The famous answer of Jesus to the question of the disciples of John the Baptist that people are being told that the good news has the corollary that unless people accept the dogma and ask Him to save them they are going to hell.
Not it does not; unless you think for some other reason that that's what the good news is.
Does it say that the good news has anything to do with being saved from Hell? No. Does that passage even imply that? No.
In all the gospels Hell is mentioned only in parables, and in those parables escape from Hell is based on either good works or on suffering in this life. (Nothing implies to me that Lazarus in Luke accepted any dogma before he went to Abraham's bosom.)
In Paul, Hell is mentioned... well, it has gates that won't prevail and that's it.
Saying that the passage in Luke has the corollary that people have to accept the dogma to avoid Hell is reading later developments in Christian tradition into the passage.
Traditional child baptism has the words “do you chose to turn from the devil and evil” or words to that effect. It is a choice.
Also one idea of Evangelicals is that Heaven is perfect and cannot take the imperfect. A sheet of paper with a tiny drop of ink on it is no longer perfect. God alone can make us perfect.
There is definitely a lot of misunderstanding and assumption goes on in none Evo circles. As I said, whilst there are idiots (far too many) if someone believes you need to get right with God then out of love and not wanting anyone to go to Hell they will continue to evangelise.
Problem is, it's all a variation on "believe in me so that I can save you from what I'm going to do to you if you don't believe in me"
Turning from evil is a choice. Turning to Christ is only meaningful if you believe in him. If you don't, it's not a choice you can make.
This is and remains a massive problem if one wants to defend the justice of God. It makes his favour dependant on picking the right set of theological truth claims from those humanity has to offer.
This.
Another reason for me now being respectfully agnostic...
Here are some words which I have come across in the last few days
iglesia: ilysia : iliz : igreja : gereja : eliza : cresia : kostel : kósciól : kostal :crkva : baznycia : templom : cerkev :simbahan : eaglais : kerk : kirke.
They are all words for 'church' in languages which use the Roman alphabet.
But which one is the true or real word for 'church' ?
In every case it depends on the language which one is speaking.
If you are speaking Czech then 'kostel' is the 'real' word for 'church' but not if you are speaking Basque when 'elisa' is the word for 'church'
And so it is with religions,just as the late pope Francis said,it depends on the language and the culture where everyone can see the truth and the trust in the religion which they know and understand best
Here are some words which I have come across in the last few days
iglesia: ilysia : iliz : igreja : gereja : eliza : cresia : kostel : kósciól : kostal :crkva : baznycia : templom : cerkev :simbahan : eaglais : kerk : kirke.
They are all words for 'church' in languages which use the Roman alphabet.
But which one is the true or real word for 'church' ?
In every case it depends on the language which one is speaking.
If you are speaking Czech then 'kostel' is the 'real' word for 'church' but not if you are speaking Basque when 'elisa' is the word for 'church'
And so it is with religions,just as the late pope Francis said,it depends on the language and the culture where everyone can see the truth and the trust in the religion which they know and understand best
Only if none of the truth claims are actually true, but are all metaphors, or indeed just ideas. If God did not incarnate in Jesus, then in most of its forms Christianity is wrong. If he did, then Islam and Judaism are wrong. It gets really sticky with the historical claims; we can talk as much as we like about what divine attributes we see in Vishnu or Osiris or Bel Shamharoth (OK, not that one) but when we have to deal with a claim that God was man in Jesus in a historically defines time frame, then we have to say it's either true, false or another metaphor for something. Which it may well be, but it still means that most forms of Christianity are wrong, because they insist it's objectively true.
All religions can be equally false, but they can only be equally true in the sense that they're all - erm - equally false, because they make conflicting objective truth claims.
For 'truth' we can use also the word 'trust' in the sense that the religion which we follow can give us an aim in this life and also beyond.
While there may be one religion which is both subjectively and objectively 'true' different human beings ,depending on the experiences in this life as well as that which has been shared with them by people whom they trust,can come to differing conclusions which are 'true' for them.
For 'truth' we can use also the word 'trust' in the sense that the religion which we follow can give us an aim in this life and also beyond.
While there may be one religion which is both subjectively and objectively 'true' different human beings ,depending on the experiences in this life as well as that which has been shared with them by people whom they trust,can come to differing conclusions which are 'true' for them.
Don't you think it's quite important whether the thing we're following actually works for this life and/or the one to come?
I don't confuse the impossibility of knowing absolute truth with its non-importance.
There are good numbers of people for whom the religion which they follow 'works' for them and gives them both joy in this life and hope for eternity.
The various religions of our world put forward ideas (which may be called truths) which are also ideals towards which we can aim.
Just as most individuals cannot understand fully the language and cultures of all other human beings on the planet they can understand that basically we all share the same emotions and aspirations.
I find the phrase "true for" less than satisfying." I think it's reasonable to say someone's beliefs are justified for them, on the basis of personal experience and their personal intellectual journey. True for me implies universal validity.
