Yep. The notion of “being saved” or “accepting Christ” is popular in the Baptist church (among others), but I believe (as does my Lutheran church) that it is incorrent. Salvation is a gift from God, we have nothing to do with it.
He who believes and is baptized (although there’s debate about that too) shall be saved. If you sincerely believe, your life will reflect it, and IMO you’ll be going to the right place.
Vanilla wrote:
You mean you thought it was a contest? 
I think Vanilla’s question is, do we not even have to ask for forgiveness or acknowledge our belief in Christ’s salvation. Not so much “earning salvation”
J
Fine, gobear, but my question would be, “Why not?” (Aside from the obvious hazards of doing so in the Pit in a hard-fought thread, of course… ;))
After all, the sin of Sodom, according to several O.T. prophets and the implication of Jesus’s words the one time He mentioned it, was inhospitableness, of treating the outcast as an outcast, not as a stranger who is to be made welcome.
And of that the majority of churches are guilty.
His4Ever, I want some direct quotation from Scripture where God condemns “the homosexual lifestyle.” In the favorite word of SDMB, Cite?!?!
I’m very well aware of quotations in which the principal, and literalist, interpretation is that He condemns homosexual acts. But where in 66 books do you see anything where He condemns homosexuals or the lives they live?
And, by the way, presuming for this question that He does, what are they supposed to do about it?
If you see these questions as slightly aggressive, it’s because I feel myself called by God to work to heal the breach between the Christian faith and the gay people whom it’s been condemning, to work for their salvation, and what you’ve been saying, and the reception it’s gotten, has been completely at odds with that.
CJ, I can only say that I know exactly how you feel, and that every word in your post I would echo.
Gobear, thanks. But to reiterate my last question, do you (or Kirk or anybody else) have any idea how to get the message out in a world where controversial, polemicist newsbites dominate most people’s comprehension of the world about them?
Jarbaby wrote:
Think of your own children. What must they do to earn your love? What would they have to do for you to save them from harm?
I understand that Libertarian, but (in my belief system anyway), I must acknowledge that Christ died for my sins. Through that I am forgiven all of my sins, and am in the book of life.
I do not believe in predestination. If I did, I’d be out gang banging football players and committing every sin in the book.
J
Howdy, J 
What Lib is saying isn’t that our fates are sealed, he (or she, sorry) is saying that grace is a gift that’s given to all of us. I’m not saved because I decided to be so, I am because God gave salvation to me. However, I can certainly turn away from him if I want to.
(that what you’re saying Lib?)
And I was taught to believe that only God knows who is going to Heaven or Hell-and that it’s not set in stone. It’s not predestined, but we must simply to do what is right-and leave the issue of our own salvation up to God.
this is getting all crazy. I think VANILLA is asking if our fates ARE sealed. She’s saying the adulteress didn’t have to decide or recognize anything, she was just forgiven, so why do we have to do anything.
I think encountering Jesus at the local IHOP would be, of course, a special circumstance, but otherwise we must acknowledge that it is through JESUS we are saved and not our own good works.
You are God’s children because He loves you. There are no more hoops.
At the risk of being accused of doing a His4Ever imitation:
His free gift, not anything that human beings do or don’t do. Faith in this context is simply putting one’s trust in His goodness, to do what He said He would do, and good deeds follow as a consequence of one’s salvation, not as a cause of it.
So that explains why I saw a high school football team in a religious book store, purchasing a copy of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion and having it gift-wrapped!! 
We are God’s children because He loves us, but my church distinguishes between prevenient grace (the love of God, extended to all humanity) and justifiying grace (the accepting and forgiving love of God, extended after true repentance). It is through justifying grace that we are saved.
IMO (and this is not the Methodist party line AFAIK), prevenient grace cannot be disavowed, because you cannot stop God from loving you anymore than you can stop another person from loving you if they do. Justifying grace, OTOH, follows a repentant heart, and is a gift that can be handed back if the heart hardens and turns away.
