In my experience, the average Christian doesn’t hear much about it or think much about it, but it’s in the Bible that people will be resurrected in a “spiritual body”:
As much as I love a slippery slope argument, we’re engaging in a journey toward spiritual truth and the nature of God, not attempting to be disingenuous in an effort to shore up other’s faiths.
I’m speaking in general. How a statement impacts the apologetics is not a priority for progressive Christians.
To draw closer means to more fully be aligned with God’s will and interests. Serving humanity and creation is certainly part of it, since God created it, loves it and called it good, but it involves loving God and loving ourselves as well.
I wouldn’t go that far. Faith without works is dead, but works can be dead as well. I’m talking about mistaken belief which is different than no belief. There are about half a billion Christian denominations with mutually exclusive claims. Now maybe, the ‘First Self Righteous Church of Truth and Prosperity of Columbus, Ohio LLC’ has it right and all the rest of us are wrong, but I would like to think that God cares a lot more about our faith in action rather than whether Job was a real guy that happened to have friends who were very faithful about dictating his words or just a metaphor for how we should respond to suffering.
Why? Do you want one? If you’re concerned about the rewards or lack thereof, then you’re missing the point. You do good because it is the right thing to do. You want to be in God’s will because by definition his will is good. Now maybe there’s a reward at the end and maybe there isn’t. If you find it fun to speculate and the thought of heaven is what gets you through the day, then have at it, but if gold stars are the only reason you’re doing it, I’m not calling you heretical or anything, but you might want to ponder the matter further.
Note that the idea of “fallen angels” (and a/the Satan being part thereof) is not Biblical. Most of that folklore comes from the Book of Enoch.
So calling such a belief “Christian” is a misnomer. Sure a lot of sects are okay with this belief but it is not universal nor necessarily dogmatic.
Since I said I would:
The Trinity is complex. It hinges on the statement that God is 3 persons of one essence(or nature, substance or being.) The usual terms used are hypostases (persons) and ousia(substance) - although it’s interesting to note that hypostases comes from Plato and essentially is a synonym with ousia which comes from Aristotle and both designate underlying substance, but the neoPlatonic use of hypostases to divide a person into three underlying beings (the soul, the intellect and the underlying nature of reality) that likely led to it being used as persons, but I digress.
The bottom line is that there is a singular essence or being that is God. It is not a conglomeration of three beings, but a singular nature. That singular essence has three distinct persons both within it and as it. Think of a “person” (hypostasis) as a consciousness, but one that shares a singular underlying reality (ousia).
I’m not sure that analogies are all that useful since we tend to think of things in physicalist terms, but there are two that I like, though I’m not sure they truly capture the essence of the statement. The first is a hydra, the three headed beast of Greek mythology. The heads are all independent with presumably their own minds and they are distinct from one another, but they are still the same being that acts with the same will. They are not fighting over which head gets to move the left foreleg, nor do they debate the efficacy of eating Hercules. Of course, comparing God to a monster is problematic, but it is what it is.
The other analogy I like is that of a person. A person is a body, a mind and a soul (or if you’re a physicalist, we can say a body and a consciousness.) These are distinct things. My consciousness is not my body and vice versa. Yet we are certainly the same being. My body possesses its own will (Eat the Twinkies, senoy!) that my consciousness will sometimes act independently of (Put the Twinkie down, fatso!), but they are the same essence and being. We might be able to vaguely say “There are two persons in me, but I am the same being.” It’s a slightly problematic analogy because one could argue that consciousness is an emanation of the body, but a spirit does not necessarily have that problem.
I want to just say thank you for posting this and so clearly explaining something that I struggle with regularly. From 7 until 18 I was raised in a fundamentalist church and school. Strict beliefs based upon a literal interpretation of the Bible. I have not really been involved in any denomination or religious activity since (I’m now 50) but for many years after high school struggled mightily with the version of Christianity I was taught/indoctrinated into vs. my personal feelings and observations about the world, faith, and God. Your post… it’s hard to explain… put into words things I’ve come to believe but struggled to resolve against how I was raised in those formative years. I bolded the last part because I think this is where I landed in my faith (or lack of faith) but reading it is so reaffirming.
