I know that Scotti, it just goes to underline my point that the Christians who make the most noise tend skew the public perception of all Christians, even fundamentalist Christians. I think this point is even sharper as it relates to current perceptions of Islam.
Compassion is part of it, but belief is key as is accepting God:
John 3:16-18 – "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. {17}-- For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. {18}-- Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
Diogenes the Cynic, how can you love God if you don’t believe in Him? And if you do believe in Him and Love Him, will you not do what He wants?
Jesus is God, so you would have to accept Him as your Savior.
John 10:30– I and the Father are one."
John 14:7– If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."
Heb 1:3– The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
Eph 1:13– And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
1 Th 5:9 – For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Heb 5:9– and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him
John 3:3 – Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
John 3:7– Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
Mat 10:38 – and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
Luke 14:27– And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
John 12:26 – Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
John 14:6– Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Now, for your questions:
1.) Do you believe that a belief in the divinity of Jesus is necessary for salvation?
Absolutely. How can someone who is not divine save your soul? If God is not divine, why would we worship Him? If that was the case, my husband can save my soul.
2.) If the answer is yes, do you then believe that all non-Christians go to hell?
No, not all non christians. The reason for this is because not everyone has had the opportunity to hear the word of God. Some may not have the capability to understand. Like: Mentally retarted people, people who live in the jungles, babies. I am sure in one way or another the Holy Spirit sets Himself upon there hearts.
3.) If the answer is no, then doesn’t that mean the crucifixion was meaningless?
No, the sacrifice that was made was not meaningless. We are able to understand. The above are not able. He died for everyone, and now we have the choice to accept it or reject it. The above persons do not have the opportunity to make a choice.
4.)Is it possible to follow the pure ethical teachings of Jesus without a belief in Christ as a saviour?
Sure.
Heb 9:27-28-- Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, {28} so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Even in hell the rich man saw that he was wrong and sorry for his sin but could not change his outcome.
Of course He cares.
Exo 20:5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,
He says that He is the way, NOT any way is the way!
If that is not enough, read Ezekial 16 and on.
Poly wrote:
They also did not call Him Jesus. 
Diogenese wrote:
They are one and the same.
Unlike many other languages, English does not have the vocabulary to differentiate intellectual belief from heartfelt confidence. The Greek [symbol]pisteuw[/symbol], used everywhere that Jesus talks about belief (hundreds of times), means to credit, to have confidence, to trust, to rely on. This is belief without intellectual interference. It relies not on empirical proof, but upon revelatory truth. In philosophical terms, it is analytic knowledge, not synthetic knowledge.
When Christ asks you to believe in Him, He is asking you to discard your intellect and surrender yourself to Him and trust Him.
With compassion, it is the same. The Greek [symbol]splagcnizomai[/symbol] means literally “moved to the bowels”. It is compassion that springs, not from the intellect, but from the innermost nature. Giving a beggar a dollar to get rid of him is not compassion in the sense that Christ meant; it is merely an intellectual calculation designed to mitigate a circumstance that you view as unfortunate for yourself rather than the beggar.
But when you give with compassion, you are discarding your intellect, and are trusting that goodness will prevail.
Love is the conduit of God’s goodness. Compassion is the seed of love. And belief is the seed of compassion.
I think that “pisteuo” and “splagchnizomai” are not quite the same thing. (please forgive my transliterations, I still don’t know how to code the Greek font) Your definitions are correct. Pisteuo means to be persuaded of, to trust, to have faith in. splagchnizomai means literally, as you said, to be moved to the bowels, (the bowels were thought to be the seat of emotion in the body) hence to feel compassion. I would submit, however that it is possible to feel one without the other.
Didn’t the Nazi’s have confidence and trust in Hitler’s mythos? Yet they obviously were not touched in their bowels or anywhere else by any kind of compassion or mercy.
Conversely, I can testify personally that it is more than possible to feel compassion, empathy, mercy and love without having any confidence or trust whatever in any non-empirical worldview. (please note that I am not implying that I have any more faith in atheism than in theism, I am, as yet, a pure agnostic)
I would argue further that splagchnizomai is more important than, and is not dependant on pisteuo. I would also say that pisteuo, in and of itself, is valueless without splagchnizomai.
To sum up (in English):
Compassion is meaningful to others.
Faith is meaningful to others only if it leads to compassion.
It is not necessary to have faith in order to feel compassion.
Ergo–
Compassion is the highest goal of religion. Faith is only a means (though not the only means) to realize the goal of compassion.
