However, I suppose…why do I feel the need to go onto Christian boards sometimes, and point out their hypocrisy?
Why do I constantly tell myself I’ll bite my tongue-and not do it?
Why do I feel the need to constantly contradict and argue?
Maybe this should be in the Pit…but I have a theory. Octavia and I were talking about this in e-mail last night.
Some people, it seems, are only Christians because they want to be “Saved.” They believe, that they have to do everything it takes to avoid Hell and go to Heaven.
And the more I think about this, the more I find it wrong.
If you’re only believing in Christianity, out of a fear of Hell, how is that helping God? It means you’re only motivated by selfish desires?
But shouldn’t we believe in God, or do what is right-because it is the right thing to do?
Do you see what I mean? They confuse fear and respect.
Also, why are so many ignoring the need for social justice, and the Christian duty to help the unfortunate?
I keep hearing about Patriarchy, and being a “Titus 2 Lady”…but no mention of the gospels, or do unto others, etc.
Of course you feel lost. We are lost. It’s a dark and stormy night, the boat is leaking, the oars are lost, and everyone is paddling frantically in a different direction.
Look around inside your heart, and find the part that you know is Christlike. That is where you want to go. If you can’t find one, then make one. Faith, hope and love, dear one. Those are the things that last. You build hope with little blocks of Love, until it shelters you. Then you have faith that it will last through eternity.
But you can’t steer the whole fleet. I know it hurts that it is so, but steering their own boat is what people do. You do have a calling to live your life as an example to others. That is a tough one, too. And every now and then you will hear people speaking hatred in His name, and telling lies. Then you must object. But you must not insist that you are right, only that Christ alone is the Judge, and we are one and all sinners, and one and all beloved of Christ.
Have faith sister, it is in His strong hands that we are held. And our vanities will fade before our own laughter in the day that He returns.
I don’t know what Titus 2 Lady is, but it sounds bad.
The older I get, the more organized religion creeps me out. Despite my parents’ religiousity, growing up I was always trying to wiggle out of going to church. It wasn’t that I wasn’t a believer. I just didn’t like being sucked into meaningless, man-made rituals and being bopped on the head every Sunday morning with a whole new list of “thou shall not dos”, “thou shall not feels”, and “thou shall not thinks”. Especially the “thou shall not thinks”.
Right now, I practice my Christianity outside of church. My mother disapproves–I know–but I don’t care. Maybe one day I’ll find a church that doesn’t make me feel ooky, but I have to admit I haven’t been looking too hard.
I find this strange too. I could never get with the whole worrying about Hell thing, and Heaven–IMHO–isn’t something you should be working towards either. I’ve come to believe that it should be Christians’ responsibilities to bring the Kingdom of God here on Earth–right now–not trying to wait for it to come in the afterlife. I firmly believe that if we were to do all the things Jesus told us to do, we wouldn’t have to even think about Heaven because we’d be already living in it.
Because so many of us are not Christian. We may think we are, but we aren’t.
I include myself in this because I think I am unworthy of calling myself a Christian. I believe in Christ and try to be “good”, not bad. But I think I fall very very short of being truly Christ-like, which I think “Christian” stands for. I think a lot of people are like me, but they just don’t realize it.
You ask, “how is that helping God?” How does God need our help? This is in no way a cynical or sarcastic comment, I’m really curious. Is it a “help doing His will on Earth” kind of thing?
Oh, and monstro,
I would disagree with your last paragraph, unless you feel you truly are an evil person (I don’t know you, but I assume that’s not the case). No one can be Christ. Anybody will pale in comparison to divinity, so don’t beat yourself over the head too much. Christ didn’t teach people to be Christians, he taught them to act in a way that was divine and right. What you call yourself matters only to people who want to impose their own power over your actions. It certainly doesn’t matter to God.
In a related vein, am I the only person who finds it odd that devout Christians will often refer to themselves as “God-fearing” Christians? Doesn’t that phrase imply that it’s fear which keeps them in line, more than devotion or love?
You know rjung as many times as I’ve heard the phrase “God-fearing Christians,” I never really thought about what that meant. I guess from hearing it so many times my brain just defined it as “God-following.” I guess I wasn’t raised with enough fear of God for that to make literal sense to me.
From the Talmud-
“Do not put a stumbling block before the blind man, the widow, or the orphan but fear God.”
In other words, we should do what’s right and serve God out of love. But for those times when that doesn’t motivate us, we should fear punishment. Again comparing God to our parents is useful. Ideally, we should do what our folks tell us because we are good kids and want our parents to be happy. But some times, the urge to sneak cookies our shave Sis’s head can be very tempting. At those times, the fear of punishment can be a great incentive to follow the rules.
Consider all the things you have feared. Consider all the things you have respect for. There are obviously things in one list that are not in the other. But, is there any overlap?
“God-fearing,” as far as I’ve ever heard, is a very old term that has more connotations of awe, respect, and so on than knee-shivering fear. That’s how I’ve always heard it used, anyhow. (OTOH, what do angels always say when they show up? “Fear not!” Which implies that meeting a heavenly being face-to-face unexpectedly might be a tad startling.)
Guin, as a Christian, I agree with your ideas. No, we shouldn’t be Christians out of fear of Hell. Yes, we should be working to relieve poverty (is there any better thing to say about a society than “and there were no poor among them?”). Yes, the gospels themselves are more worthy of discussion and ponderment than the latest fad of patriarchy or the Rapture or whatever. Maybe the problem you’re running into is that people who like to threaten Hell and their version of patriarchy are more vocal than the ones who are busy relieving the poor and oppressed. There is a lot of wonderful work going on out there–but it’s not talked about as much as the more colorful and infuriating stuff.
I’ve never had that much of a problem with the use of “fear” as in “God-fearing,” even when my shoulder-chippage was at its most adamantine. “I’m not God-fearing, I’m God-loving,” tends to be (this entire sentence will come out sounding far more harsh than it’s intended to be, by the by) the kind of thing Ann Landers will say–semantic shallowness, bordering perilously close to unnecessarily snide and self-petard-hoisting. The sort of thing that I would suspect that long-haired radical Jewish fellow would have sighed at and had a few well-chosen words over.
It’s not “fear” as in, I have fear of finding out tomorrow that the India-Pakistan border is now physically defined by a string of radiactive craters–it’s simply not meant that way. By way of parallel: “Abashed the devil stood, and felt how awful goodness is.” It’s not “awful” as in “something disgusting to be retreated from”–the word used that way simply doesn’t mean that. Love is awful. Mystical experience is awful. It reaches into your heart and can shatter everything you think you know about yourself in a single instant, and that is awful–it is something that inspires fear. Again, not fear as in “help! go away!” but fear as in…what it is.
Fight their politics, fight their actions, refute their formulations and narratives, definitely. But getting hung up on (and haranguing) for what’s actually a well-established use of a term is probably going to be about the most unproductive tactic one could take in that fight. There are better swords.
I don’t think it’s possible to believe something just because you are frightened of the alternative, but I may be wrong. I don’t think God is particularly in need of our help in any case.
**I think so; personally, my belief started when I awoke to the stunned realisation that there was a real God who was interested in me. (i.e. it is rooted in God’s reality, not Hell’s)
If you’ve never spent much time in fundamentalist, evangelical church, then it’s easy to say they are using the third definition of fear. Having been raised in a Pentecosal church; having heard the preacher rail about SIN and bringing down the hellfire and brimstone; seen the finger wagging; having heard about the horrors of the worm that dies not and the fire that is not quenched, I will testify that that old-fashioned, trembling, terror stricken fear is indeed used mightily by this brand of Christian. And it’s not healthy.