(I can think of examples of subjective truths, but they would be truths about the person concerned that other people ought to share as true about that person.)
I find the phrase "true for" less than satisfying." I think it's reasonable to say someone's beliefs are justified for them, on the basis of personal experience and their personal intellectual journey. True for me implies universal validity.
Yes. A religious Jew, for example, would not think that that the difference between Judaism and Christianity is like the difference between one blind man thinking the trunk is the elephant and another blind man thinking the tusk is the elephant.
Rather, for the religious Jew, a Christian would be a blind man examining a moose standing next to the elephant, and thinking the antlers are part of the elephant.
There are good numbers of people for whom the religion which they follow 'works' for them and gives them both joy in this life and hope for eternity.
The various religions of our world put forward ideas (which may be called truths) which are also ideals towards which we can aim.
Just as most individuals cannot understand fully the language and cultures of all other human beings on the planet they can understand that basically we all share the same emotions and aspirations.
But that does rather require that the objective reality is benign and non-hazardous. If the more conservative members of some religions are actually on the money, then this "joy in this life" will be short-lived compared with the objectively unpleasant eternity in which their hope turns out to be futile.
Coming back to the OP, surely this thread should be entitled 'Proselytising other denominations' rather than 'evangelising' them.
I agree with this.
And I always understood evangelising to mean bringing good news, whereas some seem to be bringing bad news. I even had an evangelical tell me that they had to tell the bad news first, so people would understand why the good news is good news!
Well, to be fair, while I don't agree with various aspects of evangelical theology (especially what some of it has become in the US, aligned with the "culture war" and far-right politics, which isn't intrinsic to the actual theology), if people don't understand the bad news of sin and death and Hell, then it may be necessary to point it out...
(Though at the moment, the way things are in the world, I don't think many people are blind to evil all around us in the first place.)
Ah. Yes.
The famous answer of Jesus to the question of the disciples of John the Baptist that people are being told that the good news has the corollary that unless people accept the dogma and ask Him to save them they are going to hell.
Even if one believes that Jesus can save those who have not consciously accepted Him in their time on Earth (depending on their response one way or another, but that could be its own thread), the matters of sin and death and Hell still matter.
Well, to be fair, while I don't agree with various aspects of evangelical theology (especially what some of it has become in the US, aligned with the "culture war" and far-right politics, which isn't intrinsic to the actual theology), if people don't understand the bad news of sin and death and Hell, then it may be necessary to point it out...
Though at the moment, the way things are in the world, I don't think many people are blind to evil all around us in the first place.
I’m a little late here and while I agree that people are generally aware of evil all around us, we aren’t aware of evil within ourselves. We could say that’s part of the human condition, but when people in positions of power are unaware (names withheld) well I don’t think I need to say any more.
Then, yes, realizing that evil is indeed within all of us sounds like something wise to learn, or relearn.
Traditional child baptism has the words “do you chose to turn from the devil and evil” or words to that effect. It is a choice.
Also one idea of Evangelicals is that Heaven is perfect and cannot take the imperfect. A sheet of paper with a tiny drop of ink on it is no longer perfect. God alone can make us perfect.
There is definitely a lot of misunderstanding and assumption goes on in none Evo circles. As I said, whilst there are idiots (far too many) if someone believes you need to get right with God then out of love and not wanting anyone to go to Hell they will continue to evangelise.
Agreed! It doesn't have to come from a nasty attitude.
The object of most of the religions of the world is to encourage people to love both God and their neighbour. Certainly this is the case in the Abrahamic faiths. While Jews,Christians and Muslims may see externals differently they all have the same aim in mind - how do we improve in this life and for Christians and Muslims how do we improve our chances of a happy outcome in the next.
It is in the externals of this world where we often differ,sometimes violently. For a good number of people religion is simply a series of restrictions and obligations which have to be navigated or studiously ignored.
The object of most of the religions of the world is to encourage people to love both God and their neighbour. Certainly this is the case in the Abrahamic faiths. While Jews,Christians and Muslims may see externals differently they all have the same aim in mind - how do we improve in this life and for Christians and Muslims how do we improve our chances of a happy outcome in the next.
It is in the externals of this world where we often differ,sometimes violently. For a good number of people religion is simply a series of restrictions and obligations which have to be navigated or studiously ignored.
I disagree with the first part. Most belief systems are about what happens after you die. Buddhism has a forty day judgment for instance. Many strains of Islam have you tested in the grave.
Love God and your neighbour is important, very important but as a Christian I do those things because of what God has done for me.
Traditional child baptism has the words “do you chose to turn from the devil and evil” or words to that effect. It is a choice.
Also one idea of Evangelicals is that Heaven is perfect and cannot take the imperfect. A sheet of paper with a tiny drop of ink on it is no longer perfect. God alone can make us perfect.
There is definitely a lot of misunderstanding and assumption goes on in none Evo circles. As I said, whilst there are idiots (far too many) if someone believes you need to get right with God then out of love and not wanting anyone to go to Hell they will continue to evangelise.
