I'm Leaving Christianity

[Jethro Bodine]

tolerant/progressive Christians want to ditch The Biblical standards and go "gay affirming" while more reactionary Christians come down too hard on the gays.

The church seems to respond to all matters of church in this 'black or white' fashion. I see it over and over in these forums.
If only Christians would be honest and humble enough to glean what is correct out of both extremes and meet in the middle where the truth is.

 

[evenifigoalone]

The church seems to respond to all matters of church in this 'black or white' fashion. I see it over and over in these forums.
If only Christians would be honest and humble enough to glean what is correct out of both extremes and meet in the middle where the truth is.

I wish I could like this a million times. (Eora, can that be arranged? ;) )

 

[brother Paul]

Yeah, it's cafeteria Christianity, where someone picks and chooses what he likes, and throws the rest away.

Well put. You can even go to different churches to get a more palatable Jesus....Jesus the revolutionary, or perhaps for your two or three dollars a week you would like the Social Service Jesus, or John's gay lover....imitation may be the highest form of flattery but also fools rush in where wise men never tread....the line between the sheep and the goats is getting clearer....stay filled and keep your wicks trimmed.

 

[Nick]

I wish I could like this a million times. (Eora, can that be arranged? ;) )

If you kept liking and unliking, Jethro would get a ton of alerts. Similar affect.

 

[Corn Pop]

The church seems to respond to all matters of church in this 'black or white' fashion. I see it over and over in these forums.
If only Christians would be honest and humble enough to glean what is correct out of both extremes and meet in the middle where the truth is.

Where is the middle when others may think Christ is some big european cuddly teddy bear who is going to beam them up into the sky.

 

[evenifigoalone]

If love isn't showing in our actions, if the world just considers us a bunch of hypocrites who want to tell them what to do but we do as we please, if we put our views above our treatment of others and beat them over the head with them--then we are not doing what we have been called to do.

 

[Corn Pop]

If love isn't showing in our actions, if the world just considers us a bunch of hypocrites who want to tell them what to do but we do as we please, if we put our views above our treatment of others and beat them over the head with them--then we are not doing what we have been called to do.

Yes its love, and its tough love. Some people dont like others being lied to, because they care, so there will always be strong debate.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

Where is the middle when others may think Christ is some big european cuddly teddy bear who is going to beam them up into the sky.

Honesty and humility means acknowledging whatever it is in what they say that is indeed true. For example, in your post the place where I can meet you (not you) is God beaming us up to meet him in the air.

 

[Jethro Bodine]

If you kept liking and unliking, Jethro would get a ton of alerts. Similar affect.

Hmmm.
I could have fun with this.
I know a certain fellow named Rollo.....

I did this to Deborah13 once...
Deborah13, Deborah13, Deborah13.....

Did that show up as three distinct mentions in her alerts? I was hoping it did.

 

[PeteUK56]

I submit to you that it's always been this way.
We simply change what the 'form and rules'--the modus operandi of our tradition--are going to be.

I agree with you, but just because that is how it has always been does not mean that is how it will always have to be.

 

[Nick]

Did that show up as three distinct mentions in her alerts? I was hoping it did.

I don't think so. Liking might be different, but she would have to have read the alert for it to show up again.

 

[Ph8th]

If some one walks away from Christianity they were not a Christian to start with. The God I serve will not let me go, He puts conviction in my heart when I stray He chastens me when needed. From the beginning of our relationship He has been forming and shaping my actions and my heart.

Sea Glass​

I thought about the piece of glass
I found while walking by the sea
I thought about this piece of glass
How it was like me​

​

The Ocean is like Your hand
Like the glass I could not get free
Until the edges that were sharp
Were smooth as can be.​

​

Trials and tribulation
All the things this life
Has thrown at me
Is the sand that You used
To Shape my life
Like the glass in the sea.​

​

As the glass tumbles in the sand
My life it tumbles in Your hand
Soon Your work will be through​

​

That’s the day
You see this Glass
All You see
is You​

peter

 

[Jethro Bodine]

If some one walks away from Christianity they were not a Christian to start with.