Um, that “confidence and trust” has to be placed in Someone with both the power and motivation to act for the benefit of the person placing it. As Jersey noted, Joe Cool no doubt loves Jersey enough to save her soul if he had the power to do so – heck, he loves me and gobear enough that he’d do that if he could – which is why he takes the stance he does about God’s commandments. In the H.P. Lovecraft universe, Cthulhu might have the power to save souls, but he’d much rather consume them. We Christians believe that God – YHWH, the Holy Trinity – has both the power and the will to save, to the extent that He humbled himself to become a baby that would grow into a Man who would be both Atonement and Example for us.
Minor nitpicking hijack: The gamma that Diogenes transliterated as “G” – its normal proper transliteration – is actually an “N” sound; aggelos means “messenger, angel” and the double gamma produces an NG-G combination, and in splanchnizomai the gamma-chi combination results in a N-KH phoneme set.
I’m going to have to disagree with Polycarp here, because God’s word is the Bible (and IMHO thats His only word).
Those who consciously reject Jesus’s sacrificial death on their behalf will go to Hell, and will not have a chance after they die.
If I am wrong, then God must be wrong, or He wrote it wrong.
I, as usual, forget where it is, but it says in scriptruer “Today is the day of salvation.”
Waiitng til the future may be too late.
I guess I am a fundie, after all, I beleive God created plants and humans etc. in 6 days.
(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation I have succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) 2 Cor. 6:2
I have to agree with vanilla. I find no teaching of a second chance for salvation after death. I’ve said it before: if this were so why would Jesus tell his disciples (and us) to go unto all the world and preach the gospel? Why send missionaries to other countries to share the good news of salvation in Christ?
The teaching, I don’t believe is in the Bible. God didn’t get write it wrong or get it wrong. As much as some people may want it not to be true, salvation is in trusting in Christ alone. He must be accepted in this life, before death. The rich man went to hell and he couldn’t get out nor was he given a second chance.
I also agree with most of what Jersey Diamond says. The few things I’m unsure about I’ll reserve judgment on.
I feel compelled to say something on this thread although I’m afraid I’ll be overshadowed by the more articulate and inspired writings of some here. 
Fundamentalism contains several constituents that one must accept before proceeding into matters of dogma: The Bible is the unerring Word of God; following and obeying the Scriptures is the one true path to God; Salvation is attained only by accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior. (I may have missed one or two…)
I see that some others here have disagreed with some of these basic premises already; I personally reject them, all three, in the manner in which they are practiced today, as being contrary to my own system of beliefs. As a Christian.
The idea that the Bible is unerring isn’t by itself disturbing. One does not have to believe that Scripture is entirely wrong, or that God changed his mind, in order to recognize inconsistencies in chapters and verse. I believe that the apparent contradictions can be explained away; I do not believe that all manner of life’s problems have an appropriate corresponding verse to apply to them, or that it’s even a useful method of doing things. I believe that Paul was divinely inspired; I do not believe God himself took the form of Paul and sent the message: “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” Romans 13. For one. That requires some insightful thinking IMO and not absolute acceptance ‘as it is written, so ordered by Me.’
Strict interpretation of the Gospel is not something I can follow absolutely for obvious reasons. “Slaves, obey thy masters…” (Ephesians) Had I been an abolitionist in the 1800s I’d have heard that. “Women are not permitted to teach or have authority over a man.” (1 Timothy) OK. I won’t even bring up the directives in Leviticus; enough already.
Salvation. While I do believe acceptance of Christ as our savior is the path to eternal life, I’ve also heard the insistence that it is the only way. Assuming that the other way is to Hell, which I don’t believe in as eternal fiery torment but many others do - Hell is populated by Jews, Muslims, many Catholics, Hindus…who else…Buddhists…I know one Pantheist. That’s about 3,520,000,001 (?) people off the top of my head who won’t be joining the Christians in the afterlife. For that reason alone I’m seriously unbothered by that theory, since I’m convinced that a lot of those people share the same God.
Another reason is that I’ve asked those who feel that accepting Christ is a necessity - “what about good works, are they necessary too?” “Not really…” I don’t believe that. Faith and good works. Good works and faith. They go together. I also don’t feel that it is my place to judge the state of someone’s soul, or to ignore the fact that they might indeed be a part of God’s plan…if I were an evangelical Christian it would be incumbent upon me to try to ‘save’ that person. It’s not up to me to decide who is, and who isn’t saved - this means I cannot say this one or that one is going to Hell. It’s not possible.