Problem is, it's all a variation on "believe in me so that I can save you from what I'm going to do to you if you don't believe in me"
Turning from evil is a choice. Turning to Christ is only meaningful if you believe in him. If you don't, it's not a choice you can make.
This is and remains a massive problem if one wants to defend the justice of God. It makes his favour dependant on picking the right set of theological truth claims from those humanity has to offer.
So what about freedom. God could fix it so that we absolutely believe in him. We actually have freedom to choose. As in all life our choices have consequences. Some would say God has made a way out those consequences. Not that he trapped us in what you are saying.
But if God is the creator of all things, he must have created both the problem and the solution. If that reading is correct.
This is why I am not, and cannot be, any kind of evangelical. I find that reading utterly and completely monstrous, and cannot just relativise my way past it. God's love is unconditional and universal. We make choices because we are finite creatures with some element of creativity. It is not possible to have both of those characteristics without making choices. God does not have to make choices, and can create and recreate until his vision is entirely realised.
God is what matters, not Christianity, not Islam, not Buddhism. Even God is a codeword, the ultimate deictic in fact, for a reality we can't fully see. We intuit; we strive creatively towards it. But we cannot and do not ever get there. We didn't even fully get there when God became human. Christ did, but we didn't, and we who follow him don't either. But that doesn't matter, because God did and God will again, endlessly. eternally.
This is also why it is meaningless to expect a religion to give you all the truth tied up in a bow. Religion, and the life of faith, is/are attempts to cope with the fact that we can't see fully. As the hymn puts it, faith will vanish into sight; we have faith until we have sight.
Traditional child baptism has the words “do you chose to turn from the devil and evil” or words to that effect. It is a choice.
Also one idea of Evangelicals is that Heaven is perfect and cannot take the imperfect. A sheet of paper with a tiny drop of ink on it is no longer perfect. God alone can make us perfect.
There is definitely a lot of misunderstanding and assumption goes on in none Evo circles. As I said, whilst there are idiots (far too many) if someone believes you need to get right with God then out of love and not wanting anyone to go to Hell they will continue to evangelise.
Problem is, it's all a variation on "believe in me so that I can save you from what I'm going to do to you if you don't believe in me"
Turning from evil is a choice. Turning to Christ is only meaningful if you believe in him. If you don't, it's not a choice you can make.
This is and remains a massive problem if one wants to defend the justice of God. It makes his favour dependant on picking the right set of theological truth claims from those humanity has to offer.
So what about freedom. God could fix it so that we absolutely believe in him. We actually have freedom to choose. As in all life our choices have consequences. Some would say God has made a way out those consequences. Not that he trapped us in what you are saying.
I'm where I am because I find the standard Evangelical answers here deeply inadequate to counter the problem.
It is absolutely untrue that we have freedom to believe in him. For one thing - which version of him - and for another, I know people who would love to believe in him if they could but just don't, in the same way they don't believe in ghosts, UFOs or the Loch Ness Monster. I'm one of them a good proportion of the time. Things don't become true just because we'd like them to be and we can't convince ourselves they are just by exercising free will
The object of most of the religions of the world is to encourage people to love both God and their neighbour. Certainly this is the case in the Abrahamic faiths. While Jews,Christians and Muslims may see externals differently they all have the same aim in mind - how do we improve in this life and for Christians and Muslims how do we improve our chances of a happy outcome in the next.
It is in the externals of this world where we often differ,sometimes violently. For a good number of people religion is simply a series of restrictions and obligations which have to be navigated or studiously ignored.
It sounds like you are restricting religion to ethics, or at least making it primary.
I don't see Christianity as primarily a system of ethics. Ethics is a post script in Christianity.
The bigger claims like Jesus is God are foundational, because it changes what life here means and what the next life means.
For example, Islam is quite platonic in its philosophies. Whereas Christianity is the opposite of platonic. This world is created good, it's not just something to endure and do good works in until the next life.
I think both Christianity and Islam have covered a wide range of attitudes over the course of history. One can argue that Mrs Gamp saying the world is a wale was theologically as unsound as her nursing practice; but Dickens wouldn't have made her say it if he weren't familiar with her attitude.
I don't really know enough about the range of Islamic attitudes to comment.
I think saying religion is or isn't a system of ethics is a misunderstanding. Religion is more than a set of recommendations about how to live; rather it is a set of beliefs and practices that justify recommendations about how to live - a set of beliefs that make no recommendations as to how to live it's not a religion.
Islam is quite platonic in its philosophies. Whereas Christianity is the opposite of platonic.
That is, I think, at least highly oversimplified, and arguably backwards in important respects.
Christianity contains both a strong affirmation of embodied creation (although, let's be honest, many strands of Christianity have treated earthly life as something to endure while preparing for heaven) and a strong Platonic inheritance that tends toward transcendence, asceticism, and suspicion of disordered attachment to the material world. (I'd say that the issue in Platonism is "disordered attachment" rather than the material world as such.) Islam likewise contains both strong transcendental metaphysics and a robust integration of spiritual life with ordinary embodied existence.
