Yes, I might could understand an alien’s ignorance, but not a Doper’s. An alien might conclude that all people favor a government hand on either your zipper or your wallet. (How many Libertarian leaders do you see on “Equal (sic) Time”?)
Conflict?
I know the media likes conflict, but they get plenty of that with their current formula: a moronic guest and an enlightened host. Or a controversial guest (hate spouting “Christian”) and a sensationalist host (Geraldo). Or a left-wing nut versus a right-wing nut.
Frankly, I think people see whatever they want to see. No matter how many times you repeat what Jesus said a Christian is, ignorant people are going to define Christianity their own way. The stated objective of this site, SD, is to fight ignorance. But you might be surprised to learn that that is not necessarily the objective of the mainstream media.
How do you know that there aren’t a lot of faithful Christians just chomping at the bit to get on air? But is that what the producers want? And it’s the producer’s call, isn’t it? Let’s see, controversial right-wing hate-monger versus controversial left-wing object-of-hatred — or — reasoned debate between two opposing views? … Hmmm.
I’ve heard Jerry Falwell clarify himself numerous times on talk shows. And no matter how many times he says that though he hates the sin, he loves the sinner, it won’t make any difference because the caricature is a lot more fun than the real person. That’s why morons think Islmaic leaders are terrorists and Atheist leaders are hand-stabbing fops.
I mean, think about it. Christ Himself comes here and defines “Christian” very plainly and simply. But do you think His version would make good fodder for the talking heads?
As to Internet searches, I couldn’t find much on the net about the up-the-butt controversy either, but to hear some tell it, there is a flyer announcing Bob Eubanks’ alleged reward on every office chair in the nation.
Well, slap my knee, I did know that, and it was echoing in my ears this entire morning…
In Matt 7:15-16, Jesus said:
On down aways, Jesus goes on to say in Matt 7:20-23:
I have never met Fred Phelps, I never really heard of him until recently. If I had a chance to talk to him, one on one, I may share a couple of scriptures and ask how he reconciles his ministry and his practices with these principles.
I didn’t say there were Christian, or Christian leaders, but they certainly can be, and even are, perceived that way. That’s Christianity’s problem, because it affects Christianity’s reputation. Neither Slythe or I are stating that they ARE good Christians, but that Christianity is getting a bad rep amongst people who can think, because these loons are allowed, by lack of rejection, to represent Christianity. If you are content to say they aren’t Christian and hence they don’t represent me to yourself, no problem. But don’t be surprised when lots of other people who have never heard that message are disgusted by their behavior. Personally, I am disgusted by their behavior as PEOPLE not as Christians. I am also saddened that Christians haven’t taken upon themselves to topple their vile message.
The mainstream media, the Geraldo’s and Jerry Springer’s of the world certainly wouldn’t be intersted in good debate, but those aren’t the only shows out there. There are plenty more opportunities for Christians to get their message heard. If it were me, I would be organizing public marches and demonstrations to renounce them. The news would cover it. If I were a Chrisitian and loved the message of Christ I simply would not allow this to go on. I would fight tooth and nail to stop them. Christians don’t seem to be interested in doing that. Oh, well, no biggie, it is the Christian reputation and Christ’s reputation that suffers the most from it.
The old, fight fire with fire, okay I get what you are saying. The only way to combat hate and venom, is with more hate and venom. Is that what you are trying to say? I don’t think it is.
What does the Bible tell about how to respond to false teachers?
The Second Chapter of Peter is one place that tells how to deal with people like these. There are other places as well.
The clear Biblical teaching is to have nothing to do with them. The only person that can judge in God, and their judgement will come. We must test everything, and hold on to the good. (1 Thess 5:21) We must warn a decisve person two times, and then have nothing to do with them. (Titus 3:10) And keep ourselves in God’s love (Jude 21).
Who said hate and venom? That’s a rather big assumption on your part Navigator. I said I would fight them “tooth and nail” as in unendingly, it doesn’t mean I would bite them and scratch them.