Probably true with this particular individual. When I read the article I looked for mention of his joy of having had his sins forgiven. I may have missed it, but I didn't see that. I always look for this when listening to people rant about Christianity and their exit from it.

The Bible speaks of weak vs. strong faith, not so much about faith vs. no faith. It's those who do not have firm root that go down deep that are not able to withstand church scandals, hypocrisy, and all the other buffoonery in the church around them (to which I've made my own contribution).

In the parable of the sower, they fail, not because they didn't believe, but because their faith was weak--not well grounded (Luke 8:13). Struggling with the desire for gay sex would certainly fall in the category of a time of temptation that Jesus gave for why a not well rooted planting of God would only "believe for a while". But, like I say, I'm not convinced this particular individual even got to the 'believing' part at all. He just signed up for a religion, found out it was to restricting to his personal desires and bolted.

 

[Obadiah]

Probably true with this particular individual. When I read the article I looked for mention of his joy of having had his sins forgiven. I may have missed it, but I didn't see that. I always look for this when listening to people rant about Christianity and their exit from it.

The Bible speaks of weak vs. strong faith, not so much about faith vs. no faith. It's those who do not have firm root that go down deep that are not able to withstand church scandals, hypocrisy, and all the other buffoonery in the church around them (to which I've made my own contribution).

In the parable of the sower, they fail, not because they didn't believe, but because their faith was weak--not well grounded (Luke 8:13). Struggling with the desire for gay sex would certainly fall in the category of a time of temptation that Jesus gave for why a not well rooted planting of God would only "believe for a while". But, like I say, I'm not convinced this particular individual even got to the 'believing' part at all. He just signed up for a religion, found out it was to restricting to his personal desires and bolted.

I pretty much saw the same thing while reading it. He was a young and immature kid looking for acceptance into a group and Christians, being what we are, were an accepting group that made him feel good about himself. He liked that so he hung around a while until he found out Christians are still imperfect people and church isn't all a bed of roses, then he fled and want's to blame it on God instead of his own failure.

You know, the more I think about it, I shouldn't cut him down for being "an immature kid" either. The head pastor of the last church I was a member of recently did the same kind of thing; Left the church and is now publicly declaring himself an atheist and promoting atheism.

 

[smaller]

Scriptural reality and what people believe are not necessarily related.

Most believers think the entirety of themselves as fully accepted by God in Christ. That's simply not the case.

All of us, down to the last one of us, are internally composed of good and evil. There is no way to say that God loves evil. It can't be done.

So, rather than face the internal reality of ourselves, we direct our hatred to other people's evil. And the homosexuals are easy targets. IN the end of this brain/heart searing a lot of people end up hating everyone that doesn't believe exactly like they do.

This is the adversity of God, working in them, against their own internal evil. And they don't know it or realize what happened to them.

 

[smaller]

In the case of the guy in the article, he didn't care for how other believers dealt with his open and exposed evil. And left, seeking to ignore what Jesus came to expose and move away from, within all of us.

Just tell me the good stuff really ain't what "faith" is about. Faith does however work through love. It's just that love is placed currently into an evil environment, and that is internal evil that doesn't want exposure.

When Jesus said those who worship Him do so in Spirit and in truth, the Spirit says to love, the truth says we're evil, internally. This is an honest stance that keeps us technically "out" of the realms of hypocrisy. Seldom practiced though, unfortunately.

 

[jasonc]

The church seems to respond to all matters of church in this 'black or white' fashion. I see it over and over in these forums.
If only Christians would be honest and humble enough to glean what is correct out of both extremes and meet in the middle where the truth is.

White minority socialist pot smoking Christianity

 

[Deborah13]

Hmmm.
I could have fun with this.
I know a certain fellow named Rollo.....
I did this to Deborah13 once...
Deborah13, Deborah13, Deborah13.....

Did that show up as three distinct mentions in her alerts? I was hoping it did.

I must not have seen it if it did. I surely would have let you know. Too funny.