I do not believe a person who is "once saved’ is “always saved.” I believe that the exercise of free will by humanity must include the option of spurning our own salvation.
YMMV, and if you’re not a moderate American Methodist, probably does.
Yeah, but churches don’t go to heaven.
A quotation that I posted over in Merrin’s GD thread last month seems appropriate here:
What a beautiful quote, Poly! Thank you.
I’m totally lost, or maybe just ridiculously stupid. Are you all saying that the one single thing I’ve been taught my whole life, John 3:16, means nothing?
I don’t even have to believe in or love or follow Christ to get to heaven? I just get to go by virtue of being God’s child?
We’re not here to find a way to heaven, jarbabyj. Heaven is quite irrelevant. Our purpose is to Love. That is all that matters.
Ok. I withdraw. I don’t think I’m posing my question correctly. I’ll get back to you later.
Hmmm…
Jarbaby, I think there’s a vast difference in perspective going on there. No, that’s not what’s being said, but yes, it is God’s gift. And how He gave it was through the mediation of Jesus and His atonement. Here’s the context of your verse:
The key point is not to be worried about whether or not you’re going to Heaven – God’s got that under control, and He loves you. However, what He doesn’t have under control is your fellow man who doesn’t know Him, or who has a bizarre idea of what He’s up to (for examples, see every freakin’ religion thread on this board for the last three years!) – and that’s where you come in. God’s not about to force anybody into a robot love of Him – He wants people to choose to love Him, and the way to show Him to them is to model what He wants us to be in your own life.
That, I think, is what Homebrew was trying to say to you.
One of the things that it seems like evangelicals get all wrong is that Jesus’s message was consistently, “Live according to My teachings, remembering that it’s God’s grace and not your own righteousness that gets you into Heaven, so don’t indulge in worry, but rather trust in the goodness of My Father and yours, and do what He wants you to do.” Instead, evangelicals are preoccupied with the need to get themselves into a “state of grace” in which God will accept them, grudgingly, into Heaven.
The old argument against God that I get regularly from rebellious kids is that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, and neither does God. I just now realized that the metaphor they’re using is perfect. There ain’t some supernatural guy watching you to make sure that you’re a good little girl or boy, with punishment or reward contingent on whether you’re naughty or nice. Instead, your Father is the one who gives you your presents, and He loves you.
What’s the difference between homosexual acts and the lifestyle homosexuals live? The lifestyle is the committing of sexual acts with someone of the same sex. I don’t see the difference. I’ve already given Scriptures about homosexuality so there’s no point in repeating all of them unless you want me too. You ask if homosexuals are condemned, I assume you’re talking about unrepentant homosexuals who refuse to leave the homosexual lifestyle. Okay, let me share a few:
Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolater, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
This pretty much sounds like condemnation to me.
Wherefor God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections (God calling it vile pretty much condemns, doesn’t it?): for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the women, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. (The due payment of their acts).
Romans 1:24-27
It’s been said before, when Jesus forgave the woman at the well for her adultery, he didin’t leave her an adulteress. He told her to go and sin no more. He would say the same thing to the homosexual. For people to come to Christ and then to refuse to leave a sinful lifestyle is at odds with the teaching of the Bible where people’s lives are changed when they come to Him. See 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, particularly verse 11
How is it right to water down the word and tell people there’s nothing wrong with their behaviour in order to bring them into Christianity (to Christ) ? It makes no sense to me.
We’ve had a thread before on what the person with homosexual feelings, as a Christian, should do. Do we really need to start it up again? You know the only answer I can give is that they not act on their desires and feelings just as a single Christian isn’t to act on their feelings and desire for sex outside of marriage. I don’t know how God is going to handle the homosexual who claims to be a Christian yet continues practicing this behaviour. It’s up to Him to deal with that person. If that person truly has the Holy Spirit living in them, they should be aware deep down that what they’re doing is wrong. When I do wrong, I sure know it.
And please, don’t start calling me a homophobe or say I hate them and start that again. It’s not true no matter what you think. I simply can never say something is right when I know God says it’s not, it’s that simple.