any. But yeah, that’s what I was driving at.
So you’re saying there’s a Nougat of truth there
No True Nougat