# Christian churchgoers: what is your church's position on the Apostle Thomas? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 30, 2011, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570 "2011-03-30T22:15:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570/21 "2011-03-31T19:56:57Z")
In my church, when I was confirmed, our minister told us that the apostles were all sinners. He described each of them as beloved children of our Lord, who fell short of perfection. Thomas wasn’t particularly singled out. It was part of the lesson of the Evangelical United Brethren that it was by grace that we are saved, not by works. Christ is our judge, not each other, and His judgement is given in love, with divine mercy. Looking back over the years, I know I did not really feel that as faith, in those days, but now I do, and accepting it has given me peace that striving to be sinless never could. It also gives me reason to strive to be good, even knowing that sinlessness is not within me. I don’t know what exact EUB doctrine is, with respect to Thomas. Tris ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570/22 "2011-03-31T21:00:56Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Growing up in the Church of God in Christ > > :: ritually spits :: > > I was always taught that Thomas was basically a sinner, least of the Twelve save Judas, and that his accounting among the Apostles was at best a courtesy he didn’t really deserve. His doubt was considered an out & out sin, easily as bad as Peter’s denial and a half-step behind Judas’s betrayal. Wow. no, not remotely. Quite apostate now, but as the child of a Xtian missionary & grandchild of a convert who spent his life teaching would-be preachers the life of Christ, I can answer this one like snap. We’d look at your pastor/teachers as the sort who want children to be so afraid to doubt that they don’t dare question. Obviously, that sort of hyper-conservative attitude (in the targeted population) is unhelpful to a missionary mindset, and it’s so much more useful to missionaries to help people feel like they’re being freed from fear. So no, that sort of thing was not at all what I was taught. We saw Thomas’s story as wholly encouraging; he who asked for proof & got it. It is very probably relevant that my grandfather was raised Unitarian, converted to evangelical Xtianity, & believed in the historical evidence for a bodily resurrection. He probably identified with Thomas a lot. And then he was dean of a Bible college, so he may have been working to counteract any tendency in preachers toward that attitude you describe for _his whole life._ ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570/23 "2011-03-31T21:04:22Z")
Likewise my church has no position on Thomas. I’ve heard one sermon about him. The gist of it was that since Thomas was a twin, he was particularly well aware that it was easy to mistake one person for another. That’s probably why he refused to believe the other disciples when they claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus. Afterwards, he demonstrated his great restored faith by taking the gospel all the way to India. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570/24 "2011-03-31T21:13:36Z")
I was just taught that he was the more skeptical Apostle, and that it takes all kinds. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570/25 "2011-03-31T23:28:55Z")
I should point out that in the sort of disorganized evangelicalism I grew up in, there are a range of attitudes. And this is the sort of thing that would come up in discussion for those in Christian service. But my family, against Thomas? No, I don’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570/26 "2011-04-01T00:18:18Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Yep – in fact, until this thread, I didn’t even know that there were sects that taught that Thomas was a bad guy. To be fair, it may just be particular pastors in my former church. I’ll freely admit to not being an entirely objective reporter when it comes to :: ritual poo-flinging at picture of Bishop Patterson :: the Church of God in Christ. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570/27 "2011-04-01T07:44:46Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I was just taught that he was the more skeptical Apostle, and that it takes all kinds. And I missed that you said non-pentecostal churches. My bad. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570/28 "2011-04-01T08:20:38Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > As a non-Spanish-speaker, if you told me that was the name of a Mexican wrestler, I’d believe you. 😃 Not only do you have to beat him, you have to convince him he’s been beaten! ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570/29 "2011-04-01T11:44:29Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I was always taught that Thomas was basically a sinner, least of the Twelve save Judas, and that his accounting among the Apostles was at best a courtesy he didn’t really deserve. His doubt was considered an out & out sin, easily as bad as Peter’s denial and a half-step behind Judas’s betrayal. Never went into much about Tomas, but I think you said a lot to compare the denial of Peter to the doubting of Thomas. It just shows that the Lord is willing to do what ever it takes. As for Judas, that apparently is a different case. ---
**Author:** ![Brunhilda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cdc98d/32.png) [@Brunhilda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brunhilda)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2011, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570/30 "2011-04-02T02:37:44Z")
Fascinatingly, in the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas, after he believes Christ is God, he wasn’t particularly keen to go to India. Jesus shows up again, looking like a man, and sells him into slavery to a dude who is going from Jerusalem to India. ---
**Author:** ![Brunhilda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cdc98d/32.png) [@Brunhilda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brunhilda)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2011, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570/31 "2011-04-02T02:48:32Z")
For those who don’t believe me, here’s a link to an archaic translation > **[The Acts of Thomas](http://www.gnosis.org/library/actthom.htm)** > > The Acts of Thomas. Part of a library of materials dealing with Gnosis and Gnosticism, both ancient and modern. The site includes the Gnostic Library, with the complete Nag Hammadi Library and a large collection of other primary Gnostic scriptures... ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2011, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570/32 "2011-04-02T14:01:54Z")
I was taught that each of the Twelve was deficient in some way, which is why they were just Apostles and not quite on Christ’s level. It’s kind of a metaphor for all Christians coming up a little short, but still being believers and saved. ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570/33 "2011-04-04T17:59:08Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Childhood & teens years spent in the Christian & Missionary Alliance & member of the Assembly of God since college- nothing bad ever said about Thomas. After all, the other apostles didn’t believe either until Christ had appeared to them. > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > …I see nothing to indicate that Jesus, or the writer of the Gospel, rebukes or disparages Thomas for his skepticism. The reason it was Thomas and not one of the others who “doubted” is that he hadn’t been present on an earlier occasion when the others were. Agreed. Luke makes it clear that the others were just as skeptical when the women made their report. (Later the two unnnamed other disciples also claimed to have saw him. When he finally appeard to the Apostles they can only think, at first, that they were seeing a ghost.) So there isn’t a very big difference. _ **- Jack the “Redoubtable”** _ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-churchgoers-what-is-your-churchs-position-on-the-apostle-thomas/576570.md?page=1)