Yet another reason…those who are ‘saved’, are these some of the same ones who cast out their homosexual offspring? Don’t some of them beat up gays, like it’s a necessity? They are fervent, devoted, enraptured, empty-headed, empty-hearted people who are using selective interpretations of the Bible to feel morally obligated to be that way. I would no more accept a ‘gift’ of salvation that necessitated leaving my (possibly) non-Christian daughters without, than I would accept a life of luxury if it meant my daughters would be forever living in abject poverty. My only printable thought to the people who do so is, and what exactly makes YOU so special? We are all sinners; that’s one of the fundamentals of my belief. No one is any more ‘worthy’ than another.
So…I seem to have issues with fundamentalism, and I apologize if it came off like a vent. It does seem though, at times, that Christianity is being hijacked by the more militant followers among us. It’s frustrating, and I usually just ignore it…and probably should from now on.
Diogenes wrote:
I didn’t mean that they are synonyms. Their relation is like the Father and the Son. One is not possible without the other. You can’t be a Father without a Son, and you can’t be a Son without a Father.
There can be no compassion without a reliance upon Love. It is impossible. If the goodness born of Love is not flowing into me, then it is a certainty that compassion is not flowing out.
To believe (in God) is to open the heart. If your heart is closed, how will He come in?
What are some of the things you question? Just curious. Maybe we can help each other
Could you two find a room or something? I mean, have at least a modicum of respect for the wishes of the Opening Poster.
Far be it from me to interfere with your quest to join Hany in the 10,000 post club, but how about you play moderator someplace else, eh?
Sounds to me that Jerseydiamond and His4ever exploring their theological differences directly addresses the wishes of the OPer.
But if you’d prefer, we can count the number of posts you’ve made that don’t address the OP…
s/Hany/Handy/
Sorry
Vanilla, Jersey, and the rest of you who consider yourselves “Bible-believing Christians,” I need to raise a point here that matters deeply to me. You might at first glance see it as semantic nitpickery, but for me it goes much deeper than that.
For Jews in the two centuries surrounding the AD/BC mark, and for many Greek speakers of the time as well, the semi-magical concept of the Word (logos) as being the mode through which the will of the god (said that way because many of the Greeks did not believe in the God of Judaism, but in a more-or-less abstract concept of reality as divine that would be quite familiar to Tillich and Spong) is made manifest was key to their understanding. This is based for the Jews on the wording of Genesis 1, in which what causes all of creation to come into being is God saying “Let there be…”
John makes the vaunting theological leap that the Logos, the creative power of God, through which all things were made, took on human flesh and form as Jesus of Nazareth. He and He alone is the Word of God.
The Bible is the record of God’s teachings and commandments and of how the Jews and the early Christians responded to them – or failed to. In that sense, it is definitively the Word of God, but one must always remember that it was written by men at God’s inspiration – and we will differ strongly on how and to what extent that inspiration governed their product. Certainly the behavior of some people, such as Achitophel, Herod, Caiaphas, Pilate, Simon Magus, Ananias, and even Lot, Jacob, and David, is set forth to show man’s sinfulness and his need of God’s salvation – in other words, it’s in there as a horrible example, a cautionary tale of what to avoid.
To return to a moribund horse, there are a lot of commandments in the Torah that cmkeller abides by assiduously that all of us Christians concur were “written off the books” by later divine action recorded in the New Testament. To quote one of them as though it, being “the Word of God,” governs our behavior is something we’d all react to with high dudgeon.
When I say that Jesus and not the Bible is the Word of God, I am not denigrating the Bible in any way – I’m stressing that, even according to it, our primary job is to follow the Word of God – Him – and keep His commandments. Only through His Atonement are we privy to the grace and mercy that God wishes us to have.