I also said I would get together public marches in protest, and public demonstrations. Nothing hateful or venomous about that, unless the protestors were to start spouting hate and venom. But imagine if the demonstrations were a matter of speaking the truth about why their message isn’t a good/accurate/true message of Christ’s love? Is that hateful and venomous?
I certainly didn’t say they should be burnt in effigy, or anything of the sort. If Christians lack the ability to protest these people in a non-hateful and non-venomous way … oh well, no biggie, it is the Christian reputation that suffers the most from it.
Glitch: Like I said, I didn’t think you meant that. Thank you for the clarification.
I think marches and such may be a good response. All to often, those never turn out the way you mean them to be, it is hard to have everyone who feel passionate in their belief to stay in control of their emotions. MLK was one of a few that actually was able to do just that.
More than likely, especially with the Fred Phelpses of the world, our peaceful, loving march would be confronted by the ‘hate and venom’ ilk, and then the news shows would have a spectacle. ‘Christians fighting Christians… film at eleven.’
Personally I’ll take the approach I think the Bible recommends.
Nav: I respect your view. However, this does mean a few things:
These people will be perceived as Christian.
Since they speak out publically, they will be perceived as leaders.
Lets face it, lots of people are sheep, they aren’t going to critically analysis what they say. They are Christian and that’s good enough for them. Afterall, nobody is objecting to it, so a Christian isn’t logically able to conclude that it must be somewhat truthful.
There will be some people who will find them and their message repugnant. Not the theistic part, the vile part.
Christianity reputations suffers because of it.
Some people fall away from God because of it.
Some people believe a false message because of it.
In some cases, yet other people are harmed directly by the people in #7 above.
Granted 3,6,7 & 8 are mainly the responability of the listener. I wouldn’t imagine absolving them of a great measure of blame for their own misguidance. But that still is the reality.
If your beliefs allow you to be comfortable with that. No problem. And I am not trying to mock your beliefs, honest. I understand that you see it that they will get theirs at final judgment. No problem. But I think to be fair you have to admit that in the here and now, there are some ramifactions for Christian inaction (the 8 things above). This can be perceived by some as a problem for those of us who want the here and now to be okay, and not just the final judgement.
Glitch: I respect your POV as well, and I agree with your points. I think they all are the responsiblity of the listener.
Does it make me sick to my stomach, that people such as these represent Christianty? ABSOOOLUTELY.
However I’m at a loss at how to respond to them, without sinking to their level. Nor do I have the resources to take this to the level that they have raised it. The clear biblical teaching is their ilk will exist, and we are to avoid them.
How can we speak against them. Well this thread has helped. Both you and slythe recognize that what they preach is not Christianity. Both of you are some what insulted by their actions, but don’t blame it on their religion but their mis-representation of their religion.
To someone who is searching, and asks the question, well what about {fill in the blank}. The question can be asked back to them, ‘What does the Bible say?’ or, ‘What do you think?’ and then a witness can be made.
The OP asked: What do Christians do about…“Christians”?
I don’t blame it on the religion itself. I hope I made that clear, but if not then well, I just said it.
I never did. I always knew enough about Christian philosophy that they were not speaking the truth ™.
This isn’t intended as a “counter” to your post. I just wanted to make my own POV clear, lest people get the wrong idea.
I do find the Christian reaction surprising though, because it is so different from my ethic. I believe in, what I call, “The Creation Principle”. Simply stated “Do and support actions that create, avoid and prevent actions that destroy.” To me these clowns are destroyers, not creators. Therefore, their influence must be prevented.
But it is really tough to try to counter them. As Nav said, what if in the heat of the moment, someone on the good side erupts or what if someone from the other side poses as someone from the good side just to cause a negative reaction for the good side.
Glitch you are right, people are sheep. I mean, Jim Baker was proven to have stolen all this money even to the point that he was jailed for a time, now he comes back and says he is sorry and that God has redeemed him. Now who in their right mind would send him money after knowing what he did, but there are people who will.
A lot of people that support these folks do not have a church that they attend regularly. Usually if someone has a church they regularly attend they will give their money to that church and if that church does wrong it will be handled within that church.