Sorry, growing up with the concept of the Trinity doesn’t help. It is explicitly defined as beyond human understanding.
People don’t care as much now as they seem to have done back in the early church - Arianism vs. Athanasianism vs. Nestorianism vs. other doctrines I have forgotten about.
I was mildly upset to discover that my understanding (such as it was) of the Trinity was officially condemned as heretical back in the seventh century AD. (It is Modal Monarchianism). But I was comforted by the fact that I couldn’t understand the difference between that, and the orthodox belief.
The Athanasian Creed goes on and on about the Trinity, but it doesn’t help. The finite mind cannot comprehend the full nature of the Infinite. I get that part. Therefore, I (and most of my co-religionists, at least IME) don’t worry about it. In our better moments at least, we are focusing on what senoy has been talking about.
After that, no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions.
If you want a précis of Christianity, it is love God with all you have, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Why? Because Jesus said so.
Regards,
Shodan
Some really religious fundamentalist Christians I’ve talked to believe that all one has to do to go to heaven is accept Jesus as a personal savior before they die. Yes, even Charles Manson and Timothy McVeigh could be in heaven right now, long as they accepted Jesus two seconds before they died.
OTHO, someone whose biggest sin was taking pens home from work is going to hell for not accepting Jesus.
One such rah-rah protests outside the local women’s health center, with a sign that says “Everything Hitler did was legal.” I told him he should stand outside the local synagogue with that sign. He also believes that people who don’t accept Jesus are “of the devil.” I guess that includes all Jews, Muslims and atheists.
IANAC, but I was raised in a churchgoing family of the Christian/Protestant/Methodist variety.
Methodists aren’t much for the whole ephemeral mystical theological stuff. They’re on board with life after death, and jesus rose from the dead, but they’d much rather talk about the virtue of visiting people in prison today and how to be a good Christian in the parking lot.
**1. Where do souls/spirits come from? **
They don’t “come from” anywhere so much as they always were. No details though.
2. Where does Satan come from?
Assuming there IS an actual Satan (you won’t find Methodist consensus on this) (alternatives include that he is a metaphorical stand-in representing the absence of God, or represents the darkness which in turn simply means lack of understanding)… some would say God created Satan specifically as Satan, some would say he represents one of the inevitable outcomes of creating entities with free will – that to varying degrees they’ll exercise it in ways antithetical to how you’d want them to, with Satan representing the extreme case of full-on adversarial opposition.
3. After a person died, what happens to them while waiting for the resurrection?
Methodists mostly think you go straight to heaven when you die. There’s no resurrection to wait for. No one talks about the Rapture or anything.
4. Does everyone get resurrected at the Second Coming? When are people judged?
See above. No one discusses a literal Second Coming, and everyone is judged individually when they die. When “second coming” is discussed at all, it’s usually in terms of a metaphor for a hypothetical time in which things on earth are done as they are in heaven.
5. What sort of people go to hell, and is it forever?
Methodists aren’t much for hell either. When hell is described, it’s usually a place you condemn yourself to by turning away from God, not the Divine Penitentiary into which the judge of mankind gives you an eternal-life sentence from his throne.
This may be somewhat dated; me and the church went separate ways when I reached adulthood. I’m under the vague impression that the Methodist church veered towards a more literal belief system than they displayed when I was in attendance.
These are the type of people that were a part of the church and school I was raised in that I mentioned in my earlier post.
Oh, and Catholicism does have the concept of “age of accountability”, below which a child is insufficiently aware of their actions to be accountable for sin. But while there are rough guidelines for when that age is, there’s no hard and fast line, and it’s understood that different children will probably reach that age at different times. And a child with sufficient understanding to make the argument that they’re below the line, is probably above the line.
More than probably, I’d say provenly 
If you’re old enough to rules-lawyer, you can’t claim you didn’t understand the rule.
The church hasn’t changed. It is just big tent. There are very literal United Methodists and very non-literal ones. My mom’s church is practically Pentecostal and there are some that are one step away from atheist. United Methodists are generally live and let live. (The biggest change that we really see is that the church in the US is dying and the global church is starting to exert control and take it in a more fundamentalist direction. The probable outcome of this is that the United Methodist Church is going to split into a small American fundamentalist church allied with Africa and a larger moderate and liberal American church allied with Europe.)