And His commandments speak to me of a life filled with joy and fulfillment, following after Him and doing what He teaches. Nobody is saying that one should not keep His commandments; where we seem to differ is in how to apply them. And for those of us of a liberal bent, the idea that Jesus picked out two of them and said that they’re the key to the rest means that one follows all the other ones in a way that does not conflict with the big two. Consider a comparison with secular law. If it’s possible to read a statute in two ways, one of which restricts a freedom guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and one of which does not, then the court is honorbound, by the Constitution’s being the supreme law of the country, to go with the reading that does not restrict that right. And that, at bottom line, is what I’ve been trying to say here in my own spasticated way – if one writes a post quoting Scripture and phrases it in a given way that appears to be judging and condemning others, then one is breaking the “second that is like unto it” about loving one’s neighbor as oneself. It may (though I think not) be entirely true that gay men in feeling desire for other men are earning damnation for themselves. But if one cannot say that in a way that expresses love for them and not a sense of “God’s gonna get you – and you deserve it for sinning like that,” then it’s not evangelism, it’s Pharisaism wearing a cross around its neck.
I’m sorry if that sounds judgmental of those of you who stand by the Bible’s literal words; it’s not intended to, but just to make the clarification of what I am and am not saying. I don’t condemn you for alerting people to what Scripture appears to be saying (though I’d question reading that particular passage in isolation as a judgment on all gay people, if we got into that debate); I’m challenging you to alter the way you express your stance because as a sincerely involved third party what it sounds like you’re proclaiming is a legalistic doctrine and not the Good News of Christ’s Atonement granting forgiveness, a new creation, and abundant life to all who turn to Him and accept it. I know very well that that is not what you mean; I’m talking about what people reading your posts get from it. It’s not what you say but how you say it that I have a problem with.
And I sincerely hope that that can give some insight into where I at least am coming from in this prolonged dispute. I love and thank God for the goodness of nearly everybody who’s participated here, and I’m sick at heart that we seem to be at odds on what we should be finding agreement on.
[small hijack]Poly, I am very glad you’re here.[/hijack]
I think most of us feel the same way. When you break people (us) down to their most compassionate parts we agree. The board offers a chance to display our own views anonamously.
I feel that more of us would be more agreable in a face to face type of debate.
About the views in this thread…
If we could come to a general concensus, say we had to submit a summary to the boss, I wonder what the summary would say.??
I need to go over it, I was out of town this weekend and could not play along. I would have loved to have been here for every post.
[warning: continued digression on an obscure point of Greek transliteration]Thanks for the correction, Poly. I was aware of the double-gamma-[ng]-phoneme, of course (first semester Greek) but I didn’t know the gamma-chi combination produced the same sound. Is this a specifically Koine characteristic? My college Greek was Attic and my Koine study has been entirely independent, so maybe that’s why I missed this.[/digression]
I’ll weigh in on this one, since I am most assuredly NOT one of these writers of which you speak. Just a humble Christian with a big mouth. (NO smiley here, because I MEAN that sincerely and I think most of you would agree, although you might be kind enough not to SAY it…For which I am grateful!)
They certainly DO go hand in hand. I don’t believe that living a perfect life is going to get you into heaven…(well, maybe it WOULD, since only Christ ever lived a perfect life…but that is a moot point. The only reason Christ’s sacrifice was NECESSARY is because we have ALL sinned and come short of the glory of God. No getting around THAT.) BUT…once you have accepted Christ and He lives within your heart, while you are still going to make mistakes and sin and live an imperfect life, you ARE going to learn and grow toward living a life which shows the love of Christ to others. If you DON’T, then I think you might need to reexamine your true belief in Christ and your Salvation. I don’t think that it is possible to quit sinning, BUT…you ARE going to start showing more and more of Christ’s love and teachings. And if you DON’T, then I think you need to pray and ask WHY. It is not MY place to judge whether your belief is a TRUE one, but…I would question it if I were you. (You in a general sense, not YOU.) Because if you are NOT moving TOWARD living the “fruits of the spirit,” I have to question WHY the Holy Spirit isn’t convicting you? Because He certainly SHOULD be, IMHO.
Well, I AM an evangelical Christian, and I agree with you. COMPLETELY!!! (Not the part about it being “incumbent” on me to ‘save’ someone…I hope I have made it abundantly clear that I don’t believe I have the power or the instruction to ‘save’ ANYONE. I have the instruction to live the love of Christ in such a way that when I share that I believe someone might NEED Christ in their life, they don’t think to themself…"Huh, if SHE is a Christian, I DON’T WANT TO BE ONE!!!)