But if God is the creator of all things, he must have created both the problem and the solution. If that reading is correct.
This is why I am not, and cannot be, any kind of evangelical. I find that reading utterly and completely monstrous, and cannot just relativise my way past it. God's love is unconditional and universal. We make choices because we are finite creatures with some element of creativity. It is not possible to have both of those characteristics without making choices. God does not have to make choices, and can create and recreate until his vision is entirely realised.
God is what matters, not Christianity, not Islam, not Buddhism. Even God is a codeword, the ultimate deictic in fact, for a reality we can't fully see. We intuit; we strive creatively towards it. But we cannot and do not ever get there. We didn't even fully get there when God became human. Christ did, but we didn't, and we who follow him don't either. But that doesn't matter, because God did and God will again, endlessly. eternally.
This is also why it is meaningless to expect a religion to give you all the truth tied up in a bow. Religion, and the life of faith, is/are attempts to cope with the fact that we can't see fully. As the hymn puts it, faith will vanish into sight; we have faith until we have sight.
Thank you for expressing what I think I feel these days, even though I can't put it so eloquently.
The object of most of the religions of the world is to encourage people to love both God and their neighbour. Certainly this is the case in the Abrahamic faiths. While Jews,Christians and Muslims may see externals differently they all have the same aim in mind - how do we improve in this life and for Christians and Muslims how do we improve our chances of a happy outcome in the next.
It is in the externals of this world where we often differ,sometimes violently. For a good number of people religion is simply a series of restrictions and obligations which have to be navigated or studiously ignored.
I disagree with the first part. Most belief systems are about what happens after you die. Buddhism has a forty day judgment for instance. Many strains of Islam have you tested in the grave.
Love God and your neighbour is important, very important but as a Christian I do those things because of what God has done for me.
I think the bolded is a huge oversimplification, if not hugely simplistic. What happens after you die is an important component in many if not most religions, but to say that’s what they’re “about” is just about always wrong. If anything, those religions are more about how you live, which then is related to what happens after you die.
To be honest, the emphasis I all too often see in Evangelicalism (at the least the American variety) that Christianity is primarily about what will happen to you after you die is one of the main things that makes me think Evangelicalism has completely lost the plot. That perspective strikes me as a troublesome distortion of Scripture in general and of Jesus in particular.
Yes. One of the things the forgiveness of sins does is to release us from an obsession with what's going to happen to us after death.
Right. But the reason we might be obsessed with what's going to happen to us after death is the idea that it might be a very unpleasant time for us if we die in our sins.
The object of most of the religions of the world is to encourage people to love both God and their neighbour. Certainly this is the case in the Abrahamic faiths. While Jews,Christians and Muslims may see externals differently they all have the same aim in mind - how do we improve in this life and for Christians and Muslims how do we improve our chances of a happy outcome in the next.
It is in the externals of this world where we often differ,sometimes violently. For a good number of people religion is simply a series of restrictions and obligations which have to be navigated or studiously ignored.
I disagree with the first part. Most belief systems are about what happens after you die. Buddhism has a forty day judgment for instance. Many strains of Islam have you tested in the grave.
Love God and your neighbour is important, very important but as a Christian I do those things because of what God has done for me.
I think the bolded is a huge oversimplification, if not hugely simplistic. What happens after you die is an important component in many if not most religions, but to say that’s what they’re “about” is just about always wrong. If anything, those religions are more about how you live, which then is related to what happens after you die.
To be honest, the emphasis I all too often see in Evangelicalism (at the least the American variety) that Christianity is primarily about what will happen to you after you die is one of the main things that makes me think Evangelicalism has completely lost the plot. That perspective strikes me as a troublesome distortion of Scripture in general and of Jesus in particular.
The primary function of Christianity is salvation. Salvation is about what happens after you die. That may perhaps a simplification but at its heart that is what it is.
The term religion can confuse things. It leads to people saying that all belief systems are the same. They are not. When a strict Islamic country does something that say an atheist doesn’t approve of they often use the term religion not Islam. Religion is blamed inferring that there is a single thing called religion.
Yes. One of the things the forgiveness of sins does is to release us from an obsession with what's going to happen to us after death.
Right. But the reason we might be obsessed with what's going to happen to us after death is the idea that it might be a very unpleasant time for us if we die in our sins.
Or for other people we know and care about. Or even don't know; their suffering is no more or less important than anyone elses. Are we really only meant to worry about Hell for ourselves, if it exists?
The primary function of Christianity is salvation. Salvation is about what happens after you die. That may perhaps a simplification but at its heart that is what it is.
I have a feeling this is only going to reinforce @Nick Tamen 's belief that Evangelicalism has lost the plot.