I understand both Glitch’s and Slythe’s points and I do not see them as trying to start trouble. But it is a problem that is hard to deal with.
What about non-religion based conmen? Who tells unwitting folks not to send their money to these crooks? Sure there are a few people that do, but the media does not generally publish stories telling the elderly or whomever, to be wary of various schemes. Just as there are people that want to get rich quick and will do dumb things to get rich and end up losing all they had, there are folks who are looking to get into Heaven easy and do dumb things and end up in the same boat, no money and no Heaven.
Conmen will always prey on these folks, if you take one down then another will soon replace them and it might be the one you took down. How many people continue to support Jimmy Swagart even after all the troubles he has had? I guess instead we mostly spend our time trying to reach the people we can and hope that when they hear the truth they will know to stay away from these conmen.
Thanks for the ref. If only I had read a little further from the passage I quoted. :o Out of curiousity, and since my bible was handy, I checked out your sig ref. For those who don’t have a bible, here it is: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” We must not forget that. So thanks for reminding me. The point is, we can stand opposed to those who abuse the name of Jesus, even if they have a media network. We must stand together to amplify our voice. This thread is one example. The true teachings of Christianity are spread far and wide, slythe. Every Sunday morning, in churches across America. There’s probably a few near you.
You know, there is one problem with the idea that “those idiots are giving Christianity a black eye.” In the general population, there is not a great distinction between “we people” and “we Christians.”
A brief analogy.
The entire student body of a small college gathers together on the football field. At this college, 90% of the students are members of fraternities. While waiting for the president to get his microphone to work, the clowns from Delta house start mooning a nearby sorority while the zealots from some militarily-organized frat runs over to punish the Delta losers. A non-frat student turns to me and asks “Why don’t you condemn those people? They are making all you frat people look bad!”
Excuse me? They are making “all” frats look bad to whom?
10% of the student body has already chosen to not join the frats for any number of reasons. Perhaps they are offended by the Deltas. Perhaps they are offended by the toy soldiers. Perhaps they are offended by the whole notion of fraternities.
Of the remaining 90% of the people, we already know that the bad behavior has to do with the personalities of the participants, not the concept of campus fraternities. So who is supposed to be our audience?
If (in my analogy) I run out on the field screaming “You people are a disgrace to the fraternity way!”, no one is going to be impressed. The 10% who chose not to join are not going to “see the light” because a frat person spoke out against the idiots. The 90% who did join are going to say “We know they’re not representative, so what’s your point.”
This huge unidentified audience of people being scandalized by Robertson and Phelps calling themselves Christian is simply not a huge number of people–and they have already made up their minds on those issues anyway. Christians who disagree with Robertson’s politics don’t see him as a “Christian.” They see him as a preacher from one sect with a political agenda. He is exercising his Constitutional rights to free speech and they dismiss him on those grounds. Christians who see Phelps don’t see him as a “Christian.” They see him as a hate-monger. As part of the overwhelming majority of people in this country (who happen to be Christian), they do not see the claims to Christianity by these guys as remarkable. Most people in this country do claim to be Christian.
As the number of Asian immigrants increases and the percentage of non-Christians in this country increases, there may be an impetus to disassociate particular people from Chrstianity (or, at least Christian leadership).
The position slythe takes assumes a great monolithic Christianity that needs to show itself as pure if it wants more converts. I suspect that from inside that “monolith,” Christians (in North America) see the visible world as basically Christian. They do not see a monolithic Christianity, but papists, baptizers, millennialists (with pre-, post, and alla- rapturists), and generic protestants with a lot variety among each of those groups. They do not perceive a need to cleanse their own house because they don’t figure the guy next to them is even in their house.
From outside (which is easier to see, here on this MB, where the population is much more evenly divided between Christians and non-Christians), Christianity looks like one thing. From inside, it looks entirely different.
The last figures I saw for North America showed 86% of the people identified as Christian and only 8.5% of the people identified as either atheist or non-religious. (The remaining numbers were religious but not Christian.) North American Christians do not see themselves as needing to identify the good and bad Christians because the assumption is that most of the bad people are Christian (simply by the preponderance of numbers) so why make an issue of it?
