Christians, your feelings about obvious sinners believing they'll go to heaven?

Great Debates
1

Inspired by this thread about hell.

If Hell exists, some people must qualify to go there, right? Take you instance gangsta-in-the-hood for instance. He grows up; he kills; he sells, and abuses drugs; abuses women and fathers a few kids, badly. Then he gets unlucky and ends up getting shot himself. He dies.
So his family grieve and the undertaker lays him out in a pretty suit and a priest talks at his funeral.

How come no-one, ever, at such gatherings, gatherings that are otherwise big on the religious talk, states it as an obvious truth that the guy who died is a sinner, and by their very own beliefs, can be nowhere other then burning Hell?

2

I’ll just give you my 2 cents. Funerals are for the living. They exist to comfort the deceased’s surviving friends and family and to provide some form of closure so that the grieving can move forward.

That’s why you hear things like “Tupac is with God now.” Because the grieving want to know that their loved one has gone on to a higher purpose or a better place. Also if Aunt Betsy thinks she’s going to heaven, she might be pretty upset if the preacher told her that gangbanging Uncle Ernest is pushing a stone up a hill for all eternity.

It’s all about comforting the living.

  • Peter Wiggen
3

On reflection - I provided my pragmatic and personal view.

It seems that you might be looking for either (a) something akin to a guiding Biblical interpretation or teaching or (b) a concession that Christians are somewhat hypocritical in their application of their beliefs. If the former is the case - and you are looking for an operative doctrinal statement on the matter for Christians, afraid I can’t help you there. If you are looking for the latter, take it to GD. They’ll hook you up in there. :wink:

Also - I didn’t mean to disparage Tupac in my last post. Of course, he’s going to heaven. Biggie’s going to hell. WESTSIDE!

  • Peter Wiggen
4

Well, Peter, it’s a bit of both. My feeling is b) Christians are somewhat hypocritical in their application of their beliefs. But what I’m curious about is HOW the grieving manage to convince themselves that Tupac’s in heaven. It seems to require a negation of everything they’ve ever been taught in Sunday school.

I’m always interested in peoples rationalizations. They’re a dead give-away, and am excellent advance warning system, for real, everyday evil acts about to happen.

And I have no problem whatsoever dissing Tupac. :slight_smile:

5

Because most strains of Christians believe that no-one is automatically excluded from the love of God, and also that no-one can know for sure if the deceased was in a state of grace - that’s God’s call, not ours.

S. Paul summarised it in Romans 8:

I think that even those Christians who believe in predestination would not presume to judge whether a deceased was among the elect.

6

To echo what Northern Piper said, most Christians don’t feel they know the actions of God better than God himself. I could kill a man on Monday and die on Friday and still end up in heaven under the beliefs held by just about every major Christian denomination out there.

So I’m guessing they just assume the best to put a good face on things. A gang-banger isn’t necessarily condemned to hell just because he lived a “bad life.” That isn’t what Christianity is about, redemption is there for everyone, no matter how bad their life was or how heinous their acts.

7

Let us note that the moment some one DOES locate the deceased in Hell, there will definitely be a Pit thread opened!

8

Man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart.

No-one knows absoutely 100% what is going on in the mind of another or where exactly they are in their spiritual journey at any time. It’s silly to pretend otherwise.

So, we comfort the family, hope for the best and put it in God’s hands, because we don’t actually know.

9

As others have stated, only God knows the state of a person’s heart, and the funeral is not for the dead guy.

Speaking as a pastor-in-training, my job after the death is to help the family and friends come to terms with the loss of a loved one. This is not done by pointing out the fact that the dead guy was a gang-banger who killed a whole lot of people.

On the other hand, if I encounter this person while they are still alive, and they call themselves a Christian while running around killing people and doing drugs, I am going to call them on it. They need to know that if they are truly a Christian, while they won’t be perfect, they need to strive towards perfection, with the help of God. This can’t be done by running around doing something that is plainly prohibited in the Bible such as killing people.