Salvation AIUI is that the estrangement between God and Humanity is healed in Christ, who is both. That of course isn't fully realised in this life but that doesn't mean it is meaningless until we die, surely? Out of that restored relationship come changes in our relationships and attitudes to people in this life.
The term religion can confuse things. It leads to people saying that all belief systems are the same. They are not. When a strict Islamic country does something that say an atheist doesn’t approve of they often use the term religion not Islam. Religion is blamed inferring that there is a single thing called religion.
I don't think people outside theism really care which particular belief system is trying to impose their religious beliefs on the population at large.
The primary function of Christianity is salvation. Salvation is about what happens after you die. That may perhaps a simplification but at its heart that is what it is.
I have a feeling this is only going to reinforce @Nick Tamen 's belief that Evangelicalism has lost the plot.
Your feeling is correct, @KarlLB. I’m sorry, @Hugal, but I just don’t think Evangelicalism’s focus on saving souls so they don’t go to hell, on salvation as being just about going to heaven, is the Gospel that Jesus or the apostles announced.
Salvation is not “about what happens after you die.” Salvation is as much if not more about life now, and about the world as God intends it to be, about the coming of the Kingdom of God and about reconciliation with God now.
I’m not saying in any way Christianity has nothing to say about life after death. But what it has to say about that is part of a much bigger picture; it is not, in and of itself, the heart of what Christianity is about.
The primary function of Christianity is salvation. Salvation is about what happens after you die. That may perhaps a simplification but at its heart that is what it is.
I have a feeling this is only going to reinforce @Nick Tamen 's belief that Evangelicalism has lost the plot.
Your feeling is correct, @KarlLB. I’m sorry, @Hugal, but I just don’t think Evangelicalism’s focus on saving souls so they don’t go to hell, on salvation as being just about going to heaven, is the Gospel that Jesus or the apostles announced.
Salvation is not “about what happens after you die.” Salvation is as much if not more about life now, and about the world as God intends it to be, about the coming of the Kingdom of God and about reconciliation with God now.
I’m not saying in any way Christianity has nothing to say about life after death. But what it has to say about that is part of a much bigger picture; it is not, in and of itself, the heart of what Christianity is about.
I was at odds with a minister (originally Dutch Reformed) who appeared to believe in an actual satan, which seems to be part of his essential evangelical beliefs. I argued that I could believe in one God, because that's where logic takes me, but not two gods; one good one and one bad one. If he was wanting me to believe in both, it was never going to be possible for me. Apparently he saw that as an attempt to undermine his faith and teaching, and we have not spoken for a long time.
To be clear, I regard, and always have, the concept of a satan as a Biblical teaching aid.
I was at odds with a minister (originally Dutch Reformed) who appeared to believe in an actual satan, which seems to be part of his essential evangelical beliefs. I argued that I could believe in one God, because that's where logic takes me, but not two gods; one good one and one bad one. If he was wanting me to believe in both, it was never going to be possible for me. Apparently he saw that as an attempt to undermine his faith and teaching, and we have not spoken for a long time.
To be clear, I regard, and always have, the concept of a satan as a Biblical teaching aid.
We absolutely believed Satan was a real being, albeit a created one rather than a second god.
I always struggled with the concept. Especially seeing as the concept is not consistent in Scripture.
Yes. One of the things the forgiveness of sins does is to release us from an obsession with what's going to happen to us after death.
Right. But the reason we might be obsessed with what's going to happen to us after death is the idea that it might be a very unpleasant time for us if we die in our sins.
But that's what Christ came to deal with!
He really doesn't want that kind of obsession in us. There are so many better things to enjoy thinking about.
And truthfully, even if you DO believe in a satan figure, he's really rather unimportant. I mean, I do think such a person exists (bleah), but I don't spend a great deal of time thinking about him at all--I figure Christ has dealt with him, and now he's not much more than an annoyance. Like the next door neighbor we had (until her recent change of heart) who was constantly looking for a way to hassle us. We didn't spend our days thinking about her--she was there, and so we minded our p's and q's when we saw her in the front yard, lest she report us to the code police and make my week a weariness; but the rest of the time, we forgot her. And so with Satan.
And truthfully, even if you DO believe in a satan figure, he's really rather unimportant. I mean, I do think such a person exists (bleah), but I don't spend a great deal of time thinking about him at all--I figure Christ has dealt with him, and now he's not much more than an annoyance.
His rage you can endure,
for lo, his doom is sure?
Yes. One of the things the forgiveness of sins does is to release us from an obsession with what's going to happen to us after death.
Right. But the reason we might be obsessed with what's going to happen to us after death is the idea that it might be a very unpleasant time for us if we die in our sins.
But that's what Christ came to deal with!
He really doesn't want that kind of obsession in us. There are so many better things to enjoy thinking about.
But if you subscribe to a binary concept of salvation(I do not), what you would want is for the unsaved to start obsessing over the possibility of damnation, in order to prompt them into getting saved, at which point they can stop obsessing over it, at least in application to themselves.