As to specific challenges against haters. I said it earlier: the larger churches attack issues, not people. Hate is condemned, racism is condemned, homophobia is condemned (even while saying that homosexuals must refrain from that lifestyle). Persons and organizations are only rarely named and condemned. If someone has a problem with that approach (and I sometimes do), it is still a different issue than claiming that bad Christians are given a “get out of jail free” card.
I think the Church’s proper response to possibly false teachers is the following:
[ul][li]Actively seek to save the non-christian via relationships (read friendship). (not preaching!)[/li][li]Be actively involved in the community. (Soup kitchens, Goodwill, tutoring, etc.)[/li][li]In church, preach what the Bible accurately says on all topics. Not just the easy ones.[/ul][/li]
If Christians have accurate information, then they can avoid false teachers. If the unsaved have good examples in the community, there is no reason to believe Fred Phelps and his ilk are representitive.
In short (too late), if The Church were doing her job, these guys would be out of a job.
As usual, while I’m writing a few of my points are addressed–thanks for indulging me:
I believe a couple of integral points in this discussion have been obfuscated, if not kicked into the corner altogether.
Christians do speak out against the aforementioned factions. I have stated this previously, which no one seems to remember. Bakker, Swaggart, Falwell, Roberts, Hinn, Chick, name ‘em and I could find many websites alone that cry repentance on these folks, and opinions as to how their practices deviate from sound doctrine (or not). And these sites can direct you to magazine articles and other media bites which over the last decade alone might open the eyes to the amount of ‘intolerance’ by the Christian community toward its own representatives. I would encourage any skeptic to set foot in a Christian bookstore (:eek and ask about criticism of popular media figures.
[Side note: (Bakker’s ‘I Was Wrong’ touches on this subject…and please allow me to submit: I’ve met Jim Bakker, with a huge monkey on my back, as well as my wife’s, regarding his ‘true repentance.’ Lemme tellya—the man had been humbled to the point of speaking just above a whisper when he was asked to address the L.A. Dream Center, where he was about to take up residence. Not as a preacher, but as a homeless man trying to put his life back together. After the first minute of his brief address to the congregation, my wife and I looked at each other in utter shock. He was not the same man he’d been. And please, no comments regarding how ‘prison changes a man from the inside out, nyuk nyuk nyuk.’ His call to account and resultant introspection had caused him to delve quite deeply into his iniquity, and as a result, humbled him to the point of timidity—but a timidity born of a new insight into what a true relationship with God is, that being more than a vessel for selfish ambition. I am called to forgive, even a seemingly unrepentant con-man like Bakker–and I have never seen such an intense difference in character displayed than the ‘media-icon’ Bakker to the ‘I’m only alive because God didn’t see fit to kill me for my hypocrisy’ Bakker.]
The argument ‘these people represent Christianity because no one stops them’ is valid, but isn’t restricted to mere Christianity, and as such, becomes a double-edged sword for those who employ it as a means of stating ‘stand up for yourselves and oust the fools.’ The problem of misrepresentation exists in every society that uses media figures to extend influence into cultural spheres. For instance, and one example, I do not consider William J. Clinton to represent the American people, especially in matters non-politic, as a ‘model.’ I could easily argue America is adulterous and duplicitous, using his own testimony ipso facto. This pertains in that he also states he’s Christian, which throws another wrench into the works: Why don’t the Christians oust Clinton? Tut, that’s a separation of church and state issue. But he’s OPENLY CLAIMED his Christianity, and asked forgiveness from God in front of the entire nation—doesn’t he then fall into the category of ‘media icons who misrepresent Christianity?’ Ah, but his religion is a side issue. His politics are separate. Not when he pulls the ‘God grant me clemency’ card in a public forum. Suddenly we know he must be sorry because he’s asked God’s forgiveness and he’s a Christian, and that’s what they do when they’re sorry.
We might say “But Clinton’s not preaching God, like these others who do and espouse Christian values as long as the money rolls in. Clinton just made a mistake. These people are to blame because they’re misleading folks as their primary function.”