The Mormon belief is that there are four places you can wind up. The celestial kingdom, the terrestrial kingdom and the telestial kingdom, ranked from best to worst. Those within the highest degree in the celestial kingdom go on the become gods and goddesses themselves, which is definitely not mainstream.
Then there is “outer darkness” where Satan, his followers from the preexistence and a certain number of people will go.
Other questions may follow.
[/QUOTE]
Answered above about Hell, but another ‘bad’ place, ‘outside into the darkness’ or ‘outer darkness’ is a bit worse, basically nothingness, but pain and conscientious coldness and loneliness. Hell is a vacation compared to that. As for the good places, the New Earth, or for some the heavens.
Satan is a Fallen Angel. Or maybe just the Adversary, whose job is literally the devil’s Advocate, He may be doing a job for God.
Mostly straight to the afterlife.
Hell has dozens of answers. Many view it as a place where you realize that* your *actions have sent you there. You realize that YOU sent yourself there, not God. You are turned from the Grace of God, that is your punishment. Some sects believe that it isn’t forever, it is until you truly realize and repent. Any other punishment is beside the point.
Some say that only a few truly evil people, people who believe that their evil actions were justified and thus will never repent are the only ones who are forever. Hitler, eg.
So Hell is a place of Purgatory also. Virtuous Pagans are not punished.
Some OT and NT writings indicate that some will burn- it appears in the OT that “Kings” who lead others into wrongdoing are singled out for special fire & brimstone punishment. Hitler, eg.
Some sects think that only those who accept Jesus go to Heaven, others think that the Jews, ect either go to Heaven or perhaps their heaven.
Much variation on hell.
Yes, Deathbed Conversions are a big thing for Evangelicals. Especially in spreading lies about one of their big enemies converting just before death.
Someone needs to call dibs on the name Somewhat Less United Methodist Church.
I’m sure that it can be difficult. It’s much easier to teach something where people have no vested interests. I remember back when I was a young Mormon and more interested in proving we were right rather than learning the specifics of what was different.
I am an ex-Mormon and an atheist but I have absolutely zero interest in debating the validity of beliefs, rather, I would like to know the differences. As someone who grew up with one set of extreme beliefs, I am simply curious as to what do other Christian sects believe. My experience with religion is so different, and I realized that other Christians just don’t have the same set of beliefs. I sincerely hope to keep this well within the GQ scope and not get into GD.
Your point about Mormons is spot on. Recently, the LDS church reversed a policy concerning the children of LGBT couples, where they had not been permitted to be baptized. The policy is only a couple of years old, but both the initial policy banning the baptism and the recent reversal are both seen to be inspired by God, most active Mormons do not see this as contradictory, and there isn’t any further explanation for the policy reversal.
Another is the recent declaration that the term “Mormon” in not only undesired but also a tool of the Devil, yet the Mormon church itself was using that term, even promoting on television a few years back.
There is a lot of pressure within the Mormon church to unquestioningly follow the prophet’s guidance and to not express doubts publicly or privately.
I want to walk back my earlier statement about Mormonism having lot of answers. It has the answers to many of the burning questions which were the subjects of debates around the time it was founded, but many subsequent questions are left unanswered. Consequently, while Mormonism can answer the exact age of accountability, it doesn’t follow up on the claim of a Heavenly Mother. Mormon doctrine is that there is one (or possibly more) but nothing further is known.
I’ve got to go to work now, but I’ll try to follow up more later. Smith’s theology concerning the Godhood evolved considerably during his life.
Gretta Vosper, of the United Church of Canada, is an example of an “atheist Christian.”
And I *am *sure.
The Credo, or fundamental statement of Christian belief, has hardly been mentioned. It is a brief statement of the basic essentials of Christian belief.
It originated in the 3rd century, a version was agreed at the Council of Nicaea, and amended later in the 4th century. Different versions with subtle variations (much argued over) are still used by many Christian denominations.
The Catholic version, used for over 1500 years:
The Apostles’ Creed is also used by the RCC and others.