Obviously, it's different if you believe in universal salvation, or purgatory, or some other soteriological schematum with less drastic consequences for making the wrong choice.
Actually, I don't want ANYBODY obsessing over the possibility of damnation, because IMHO that is not the kind of thing that leads to a healthy conversion to Jesus Christ. (And yes, I do believe that hell is a real possibility, though I very much hope it turns out to be empty in the end.)
Look, it's kind of like marrying a woman for her money, when you barely know her and have no intentions of getting to know her better--only her checking account (that you REALLY want to know better). What odds would you give for that being a happy marriage?
That's how I feel about anybody who comes to Christ for fire insurance only. I mean, yeah, he'll take you on those terms if you insist, because he has no pride and is utterly humble and kind; but when, if ever, are you going to find yourself in the kind of loving, life-giving relationship that's meant to be--the one that starts now and affects for the better every area of your life? The one that makes hell something you never think about, an irrelevancy, really--you're thinking about the One who loves you and delights to give you so many wonderful gifts, including himself? The one who has made you part of a family that includes the oddest and most wonderful people from across the planet, of every different type? The one who is creative, and encourages you to go on developing all the gifts and possibilities he placed in you before you were born, as far as you can take them?
In THAT relationship, your main concern with the afterlife is to say something like "Well, good. I wasn't done yet with what I'm doing, even if it IS the end of my life. There's so much more to explore!" And in particular, him. Though certainly a host of other people and fields of knowledge and creativity as well. A whole eternity to explore music, art, other planets, other societies, alien societies very likely-- science, literature, history, you name it. And I rather suspect, with supernatural help--I mean, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of seeing with my own eyes some day (through some twist of space and time) just exactly what went down in Jerusalem roughly 2000 years ago...
I suppose it is possible for someone to come to him for "fire insurance" and somehow eventually grow into the love marriage this was meant to be; but it seems like a lot of terribly wasted time, to me. So no, I'll not be preaching hell with the goal of evangelizing people. I'd rather tell them all the good stuff that could be theirs.
If God is, as the Nicene Creed says,the Creator of all things visible and invisible,he must be aware of all the religious attempts throughout the world to approach him. Why has he just given a small number of people the opportunity to be 'saved' and virtually abandoned the rest ?
Most of us are in some way aware of both 'good' and 'evil' though our limited understanding can sometimes make it difficult for us to judge exactly what is 'good' and what is 'evil'
All of us are aware of the difference between 'selfish love' and 'unselfish love' love of self and love of others. To my mind all religions in some way try to fit these two together in a way which ultimately benefits us all.
The primary function of Christianity is salvation. Salvation is about what happens after you die. That may perhaps a simplification but at its heart that is what it is.
I have a feeling this is only going to reinforce @Nick Tamen 's belief that Evangelicalism has lost the plot.
Your feeling is correct, @KarlLB. I’m sorry, @Hugal, but I just don’t think Evangelicalism’s focus on saving souls so they don’t go to hell, on salvation as being just about going to heaven, is the Gospel that Jesus or the apostles announced.
Salvation is not “about what happens after you die.” Salvation is as much if not more about life now, and about the world as God intends it to be, about the coming of the Kingdom of God and about reconciliation with God now.
I’m not saying in any way Christianity has nothing to say about life after death. But what it has to say about that is part of a much bigger picture; it is not, in and of itself, the heart of what Christianity is about.
I did say it was a simplification. There is more. Much more.
The “so none shall perish” in John 3:16 can be taken several ways. It is however about salvation, however you interpret it. The reason Jesus came is so none shall perish. How is that not salvation
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Does it say that the good news has anything to do with being saved from Hell? No. Does that passage even imply that? No.
In all the gospels Hell is mentioned only in parables, and in those parables escape from Hell is based on either good works or on suffering in this life. (Nothing implies to me that Lazarus in Luke accepted any dogma before he went to Abraham's bosom.)
In Paul, Hell is mentioned... well, it has gates that won't prevail and that's it.
Saying that the passage in Luke has the corollary that people have to accept the dogma to avoid Hell is reading later developments in Christian tradition into the passage.
This.
Another reason for me now being respectfully agnostic...
iglesia: ilysia : iliz : igreja : gereja : eliza : cresia : kostel : kósciól : kostal :crkva : baznycia : templom : cerkev :simbahan : eaglais : kerk : kirke.
They are all words for 'church' in languages which use the Roman alphabet.
But which one is the true or real word for 'church' ?
In every case it depends on the language which one is speaking.