My $.02.

Andrew

10

Along with what everyone else has said (that we really don’t know who’s going to heaven and who isn’t), my other guess is that you haven’t attended the “right” funerals.

In the not-as-distant-as-we’d-like past, people who were assumed hellbound weren’t buried in the same way, in the same places, or by the same people as those whose eternal destination was considered to be less questionable. If there were words spoken over them, they would be of the “don’t be like John, because he’s in the fires of hell right now.” In some places, that speech still happens at funerals. There are some pastors who see everything as an altar call.

Also various churches (and church leaders) have rules (or personal limitations) as to whom they will bury.

In other words, your premise is flawed.

11

amarinth, you’re correct. I’m Dutch, and seldom attend American gangsta burials. :slight_smile:
The image of the “glorious gangsta burial” I get from TV.
I’m sure there are other burials where more of an “altar call” is made and the deceased’s life is held up as an example not to follow.
But I wonder, how common is that? Applied to murderers? From the answers, I get the feeling that the non-judgmental school of burial speeches is far more common.

Well, my question has been answered, and fairly unanimously at that. Thank you. Personally, I don’t like the answer, but that is another matter.

As Captain Oblivious points out, a priest has to choose between comforting the family and making a moral stand, an “altar call” if I may call it so. On the one hand, there’s society, and society feels better if Tupac gets his just rewards.

On the other hand there’s the family, and they want to be comforted. I can understand that a priest wouldn’t want to make Tupacs momma suffer any more then the poor woman already does. But then again, how many of Tupac’s ten-year old nephews attend the glorious funeral and want to grow up and be just like him, as a result ? Aren’t they family, too?
IMHO, the priest could do some important work here,. Suppose he said: “We don’t know if Tupac was one of the chosen ones, if he was in a state of grace. Personally, I doubt it. Drive-by shooting is not an indication of being an elect. But God is the only one in the know. So, if Tupac IS a chosen one, he’s sipping tea with God as we speak. If Tupac is not a chosen one, God is probably giving him a good thrashing with the Divine Belt for the next century, after which he will be forgiven and allowed to sip tea with God at long last.”

Wouldn’t a speech like that sooth Tupac’s momma, warn off his nephews, AND make society feel somewhat better? All at the same time?

One last question:
If a priest or pastor says: “Tupac is with God”; will the congregation understand that as:
a. “Tupac is enjoying Heaven” or
b. “Tupac is in God’s hand to be dealt with as God sees fit, and that includes being judged and severly punished?”

12

In H.G. Wells’ novel In the Days of the Comet, the protagonist’s mom says at one point that she believes in a Hell, but not that anyone would actually go there. In other words, she was a closet Universalist, unable to believe in a God that would really condemn people to eternal punishment for temporal offenses. I suspect a lot of people are, or would be, if pressed.

13

Okay, well, a few people have mentioned this sidelong… I’ll try to pound it on the head.

Haven’t been to church in a while myself, but when I did, nobody said, or believed, “there are sinners, and there are non-sinners. Sinners go to hell, non-sinners go to heaven.”

More like “We’re all sinners. Most of us are really bad sinners. If God was only just, we’d ALL be going to Hell. But God is infinitely merciful as well, and capable of forgiving the worst of sins, if we ask for that forgiveness out of love for him, and a desire to improve ourselves” (etcetera etcetera, this is the same stuff as other posters were talking about as ‘being in a state of grace’.)

So, I do think you’re the one who’s misunderstanding christian beliefs and ‘religious talk’

14

Two points, just repeating what others have said already.

