That is the correct answer, nonetheless. Jesus was a tireless advocate for the abject poor and oppressed, who taught us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit prisoners, welcome the stranger, reject violence, and to love each other.
Those that view this as central to their beliefs and at least try to follow include lots of people. I’d bet people you know. Those who reject all that woke bullshit but claim to “love the Lord” and call themselves Christian make my blood boil.
But I realize my failure to provide a bulletproof taxonomy for you will be more proof that your largely undifferentiated othering of Christians is completely justified.
And I guess I’ll provide you with an opportunity to accuse me of “last wording,” but I honestly don’t know how else to make my point and I was foolish to try.
Umm, there was that one time, Jesus Anointed at Bethany (Mark 14:3–9; Luke 7:36–50; John 12:1–8)
While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came to Him with an alabaster jar of expensive perfume, which she poured on His head as He reclined at the table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant and asked, “Why this waste? This perfume could have been sold at a high price, and the money given to the poor.” Aware of this, Jesus asked, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful deed to Me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have Me.
Spoken like a True Republican.
I don’t know-would that sentiment, your quote included of course, fit better in About This Message Board, or The BBQ Pit? Let me know where it ends up, o.k.?
And yet, when we try to repudiate those hypocrites, the response we get is
I am a Christian. The people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and JD Vance do not believe the same things that I believe, do not worship the same being that I worship, and do not practice the same things that I practice. I do not hesitate to point this out. And yet, people still insist that they must still be called by the same “Christian” label as me, just because those people lie and say that they’re Christian. Enough of their lies: They’re not Christians, and should not be called such.
I don’t think that is possible. Individual morality will always assert itself when it can. Too many people dealing with way too abstract a topic for them to agree on anything other than the grossest generalities.
I’m not talking about sects. I’m talking about individuals. You get the exact same issue with particular sects as you get with Christianity as a whole. Like, JD Vance is no more a Catholic than he is a Christian.
Billy Graham’s brat has been buying up ad time between the local news and the national news. Hawking dial-a-prayer, which I’m sure involves giving someone at a call center your credit card number.
One of the problems with Christianity is that the bar to admission is very low. All you have to do is quote John 3:16 and declare you believe in Jesus. (And that’s not hard if you were raised Christian, Jesus is as real to you as George Washington)
There’s no one organization that can say whether you are Christian or not. There used to be, but that was a different set of problems.
There’s no organization that controls whether you can be a preacher or have a congregation. All you need to do is invite a few people over for a sermon. The number of churches is legion, and trying to pin down them down to sects is basically impossible.
I agree that the "no true Christian " argument is invalid, but that also means that you can’t judge every Christian based on the actions of some.
It would be nice if we could shut up those who are acting horrible in the name of Jesus, but… how?
It’s like TERFs and feminist. No one can go up to J. K. Rowling and say "you’re not a feminist so you have to shut up!
If you think about the story of the woman perfuming Jesus… If they sold it, to whom? What would that person have done with it that would have been any more worthwhile? Couldn’t that person have just donated that same money directly to the poor, without bothering with the perfume?
And why was that perfume so valuable? Presumably it took a lot of effort, on someone’s part, to create it (harvesting a rare sort of flower, or something?). You can make a good case that society would be better off if those workers had done something productive with their labor instead… but the time to address that is before the perfume was made.
Once the perfume was made, it was inevitable that it’d eventually be poured over someone or another’s hair, and we’re just quibbling about whose hair. The woman in Bethany decided that the best person to be anointed with it was Jesus.
Unfortunately, that isn’t wasn’t what I was asking for at all. I am asking for a personal opinion as to which sects do not count as Christian in your eyes because they do not follow the True Tenets of Christianity in your eyes.