The surreal “debate” continues. “Every post” is a gross… wait for it… overgeneralization. I don’t believe any of the posters (with the possible exception of SolGrundy) came out swinging (in THIS thread)–we tried politely reasoning, and got agitated after you started your insult/deny dance.
And, just to be clear, I don’t think anyone is saying “Gobear is an asshole for saying things that offend us.” You saying that is yet another example of you distorting what’s been said to make yourself look like a victim and us look unreasonable. A more accurate version of what I am saying (I won’t speak for the others) is: “Gobear is an asshole when he repeatedly, intentionally, and provocatively insults people and then plays rhetorical games to make himself look like the victim.” Queue gobear’s “you don’t love me your not a Christian!!!” schtick.
Thank you, Kalhoun for restating so clearly what I’ve been saying lo these many pages.
There are loving people who call themselves Christians. I’ve said so from the beginning. What I’ve also said is that love or virtue are not required from a Christian, merely assent to doctrine. As long as you say, “I believe,” you’re in. Love is certainly encouraged, but it’s not, As far as i know, mandatory to be a fullfledged Christian.
Clearly, many Christians love and are virtuous, but the various denominations do not mention virtue as a requirement of faith, merely obedience and assent. It’s great if you’re a good person, but you don;t have to be to be a Christian.
True, and I should do so, but with folks Leander and Waverly any alteration or adding of nuance to the original post is called “backpedaling” so I won’t do that.
Just one quick comeback that might actually help focus the argument here. What you’re doing here, gobear, is to permit the loudmouth evangelicals who focus on conversion experiences to define Christianity, and then stand in opposition to what they preach. And, as has been pointed out to them in GD threads where they try to preempt the name exclusively for themselves, the overwhelming majority of those who self-identify as Christians don’t hold to that doctrine.
In short, you’re justifiably pissed off at one subset of Christians, who have committed the offense of claiming to restrict the term to their own belief system, and you have committed the fallacy of buying into their hijacking of the term in order to condemn the rest of us (by generalization; I realize you nuance your usage to exempt us).
Mr Moto and Sam Stone are not Ann Coulter, and in general don’t subscribe to her hatemongering. I have to keep reminding myself of that in political threads. Not every liberal is a thoroughgoing Socialist. Most gay people don’t fit the party-animal stereotype that the anti-gay movements spread. It’s possible to be pro-environment without wanting to close down every lumbering operation and mine in the world. And so on. Christians are people who committed themselves to Jesus and try to do what He said, which includes showing love to others and avoiding judging them. Most of us fail miserably at it, but we’re trying. A jerk like nolies is not permitted to redefine his terms so that they mean what he wants them to. And if you want to hate evangelical-conservative Christians and their message of divisiveness, that’s your privilege. But don’t let them hijack the term away from the majority who see things differently. (There are, of course, a lot of reasons to disagree with them, from your perspective, but not the ones you’ve stated here.)
Ahem. Sol Grundy’s second post (his first was just a one-line joke “You say that because you’re gay!”)
Yeah, real reasonable. Metacom’s first post"
OK, so tell me again how you started out as “politely reasonable.” You sure didn’t start off with ad hominems attacking me and not my ideas, no sir, not you.
I do not use mutiple excalmation points, I know the difference between your and you’re, and I have have never saidthat /loving me=/Christian in any post.
In a lot of ways, this reminds me of the whole Confederate flag ‘Heritage not Hate’ thing. While I’m willing to believe that not everyone who sports a Confederate flag on a t-shirt or truck is a racist, denying that the symbol has been co-opted for that purpose is naive at best.
Like it or not, modern Christianity as a political movement in the US has shown itself to be much less than Christ-like (of course, this is my interpretation of scripture). If you want to take it back, then Liberal Christianity (a social justice, compassion based system) has to emerge to combat what I see as the reign of Pharisees in government.
While I’m sympathetic to those that claim to be ‘not that type of Christian,’ the responsibility still lies with them to get off their butts and turn out at the polls and turn out in the media. To those of you who have braved that battle, you have nothing but my respect. My only lament is that there are too few of you.
As you can see, those of us on the outside- atheists, homosexuals, etc. aren’t making much headway, and pretty much any criticism is either bigotry or sour grapes.
So while I am wary of supporting the vitriol with which **gobear ** sometimes defends his position, I am not the one to say he has no cause for it.
SolGrundy mentioned the movie Saved earlier, where he mentioned Mandy Moore’s character (“I am filled with Christ’s love!”). She calls herself a Christian, but does she really seem to be a follower of Christ? Not to me.
What is it that Polycarp and Tris have that Fred Phelps does not?
“For if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
So I reckon calling yourself one makes you one. It doesn’t make you a good person necessarily, though. This gets to the point that too many people here are missing due to their personal dislike of gobear. If they will step back and take an objective look, they might recognize he’s right. Christianity as a religion requires obedience and submission as a condition of salvation. It does not require humility, love or charity.