This bothers me, too. It bothers me a LOT. Any Christian who commits the grave sins you have listed…well, once again, it isn’t MY place to judge a person’s soul, or their relationship with God. But I have never been able to understand how these people could reconcile the love of God and the teachings of His word with these vile acts. And I never WILL be able to, either…simply because I KNOW these acts are abhorrent to God, and to Christ…and to ME, BTW. I saw the pictures of those “Christians” picketing…PICKETING!!! With HORRIBLE, awful HATEFUL signs…Matthew Shepard’s funeral, and I was as angry as I think I have ever been in my life. IF these people are truly “Christians”…which isn’t my place to judge, then they have SERIOUSLY missed the boat and need to start reading their Bible. In my SERIOUSLY outraged opinion. I don’t need to go on about this, since I am SURE that everyone here agrees with me…at least on THAT point.
You know, my mother was MUCH more of a fundamentalist than I am…if it is possible to have degrees of fundamentalism, which I think it IS. BUT…she also lived her life, more truly than anyone I know, exemplifying the love of Christ. She loved more easily than anyone I ever met. You know, as a child, I watched my mom just loving people. People who had the biggest chip on their shoulder, who didn’t appear to believe that anyone was out for anything but their own self interest. People who were angry at life…many for good reason. Many because when they were children they had never known kindness, so they didn’t even BELIEVE in kindness. People who had never learned to trust ANYONE because they had never been given any reason to believe that anyone COULD be trusted. People who everyone else was either not approaching or approaching with great trepidation and talking about nothing but the weather… People who made other people afraid. They were just people who had never been loved unconditionally. Sure, some of them probably WERE bad people. But even those I never saw fail to melt when my mother got ahold of them. Of course it is judgemental of me to say they were BAD people, but that was my perception sometimes… especially as a child.
I would see my mom go over and start talking to them (a few times, when I was REALLY young, I remember tugging on my daddy’s hand and telling him that mommy was over talking to that scary person…he always told me “your mommy knows what she is doing. It will be fine.” And somehow…it always was) and pretty soon you would look over and see them sitting there with my tiny little mom holding their hand, then a bit later they would be weeping on her shoulder…or smiling on her shoulder, depending on how icy their shell was when it melted.
So anyway, once we had a church in town whose pastor had a son who was engaged to a WONDERFUL girl who had grown up in our church. Everyone was very happy for them, they had set a wedding date. His father was also very happy about the engagement. THEN…they “anticipated their vows” and the girl got pregnant. They moved the wedding date up, and still everyone was happy for them. Well…not EVERYONE.
This pastor told his son that if he married the girl, he would disown him. His son was pretty bewildered about this, but said that he loved her, he was going to marry her, God WANTED them to marry, and if that meant he no longer had a father who accepted them, then that was the way it was going to have to be. This guy THEN told his wife that if SHE attended the wedding, he would not allow her back into their home. And as hard as this is to believe, that is what happened.
My parents and I (and everyone else I knew) were horrified about this, and mom and I were discussing the stituation one day. Mom said “Your child is your child. You love them, you hope they live a life that exhibits the love of Christ, but…even if they DIDN’T for some reason, they would STILL be your child. And you would STILL love them.” (She wasn’t really talking about the current situation, just saying how TOTALLY wrong this pastor was.) I was curious, so I said…“But mom, what if one of us did something TRULY horrible…say we murdered someone or something like that?” Mom didn’t miss a beat. “It would break my heart. I would pray unceasingly for you, and for us, and for anyone touched by your great wrong. I would try in any way I could think of to make RIGHT that wrong, and to convince YOU that you should do whatever you could to make right that wrong. But you would still be my child. And I would not stop loving you. I will NEVER stop loving you.”
I don’t know, maybe you don’t understand why I told you all that. I guess that I look at that as being the same way God approaches US. Unconditional love. It is very rare. I was graced to have it in my life, both from my parents AND from God.
I wouldn’t accept a gift of the kind of salvation that necessitated disowning your children either. Or the kind that mandated killing or hurting someone who YOU thought was sinning. But God wouldn’t ever EVER feel that either of those things WAS the right thing to do… I believe that with every fiber of my being.
Oh, and BTW, neither did that pastor’s church. They asked him to pray about it because they didn’t believe this guy was acting “in the Spirit” and when he told them he was doing God’s will in this matter, they booted him. Practically the whole town cheered.
I am afraid I don’t agree that you should ignore it. I think that God wouldn’t WANT you to ignore it. I am afraid that if people START ignoring it, we will be condoning what I think is a total disregard for the teachings of the Scripture.
I think maybe I should apologize for this “book” I have written here. Maybe I should have taken it to email. But I didn’t, because I hope maybe I had something to say that others would understand and maybe it might help someone.
My Love,
Cheri