All Christian churches that I’m familiar with teach that we’re all “obvious sinners”, that we all deserve to go to Hell - any sin, great or small, is enough to make us unworthy of salvation. However, God is merciful as well as just, and Jesus’ sacrifice means that all our sins, no matter how great, can be forgiven. The conditions in which our sins will be forgiven, unfortunately, is a matter of considerable debate - which leads to my second point:

Matthew 7:1. “Judge not, that ye be not judged”. We’re not in a position to say that anyone, no matter how wicked or virtuous they’ve been by human standards, is definitely damned or definitely saved. A priest who says otherwise isn’t following the teachings of Jesus.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that a particular church is obliged to give everyone a funeral service, just as they’re not obliged to marry everyone. Someone who has not lived as part of the Christian community shouldn’t, in my opinion, be automatically entitled to be buried among them - after all, they probably wouldn’t want to be in the first place. However, this doesn’t, or shouldn’t, at least, have any bearing on the question of their salvation. That’s just between them and God, nobody else is involved.

15

Okay. I think I get it. The worst murderer may be part of Gods bigger plan. Or, God may feel that the murderer did repent, and did try to be good, in his own limited way of understanding. For instance, a boy from the hood may murder to become a respected gangmember, out of a fear that if he doesn’t his family will have no life.

So, both the sinners intention and Gods intention count more heavy then the acts we see (and suffer from, as a society).

Right?

16

Would that mean that true Christians oppose a penal system with judges and jurys and prisons?

17

do believers not try and lead their lives acording to the the rules they are taught at church because of the end reward of heaven?

if the answers yes then surely the suggestions in this thread show that they are doing so needlessly as your actions on earth do not necesarily translate into your reward/punishment in death.

if the answers no then err… my query is kind of meaningless, beyond suggesting i dont have enough faith in mankinds natural goodness :stuck_out_tongue:

18

Something like that, yes.

IIRC, most churches do teach that christ’s forgiveness does not work as a ‘get out of hell free’ card, enabling anyone to keep sinning freely. The way I remember this as being put is that if you have come to know god’s love, and love him in return, you will WANT to transform your life to make it worthy of him, and thus, fight against sin.

But yes, no-one knows exactly what was going on in that gang members heart, or what temptations (both inborn and circumstantial) might have led him to continue living a violent and brutal life.
Mordib: I think what I said applies to your questions as well. Human beings are not judged by god on their actions, but believers are encouraged to do good works altruistically… as a way of expressing love for their fellow man and to keep others from experiencing suffering.

Disclaimer: I’m agnostic myself, but had an evangelical upbringing and believe I’m competent to explain some of the basics of protestant theology. :smiley:

19

A tricky one. Many groups of Christians over the centuries have denied and opposed the secular authorities, and claimed that their own codes of morality place them above any human law - the Cathars are probably the best-known example.

However, Matthew 7:2 goes on: “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shal be measured to you again.” That’s not too bad a code to live by if we’re only facing human justice - it’s when we face God’s justice that it becomes worrying. There are also various passages (Matthew 22:21 - “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s” - comes immediately to mind) which support the idea that Christians should live in accordance with secular law.

This, as I understand it, is one of the major differences between Catholicism and Protestantism - although I’m sure that one of our Catholic members will correct me if I’m wrong. However, from a Protestant perspective, you’re right - our “actions on earth” are entirely irrelevant to our eternal destiny. Protestants don’t attempt to live good lives to increase our rewards in Heaven, or our chance of getting there - being virtuous is pleasing to God and makes the world a better place, so that’s our motivation for it, but it doesn’t affect our ultimate salvation or damnation.

I believe (although I may be, and probably am, wrong) that the Catholic view of this issue is that, although good works on their own aren’t sufficient for salvation, doing good does reduce your time in Purgatory, or otherwise make the afterlife less unpleasant than it would be for a (repentant) sinner who had spent most of his life doing evil.

I would say that any faith in mankind’s “natural goodness” is too much. :slight_smile: Mankind’s natural evil is far easier to believe in, as a brief survey of history and the world around us should confirm.

20

Chrisk, thanks for the clarification.

I’d like to ask again, to any Christians dropping in, my question upthread: