Then you must allow that He is not the way, either. Nor the truth. Nor the life. He is merely “Jesus”.
As John said, “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” — 1 John 4:7-8
/hijack continues briefly
I think there’s may people who identify as “Chrisitan by Default”. They’re thinking that, “Well, I’m not Jewish and I’m not Bhuddist. I must be a Christian.”
For the record, I identify as Christian and make it to church (on average) around 75% of the time. The rate has dropped recently on the birth of my new son.
/end
/hijack continues briefly
I think there’s many Americans who identify as “Chrisitan by Default”. They’re thinking that, “Well, I’m not Jewish and I’m not Bhuddist. I must be a Christian.”
For the record, I identify as Christian and make it to church (on average) around 75% of the time. The rate has dropped recently on the birth of my new son.
/end
Hi WV_Woman
No offence, but I think your argument here is dangerously close to being circular.
You: Most Christians consider the bible to be the infallible word of God.
Walloon. But here are some surveys which show that only a minority of Christians believe the bible to be the actual or literal word of God.
You. Well, the respondents in these surveys may call themselves Christians, but they might not really be Christians. Lots of people call themselves Christians but aren’t really. “Believing stuff that specifically goes against the teachings of Christianity naturally gives cause for doubt” [as to whether they are really Christian].
But what are the teachings of Christianity, if not the teachings that Christians accept and believe? If, for example, we talk the view that scriptural inerrancy is a necessary teaching of Christianity, then those who do not accept this teaching are, by definition, not Christian. But why do we take the view that scriptural inerrancy is a necessary teaching of Christianity? It cannot be because Christians accept it, because we have already defined Christians as those who accept this belief (among other beliefs).
Ahhhh, no. I’m definately on topic here. Having trouble paying attention? Let me refresh your memory:
Number 4 is important. Here you seem to be agreeing with my statement from #3, while implying that this type of statement is not part of the teachings of Jesus. This is an incorrect assertion. You go so far as to say this:
Also incorrect.
5. To prove your statements false, I provided the following quote:
This quote is exactly the type of statement that I brought up. It insists that Jesus’s belief (in an unprovable set of theories) concerning the unknown must be the absolute and infallible truth. Then it exclude and demonizes all humans who disagree. Notice the word “condemn”. But, now, since it’s YOUR religion it’s different. No more "amen"s when I call this type of behavior foolish. You, my friend, have become the butt of that joke.
Regardless, I don’t see any place I went off topic. So now that we can dismiss that first part, I’ll move on to the rest of what you said.
Now who’s going off topic? None of what you said about this passage, nor the passage itself, removes the existence of the words “whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed”. Exluding and demonizing. That’s the foolish part. That’s what you were amening about being foolis. Even though you don’t seem to accept it, it is a big part of that religion. I’m in agreement with Joe_Cool, here.
Whoever wrote that part of the bible, and whoever believes that part to be true, will be the recipient of a private padded room come the afterlife. Or so the joke goes.
In short, you hopped right on the bandwagon saying it’s foolish to make such statements. That is until it’s shown that YOUR object of worship is guilty of the same. Then it’s different. Misdiretion and then a bait and switch followed. Not very impressive.
DaLovin’ Dj
“Old joke, DJ. And purt near every religion and denomination has been the punchline of it.”
That’s what should appear in the quotes in #2. Forgot one last cut and paste.
DaLovin’ Dj
Well, then I’m some other “religion” I reckon. The “religion” that I “follow” is what I’ve written, quoted, and paraphrased forty ways from Sunday. All whose ethic is love are of God.
I have to defend WV_Woman’s stance here, though I think she’s approaching the “no true Scotsman” fallacy in the way she’s presented it.
A large number of people appear to have no real commitment to following the way of Christ, but were at some point taken to church and baptized/dedicated/attended Sunday School/whatever and therefore call themselves Christian.
As has been painfully obvious from past exchanges, I don’t think that most of what is put forth by some fundamentalist and evangelical groups as “what all true Christians must believe” is anything like a requirement for being considered a Christian – only a commitment to follow Christ to the best of one’s ability, with the help of the Holy Spirit being understood, and according to the teachings of one’s own faith community.
Be that as it may, her point that Christians are those who follow Christ in their daily lives is a very valid one.
To me, that does not define “saved” because we have no idea of what the limits of God’s mercy may be, nor even what the future of those whom we do not observe doing that following may be. Probably public enemy #1 for the early Church was a guy named Saul of Tarsus, a fanatic Pharisee who was out to eradicate this heresy of Christianity from the face of self-respecting Law-abiding Judaism. Ask anyone who followed “the Way” (the term they used then) whether Saul would be saved, and you’d probably be met with shocked silence followed by laughter. However, God had other ideas.