Tell me who benefits: Folks who glean truths out of the words of a fool, or folks who believe lies out of the mouth of a king?
This is hypothetical, you understand. I’m merely trying to point out the difficulty in the ‘petition the false leaders’ argument. Televangelists aren’t elected. They have money, which the public gives them. Some do the right things. Some don’t. Some aren’t even aware of the fallacies in their thinking.
The apostle Paul writes on this subject of people preaching truth out of false motivations in his letter to the church at Philippi, while he himself sat imprisoned (most likely in Rome). The following is from the first ‘chapter:’
This pretty much speaks for itself. In the Christian faith, spreading the good news is the goal. It is also understood that, as in the parable of the sowers, not everyone will receive the word and understand it. Some will reject it. Some will accept it, but under fire will drop it for fear of persecution. Some take it, but limit it, rendering it watered down and complacent. Others take it to heart, and seek to know as much as they can about their new gift. These folks test what they hear against scripture. They also, as Paul exhorts, test everything, keeping what is good, avoiding evil. Even if it means weighing the words of their leaders against scripture, as the Bereans did.
Glitch’s comment about sheep is valid; some blindly follow, and can be led into the threshing machine. And, if folks don’t have an urge to crack open the Bible and test what this guy with the big hair says versus the contents of the word, the root of their devotion might be surface level at best, often based upon charisma rather than a desire to know God.
Again, the issue of Christians rallying to oust other Christians: If they preach false doctrine, they are in error, and it must be addressed. If they preach sound doctrine, but are atrocious in appearance (which I still cannot figure out for the life of me), the only action I might take is shutting them off in resounding favor of the X-Files.
Personally, I do not watch the folks with too much makeup more than once. There are folks on TBN worth watching, IMHO, interspersed between the paid for timeslots of folks gazing back through the charnel pits of India Kohl eyeliner and #White Male pancake base.
Overall, as Paul states, it isn’t necessarily why the word of God is preached as opposed to the message itself. If the message is skewed, it must be corrected. If not, so be it.
Luke 9:49-50
The context in question is not ‘whoever doesn’t fight with you is on your side.’ The context is that of ‘those who do accomplish great things in my name, but do not associate with you directly, are not to be regarded as enemies, but as fellow workmen in accordance with the will of God.’
This, too, is a poignant guideline. And, as such, must also be weighed accordingly, measured against the character of God, as revealed through scripture, His son, and the Holy Spirit.
Just my .02. Thanks for your time.
–Jason
Insanity destroys logic, but not wit. Nathaniel Emmons
If we are out of our mind, it is for the Lord; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 2Cor.5:13
Ok Speaking as the only Non-Christian/Atheist here i i think (didn’t read all the posts) i have to say. that theres no such thing a a true Christian. to start with theres no Christian to Begian with. your all Jewish. but by a differnt name. anyways back to the topic. what i have read in the bible says to me that if you know what a good “christian” is and how to act your comiting a few of the 7 Deadly Sins, i know it doesn’t sound like it. but by people calling them selfs true christians there comiting the ones i think pride does come to mind. adn the TV preachers, GLUTTONY,AVARICE (greed) and SLOTH (not working them selfs)
Hey Emperor Shemp, I am glad to see that the facilitated communication program is working out so wonderfully for you. Why don’t you go and read the Bible first(or have somebody read it to you), then get back to us with your opinions on religion, et al.
This is directed to those who are Christians: if you have a problem w/a leader (Christian or otherwise), why not pray for them? I know it’s a revolutionary concept… but it works. I say this w/humility because this is something that I have been convicted about. When I had a problem w/a particular practice in my church, my first reaction was to fire off a letter to the pastor. I was thwarted in that attempt (by my toddler, who turned off the computer) so I decided to pray about it. I prayed, never said anything to anyone about it and wouldn’t you know, God fixed it WITHOUT me!! He didn’t need my help! Amazing, huh?!
Again, this is ONLY directed to those who consider themselves Christians. If you don’t believe in God, it’s a moot point.