If you are speaking Czech then 'kostel' is the 'real' word for 'church' but not if you are speaking Basque when 'elisa' is the word for 'church'
And so it is with religions,just as the late pope Francis said,it depends on the language and the culture where everyone can see the truth and the trust in the religion which they know and understand best
Only if none of the truth claims are actually true, but are all metaphors, or indeed just ideas. If God did not incarnate in Jesus, then in most of its forms Christianity is wrong. If he did, then Islam and Judaism are wrong. It gets really sticky with the historical claims; we can talk as much as we like about what divine attributes we see in Vishnu or Osiris or Bel Shamharoth (OK, not that one) but when we have to deal with a claim that God was man in Jesus in a historically defines time frame, then we have to say it's either true, false or another metaphor for something. Which it may well be, but it still means that most forms of Christianity are wrong, because they insist it's objectively true.
All religions can be equally false, but they can only be equally true in the sense that they're all - erm - equally false, because they make conflicting objective truth claims.
While there may be one religion which is both subjectively and objectively 'true' different human beings ,depending on the experiences in this life as well as that which has been shared with them by people whom they trust,can come to differing conclusions which are 'true' for them.
Don't you think it's quite important whether the thing we're following actually works for this life and/or the one to come?
I don't confuse the impossibility of knowing absolute truth with its non-importance.
The various religions of our world put forward ideas (which may be called truths) which are also ideals towards which we can aim.
Just as most individuals cannot understand fully the language and cultures of all other human beings on the planet they can understand that basically we all share the same emotions and aspirations.
(I can think of examples of subjective truths, but they would be truths about the person concerned that other people ought to share as true about that person.)
Yes. A religious Jew, for example, would not think that that the difference between Judaism and Christianity is like the difference between one blind man thinking the trunk is the elephant and another blind man thinking the tusk is the elephant.
Rather, for the religious Jew, a Christian would be a blind man examining a moose standing next to the elephant, and thinking the antlers are part of the elephant.
But that does rather require that the objective reality is benign and non-hazardous. If the more conservative members of some religions are actually on the money, then this "joy in this life" will be short-lived compared with the objectively unpleasant eternity in which their hope turns out to be futile.
Even if one believes that Jesus can save those who have not consciously accepted Him in their time on Earth (depending on their response one way or another, but that could be its own thread), the matters of sin and death and Hell still matter.
Then, yes, realizing that evil is indeed within all of us sounds like something wise to learn, or relearn.
Absolutely agreed. And for some other nasty effects as well...
Agreed! It doesn't have to come from a nasty attitude.
It is in the externals of this world where we often differ,sometimes violently. For a good number of people religion is simply a series of restrictions and obligations which have to be navigated or studiously ignored.
Love God and your neighbour is important, very important but as a Christian I do those things because of what God has done for me.
So what about freedom. God could fix it so that we absolutely believe in him. We actually have freedom to choose. As in all life our choices have consequences. Some would say God has made a way out those consequences. Not that he trapped us in what you are saying.
This is why I am not, and cannot be, any kind of evangelical. I find that reading utterly and completely monstrous, and cannot just relativise my way past it. God's love is unconditional and universal. We make choices because we are finite creatures with some element of creativity. It is not possible to have both of those characteristics without making choices. God does not have to make choices, and can create and recreate until his vision is entirely realised.
God is what matters, not Christianity, not Islam, not Buddhism. Even God is a codeword, the ultimate deictic in fact, for a reality we can't fully see. We intuit; we strive creatively towards it. But we cannot and do not ever get there. We didn't even fully get there when God became human. Christ did, but we didn't, and we who follow him don't either. But that doesn't matter, because God did and God will again, endlessly. eternally.
This is also why it is meaningless to expect a religion to give you all the truth tied up in a bow. Religion, and the life of faith, is/are attempts to cope with the fact that we can't see fully. As the hymn puts it, faith will vanish into sight; we have faith until we have sight.
I'm where I am because I find the standard Evangelical answers here deeply inadequate to counter the problem.
It is absolutely untrue that we have freedom to believe in him. For one thing - which version of him - and for another, I know people who would love to believe in him if they could but just don't, in the same way they don't believe in ghosts, UFOs or the Loch Ness Monster. I'm one of them a good proportion of the time. Things don't become true just because we'd like them to be and we can't convince ourselves they are just by exercising free will
It sounds like you are restricting religion to ethics, or at least making it primary.
I don't see Christianity as primarily a system of ethics. Ethics is a post script in Christianity.
The bigger claims like Jesus is God are foundational, because it changes what life here means and what the next life means.
For example, Islam is quite platonic in its philosophies. Whereas Christianity is the opposite of platonic. This world is created good, it's not just something to endure and do good works in until the next life.
I don't really know enough about the range of Islamic attitudes to comment.
I think saying religion is or isn't a system of ethics is a misunderstanding. Religion is more than a set of recommendations about how to live; rather it is a set of beliefs and practices that justify recommendations about how to live - a set of beliefs that make no recommendations as to how to live it's not a religion.
That is, I think, at least highly oversimplified, and arguably backwards in important respects.
Christianity contains both a strong affirmation of embodied creation (although, let's be honest, many strands of Christianity have treated earthly life as something to endure while preparing for heaven) and a strong Platonic inheritance that tends toward transcendence, asceticism, and suspicion of disordered attachment to the material world. (I'd say that the issue in Platonism is "disordered attachment" rather than the material world as such.) Islam likewise contains both strong transcendental metaphysics and a robust integration of spiritual life with ordinary embodied existence.