My conclusions on the subject are as follows: There is nobody who knows the fulness of God’s mind (except His Son restored to glory and His proper place in the Trinity) nor the fulness of His mercy. So concluding that e.g., Islam or Taoism is totally false is as far from the truth as the reverse. However, there are obvious disagreements between the belief systems. As a Christian, I believe that my faith system has the best understanding of God; if that were not so, I’d be looking elsewhere for a better way to follow Him. And it consists in putting one’s trust in Jesus and His redemption of the world. What God has in mind for the followers of other belief systems I do not know – but I trust in His love for their salvation as well as my own. In the interim, my assignment is to proclaim the Good News as best I can.
As for the quotation from John 14, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; No one comes to the Father except by Me,” it’s important to note what the context is. This is part of Jesus’s farewell discourse to the Apostles. He’s just gotten through saying that His work on Earth is nearly done, and He will shortly be mounting His horse and riding off into the sunset. Naturally, the disciples are shocked, and want to know what will happen to them. He says, "I will not leave you orphaned. I’m going to prepare the place you will come to, and I’m sending help – the paraclete to strengthen and guide you. " In the course of all this, one of them says, “Lord, show us the way to the Father, and it’ll be enough.” And he responds, in effect, “You nitwit! How long have you known me? I’m the way you need to take, I’m the truth you need to know, I’m the life you need to live. You want to get to the Father? Live as I have lived, follow the way I’ve led, live the truth as I have.” In no way is this a formula defining some abstract belief in the deity of Christ as a sine qua non of salvation – it’s saying, “Follow me, for the life I live, and give, is the way to the Father.”
OK, Poly and Lib (please explain to me why if He meant “love” He said “me” and not “love”…certainly He knew the word), that’s a really happy, nice thought. But then how do you reconcile that with Jesus’s other words:
[quote]
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (John 3:18-19)
?
Jesus was very clear in saying that He (He personally, not a “love metaphor”) is the single and only way to salvation and to God. To pretend otherwise is either stupidity or else intellectual dishonesty. Neither of you appears to be stupid, so I have to assume the latter.
When somebody says “I” and “ME”, you don’t read in metaphors. When the plain language makes perfect, clear sense, you don’t try to interpret your way around it. If Jesus had meant “love”, why wouldn’t He have said “agape” instead of “ego”? What is so hard to understand about that?
I’m not a Christian, however I don’t think there can be a single answer to this question. I have some information on what one prominent Christian thinks. This is pretty long and maybe too much, but here goes.
I have a book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, detailing the views of a well known Christian, The Roman Catholic Pope, John Paul II, on this subject. I’m going out on a limb here and will assume that the views of John Paul II represent a close approximation to the official position of the Roman Catholic Church on other religions.
In the chapter Is Only Rome Right?, my reading is that he thinks that, yes, only Rome is right. This opinion is buried in a lot of verbiage but I think that is what is said. The Pope leads into his answer to the question via an exposition on salvation and early in the chapter there is the following, “It is therefore a revealed truth that* there is salvation only and exclusively in Christ … Thus Christ is the true active subject of humanity’s salvation.[emphasis in the original] The Church is as well inasmuch as it acts on behalf of Christ and in Christ … ‘For this reason men cannot be saved who do not want to enter or remain in the Church, knowing that the Roman Catholic Church was founded by God through Christ as a necessity.’(Lumen Gentium I)*”
There is also a chapter entitled Buddha? in which it is clear to me that Buddhism isn’t something that Pope recommends… In it he states, “Buddhism is in large measure an* ‘atheistic’ system.*[emphasis in the original] We do not free ourselves from evil through the good which comes from God; we liberate ourselves only through detachment from the world, which is bad. The fullness of such a detachment is not union with God, but what is called nirvana, a state of perfect indifference with regard to the world.”
And he later has a caution, “These words indicate how between Christianity and the religions of the Far East, in particular Buddhism, there is an essentially different way of perceiving the world. … For Christianity, it does not make sense to speak of the world as a ‘radical’ evil, since at the beginning of the world we find God the Creator who loves His creation, a God who ‘gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life’ (Jn 3:16).”
“For this reason it is not inappropriate to caution those Christians who enthusiastically welcome certain ideas originating in the religious traditions of the Far East [emphasis in the original]…”
Moving on the the chapter, Muhammad? there is this which indicates to me that the Pope isn’t enthusiastic about Islam. “Whoever knows the Old and New Testaments, and then reads the Koran, clearly sees the process by which it completely reduces Divine Revelation. It is impossible not to note the movement away from what God said about Himself, first in the Old Testament through the Prophets, and then finally in the New Testament through His Son. In Islam all the richness of God’s self-revelation, which constitutes the heritage of the Old and New Testaments, has definitely been set aside.” “He [God] is ultimately a God outside of the world, a God who is only Majesty, never Emmanuel, God-with-us. … Islam is not a religion of redemption.[emphasis in the original] … For this reason … Islam is very distant from Christianity.”