Are not the requirements more valued than the suggestions? If so, then obviously power is more important than love - to the religion, regardless of how individual practicioners feel about the matter. As I said before, there are plenty of examples of the offical leadership of the RCC, Anglicans and other demoninations exercising their power rather than Love. The headlong rush to split the Anglicans is not Love. The shuffling of abusive Priests is not Love. The massive movement of the Right Wing to ban gay marriages is not Love.
You folks who are loving and good and Christian need to get ahold of Jim Wallis and start working with the Sojouners to take your religion back. Because right now it’s rotten and getting worse. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are providing the public face of Christianity. You seem to be outnumbered, or at least out maneuvered, in controling the perception of Christianity. Quit screeching at gobear and others who criticize your church. Instead think of them as Old Testament prophets who called you to repentence and renewal.
You’re absolutely right. It doesn’t make you a follower of christ. But it DOES make you a christian.
There are people on these very boards who call themselves christian and are CONSIDERED BY THE CHURCH to be christian, who have absolutely nothing in common with others on these boards who claim the same. Nothing in attitude or deed. Strictly in name. But if you look at The Book, most of the people I consider more christ-like on the spectrum find ways to discredit biblical passages that reflect the “evil christian” doctrine with other passages (you can’t even get a solid answer out of the bible fercrissakes!). Sad to say, but those who follow it to the letter, like Jersey Turnpike and her sidekick, are way more christian (notice I said christian not christ-like) than those who preach “love” and acceptance…from where this heathen stands, anyway.
But isn;t a conversion experience necessaary to call oneself a Christian?> Even for people raised in chrsitian homes by Christians, is there not a point where the child is required to consent to his denomination’s doctrines. As a Catholic, a church that definitely frowns on so-called evangelical conversion experiences, I underwent the sacrament of Confirmation, where I was required to given, “I believe” to a set of propositions given by the presiding bishop.
I’m not condeming yiu. I don’t agree with your faith, but despite my intemperate outbursts quoted by Leander, I hold no ongoing animus to most Christians.
I know you do, but that’s not the point. The point is that one is not required to be loving or nonjudgmental to be a Christian. Sure, one ought to in order to follow Jesus, but that’s not necessary to be a church member. So many people use “Christian” as just a synonym for being a mensch. “He came to visit me, how very Christian.” First, it pre-empts virtue as being exclusively or at least predominantly Christian. How often does one hear, “Aw, he came to visit me, how Jewish of him”? Second, it robs the word of any specific meaning, as happened to “gentleman” and “lady.”
This gets back to the point that people have been trying to make over, and over, and over again: that is your understanding of Christianity. It’s not mine, and it isn’t what many Christians believe. There are Christians whose religion doesn’t require obedience and submission as a condition of salvation; there are Christians who do think works are necessary for salvation. You simply can’t make generalizations that broad–there’s such a wide variety of Christian belief that you can’t really make any but the broadest of statements about them (e.g., they believe in Jesus).
There are over 2 billion Christians, and probably around 3 billion versions of Christianity. If you want to bash people for holding a belief, then bash the people who hold that belief, and NOT the broader groups they happen to belong to.
I understand the belabored point you’re attempting to make, that Christianity is too diverse to make any kind of generalization. But if each individual practioner gets to define what it is, then being a Christian has absolutely no meaning. If the definition of the oldest and largest Christian leaderships, the Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican Churches, doesn’t hold any more weight than yours, then what is the point? Maybe you need a different term to describe your faith.
No, it means that the person follows a religion based on Jesus Christ. It narrows that person down to one of roughly 1/3 of the worlds population. If you want to know more, you should probably find out what sect they belong to, and then go from there.
If asked to identify my religion, I usually say “Episcopalian.” But that doesn’t mean that the word “Christian” also doesn’t describe me–it’s just a less specific and more general label.
What does it mean to be a follower of Christ? Does it mean Christ-like? Is the Pope? Is Jerry Falwell? Is Thich Nhat Hanh? Why does your definition replace the RCC’s or Eastern Orthodox’s?
Define ‘follower.’
Does it mean doing what he did? What he said? What others (Paul) thought he meant? For that matter, following his words and actions as decribed by non-contemporary biographers (Gospels)? Does it mean praising him to others, while living however you’d like?
Even going by the Gospels, I seem to remember there being a hefty amount of brimstone amidst the loving. how do you reconcile the two?
So, which is it? Where is the Christ, where is the Pharisee, and where is the Devil?
If I can say “I am a Christian” and yet that gives you no clue as to my system of ethics, then yes, it is indeed a meaningless term. Heck, I’d settle for just a couple of stand-alone statements that everyone can agree on.