Thank you for expressing what I think I feel these days, even though I can't put it so eloquently.
To be honest, the emphasis I all too often see in Evangelicalism (at the least the American variety) that Christianity is primarily about what will happen to you after you die is one of the main things that makes me think Evangelicalism has completely lost the plot. That perspective strikes me as a troublesome distortion of Scripture in general and of Jesus in particular.
Right. But the reason we might be obsessed with what's going to happen to us after death is the idea that it might be a very unpleasant time for us if we die in our sins.
The primary function of Christianity is salvation. Salvation is about what happens after you die. That may perhaps a simplification but at its heart that is what it is.
The term religion can confuse things. It leads to people saying that all belief systems are the same. They are not. When a strict Islamic country does something that say an atheist doesn’t approve of they often use the term religion not Islam. Religion is blamed inferring that there is a single thing called religion.
Or for other people we know and care about. Or even don't know; their suffering is no more or less important than anyone elses. Are we really only meant to worry about Hell for ourselves, if it exists?
I have a feeling this is only going to reinforce @Nick Tamen 's belief that Evangelicalism has lost the plot.
Salvation AIUI is that the estrangement between God and Humanity is healed in Christ, who is both. That of course isn't fully realised in this life but that doesn't mean it is meaningless until we die, surely? Out of that restored relationship come changes in our relationships and attitudes to people in this life.
I don't think people outside theism really care which particular belief system is trying to impose their religious beliefs on the population at large.
Salvation is not “about what happens after you die.” Salvation is as much if not more about life now, and about the world as God intends it to be, about the coming of the Kingdom of God and about reconciliation with God now.
I’m not saying in any way Christianity has nothing to say about life after death. But what it has to say about that is part of a much bigger picture; it is not, in and of itself, the heart of what Christianity is about.
Splendidly put! Amen and amen!
To be clear, I regard, and always have, the concept of a satan as a Biblical teaching aid.
We absolutely believed Satan was a real being, albeit a created one rather than a second god.
I always struggled with the concept. Especially seeing as the concept is not consistent in Scripture.
But that's what Christ came to deal with!
He really doesn't want that kind of obsession in us. There are so many better things to enjoy thinking about.
for lo, his doom is sure?
(Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
But if you subscribe to a binary concept of salvation(I do not), what you would want is for the unsaved to start obsessing over the possibility of damnation, in order to prompt them into getting saved, at which point they can stop obsessing over it, at least in application to themselves.
Obviously, it's different if you believe in universal salvation, or purgatory, or some other soteriological schematum with less drastic consequences for making the wrong choice.
Look, it's kind of like marrying a woman for her money, when you barely know her and have no intentions of getting to know her better--only her checking account (that you REALLY want to know better). What odds would you give for that being a happy marriage?
That's how I feel about anybody who comes to Christ for fire insurance only. I mean, yeah, he'll take you on those terms if you insist, because he has no pride and is utterly humble and kind; but when, if ever, are you going to find yourself in the kind of loving, life-giving relationship that's meant to be--the one that starts now and affects for the better every area of your life? The one that makes hell something you never think about, an irrelevancy, really--you're thinking about the One who loves you and delights to give you so many wonderful gifts, including himself? The one who has made you part of a family that includes the oddest and most wonderful people from across the planet, of every different type? The one who is creative, and encourages you to go on developing all the gifts and possibilities he placed in you before you were born, as far as you can take them?
In THAT relationship, your main concern with the afterlife is to say something like "Well, good. I wasn't done yet with what I'm doing, even if it IS the end of my life. There's so much more to explore!" And in particular, him. Though certainly a host of other people and fields of knowledge and creativity as well. A whole eternity to explore music, art, other planets, other societies, alien societies very likely-- science, literature, history, you name it. And I rather suspect, with supernatural help--I mean, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of seeing with my own eyes some day (through some twist of space and time) just exactly what went down in Jerusalem roughly 2000 years ago...
I suppose it is possible for someone to come to him for "fire insurance" and somehow eventually grow into the love marriage this was meant to be; but it seems like a lot of terribly wasted time, to me. So no, I'll not be preaching hell with the goal of evangelizing people. I'd rather tell them all the good stuff that could be theirs.
Most of us are in some way aware of both 'good' and 'evil' though our limited understanding can sometimes make it difficult for us to judge exactly what is 'good' and what is 'evil'
All of us are aware of the difference between 'selfish love' and 'unselfish love' love of self and love of others. To my mind all religions in some way try to fit these two together in a way which ultimately benefits us all.
I did say it was a simplification. There is more. Much more.
The “so none shall perish” in John 3:16 can be taken several ways. It is however about salvation, however you interpret it. The reason Jesus came is so none shall perish. How is that not salvation