As to interfaith relationship with Islam the Pope writes, “… concrete difficulties are not lacking. In countries where fundamentalist movements come to power, human rights and the principle of religious freedom are unfortunately interpreted in a very onesided way - religious freedom comes to mean freedom to impose on all citizens the ‘true religion.’ In these countries the situation of Christians is sometimes terribly disturbing. Fundamentalist attitudes of this nature make reciprocal contacts very difficult.”
And finally the Pope addresses Judaism? with some rather astonishing statements. “… The time when the people of the Old Covenant [Jews} will be able to see themselves as part of the New is, naturally, a question to be left to the Holy Spirit.” In my opinion this says that the Pope hopes that God will help the Jews to see the light.
“We, as human beings, try only not to put obstacles in the way. The form this ‘not putting obstacles’ takes is certainly dialogue between Christians and Jews, which, on the Church’s part, is being carried forward by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.” And this section tells me that the Pope sees helping Jews to see the light as promoting “Christian Unity.” [emphasis added]
It certainly looks to me like Pope thinks Rome has the answer, Buddhism is to be avoided, Islam is troubling in more ways than one, and Jews are lost sheep who need to have their eyes opened so they can come into the fold.
What bothers me about christianity is that there is a certain measure of ethnocentricism mixed in with their beliefs. Anything that isn’t western orientated is thought of as dark, bestial, and forboding to western civilization and religion. This may have been the justification by people under the church to colonize and destroy other cultures in order to “aid” them in enlightenment. For instance, the whole concept of Jesus Christ and God is really a very “western” ideal with no religious basis in eastern thought.
We may think of 9/11 as something evil and those islamic fundamentalists as “fanatics” but the reality is Christianity did the same thing in the middle ages. There were often huge religious wars in the form of crusades and atrocities committed on both sides to see which religion would have cultural supremacy. It’s not just a matter of religion, a lot of it has to do with culture imbedded in religion as well.
Monotheism in general is a fairly western creation, however I disagree that the morals they espouse are entirely western in origin. I believe “morals” or modern western morality as we know it has roots in the theory behind natural law. Even Confuciasm (which is a philosophy) stressed these natural “morals” in man such as murder, stealing, etc… being “wrong” to a society. It seems a lot of the similar morals espoused by christianity have a basis in man himself. Instead of keeping these morals as a philosophy they were expanded and placed into a system of social deity worship.
Indeed, a lot of the old morals and “commandments” often held to high esteem in the bible are just a reflection of these old laws and traditions. The New Testament seems to go back and revise what was considered “extreme” in the old testament. In contempory christianity it seems that revisionism has gone further to make it idealistic with today’s society.
I don’t blame you, really. If I thought of people that way, I wouldn’t think that God is love either.
Welcome to the board, Feistymongol. Nice post. Christianity does have a pretty rough history of exclusion, violence, and persecution if you go back far enough. That’s not to say that all Christians have persecuted people, only that it has been quite common for people to do these things in Christs name. Despite Lib’s creative interpretation, the text does instruct the reader that all religions are not equal, and those who choose wrong will be damned (condemned). Yuck. If that’s an enlightened perspective, then I’m a flying monkey.
DaLovin’ Dj
Yes, but as you say, that was the middle ages. These 21th century Muslim fanatics (no quotation marks here) cultivate a Medieval mind-set. The Enlightenment, with its freedoms of thought, conscience, and religion, seems to have passed them by.
Specific to the post, at Toronto’s World Youth Festival (the Catholic Pilgrimage, the blemish on Canada’s record of secularism) a cardinal (Aloysius Ambrozic)commanded Catholics to “refuse to feign the politically correct tolerance which imagines all religions and convictions and beliefs are equally valid”. This after the Pope commended Toronto’s multiculturalism.
DJ
What religion is Jesus?
I guess you could say he was the first Christian. If he even existed.
DaLovin’ Dj
Lib, despite the exceedingly clever comeback (I’ll be sure to mark myself down as having been ‘zinged’), I’d still like to see your answer to my question.
You seem to think ‘God’ and ‘Love’ are interchangeable. That would certainly put an interesting spin on other areas in the bible, wouldn’t it? “Hear O Israel, Yahweh our Love is One Love.” Sorry, it just doesn’t carry the same weight.
It’s good that you remember that Love is an important aspect of God’s nature, but excluding Justice, Holiness, Mercy, etc…that’s the cheap way out.
Anyway, I’m waiting for your explanation of why Jesus would use the personal pronoun, calling himself the only way to God, if in fact he meant that love was the only way to God.
Please?
I think of the word “orientated” as dark, bestial and foreboding. 
I think you might be confusing the ethnocentrism of all cultures with that found in Christianity.
Witness the use of military force to expand Islam, not to mention the conquest of practically everybody by practically everybody else - and using any religion, or no religion at all, as partial justification.
Considering that the three major monotheistic religions (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) all were founded in the Middle East, I cannot agree with you there.
Regards,
Shodan
You mean like here in 1 John 4:7-13(bolding mine):
And a bit further down in 16:
*And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. **God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. ***
Seems to me that they ARE interchangeable.