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Desire to be a vessel of honor unto the Lord Jesus Christ?
Join For His Glory for a discussion on how
https://christianforums.net/threads/a-vessel-of-honor.110278/
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Taking the time to pray? Christ is the answer in times of need
https://christianforums.net/threads/psalm-70-1-save-me-o-god-lord-help-me-now.108509/
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Depending upon the Holy Spirit for all you do?
Read through the following study by Tenchi for more on this topic
https://christianforums.net/threads/without-the-holy-spirit-we-can-do-nothing.109419/
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How are famous preachers sometimes effected by sin?
Join Sola Scriptura for a discussion on the subject
https://christianforums.net/threads/anointed-preaching-teaching.109331/#post-1912042
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Were We Ever A Christian Nation?
- Thread starter WordsintoHarmony
- Start date
K
kevinmaynard
Guest
In the context of do unto others no. Can't be a Christian slave owner. So as government condoned the institution we as a nation were never truly Christian.
Danacovert82
Member
I say we're a melting pot of religions. We need to accept that. We may not agree with what people believe, but we can't force them to believe in God. Let them learn what they need to to get accepted by God.
K
King James
Guest
The Pilgrims were Christians. The founding fathers were not.
Vaccine
Member
When I was in public school history was so boring, sterilized because it was made to be so secular. Several years ago I read the "Light and the Glory" by Marshall and Manual. I couldn't put it down and also read "From Sea to Shining Sea". The first book is 1492-1793, the second book covers 1787-1837. Not relevant, but Marshall's father served as chaplain to the senate and they made a good movie about him: "A man named Peter". They based these books on material from the library of Congress, the same material David Barton uses. There are many personal letters, diaries, and other writings from those days. People think of Israel as a Jewis nation, which is ~75% Jewish. If I remember right at the signing of the declaration of independance, USA was over 90% christian and all but 2 signers of the declaration of independance held seminary degrees. Sadly, I agree with the Obama quote "whatever we were we are no longer a Christian nation". We can't live in the past, but we shouldn't rewrite it either, we were a nation of Christians.
I highly recommend these books "The Light and the Glory" and "From Sea to Shining Sea" to anyone. We shouldn't let the revisionist historians get away with rewriting America's history. The issue of slavery was hotly debated in 1776 and almost prevented USA from becoming a nation. The founding fathers (mostly Christian, very few deists) knew slavery was going to tear the nation apart before it even began. Most the founding fathers who pledged their fortunes and lives did lose their fortunes and lives while the rest had bounties on their heads the rest of their lives. The revolutionary war was as much about religious freedom from the anglican church as it was taxes. Reading about the people in history just isn't the same as reading their own words, what they thought, what they believed.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Light-Glory-Peter-Marshall/dp/0800750543/ref=pd_sim_b_2
I highly recommend these books "The Light and the Glory" and "From Sea to Shining Sea" to anyone. We shouldn't let the revisionist historians get away with rewriting America's history. The issue of slavery was hotly debated in 1776 and almost prevented USA from becoming a nation. The founding fathers (mostly Christian, very few deists) knew slavery was going to tear the nation apart before it even began. Most the founding fathers who pledged their fortunes and lives did lose their fortunes and lives while the rest had bounties on their heads the rest of their lives. The revolutionary war was as much about religious freedom from the anglican church as it was taxes. Reading about the people in history just isn't the same as reading their own words, what they thought, what they believed.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Light-Glory-Peter-Marshall/dp/0800750543/ref=pd_sim_b_2
Thank you so very much Vaccine thank you.... way too often we will only accept negativity as truth...
2Ch_7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
2Ch_7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
K
kevinmaynard
Guest
The U.S. has steadily gotten more moral as time has gone on.
Vaccine
Member
Hi Kevin, how are you defining "moral"? How would you measure it?
All things considered, I just see a steady decline. Sure slavery was horrific, but it wasn't embraced so much as it was tolerated. The salem witch trials were terrible, too but these are only one side of the story.
Our nation used to put God first. We used to export charity, missionaries, and organizations like the red cross. We used to try educate people while teaching them about the bible. Now we export worldliness, materialism, and pornography. We used to have stockades now we have huge prisons. It's not just from an increase in population either, people didn't drink, gamble, or value material possessions like they do today. One thing that really surprised me was how a man or woman sucess completely depended on their charachter. Those are the things absent most history books, how being dishonest used to ruin a man's business. Now, as long as no laws are broken, no harm comes. Being ammoral used to have consequences, now not so much. Actually, being ammoral nowadays seems to be rewarded.
K
kevinmaynard
Guest
Slavery is but one thing that has changed. Then there was rampant racism of Jim crow. That too changed. Women have gotten more rights, and can now vote. There is only one side to the Salem witch trials. People were superstitios and the accused were given an unfair trial, based on superstition. Innocent people murdered because of the testimony of a petulant girl. People always drank and gambled. You say we put God first, but if that were true Slavery, and witch trials never would have happened. Neither would the trail of tears.
Now we have treatment for addiction. We treat those with mental illness. We give more to charity now than ever before. Violent crime is lower, and life expectancy is higher than ever before.
Christ_empowered
Member
Is any nation really "Christian" ? Even in a church, you have the wheat and the tares. Imagine what a whole society (with religious tolerance, no less) will look like.
More things change, more they stay the same. Sure, no more Jim Crow laws. Now, we have a disproportionate number of minorities (particularly men) in prison, many because of "The War on Drugs." Our nation locks up more people per capita than any other Industrialized nation (I think at one time we were neck and neck with the Soviet Union). Speaking of treatment for "mental illness," how do you think they "treat" that? If you're poor, "treatment" often involves forced and/or coerced (heavy) drugging. Court orders mean that people who are law abiding, but are usually poor, are subjected to involuntary antipsychotic treatment in order to remain outside of a mental hospital. Although de-institutionalization has largely closed the older state mental hospitals, we now have group homes and still some long term places where people can be "treated" against their will. Social class is an issue. I have mental issues. Meds ***do*** help, but psychiatry really isn't about meds, its about control. Since I have upper middle class people behind me, I can stay a voluntary outpatient and pick my own meds. If I were poor, I'd be in a state mental hospital right now.
That was a lot on mental illness. Let's talk about sexism. Sure, some things are better. We have rape shield laws, so now women can file charges against an alleged rapist and not worry about their own sex lives being put on trial. That's good. We have criminal domestic violence protections. That's...good, I guess (good to be protected, bad to have to get the state involved). Women also have the "freedom" to be porn stars and the "freedom" to get abortions and the "freedom" to join the rate race so their family won't have to make do with less. People forget...the shift towards letting women enter the work force in droves wasn't because of angry feminists. The feminist ideas were only put into place (in watered down form) once the economy changed in such a way that lots and lots of families *needed* 2 incomes.
Gay rights. How sweet. I was raised liberal Presbyterian. My first impulse is to shrug it off and say "fine, let gay people get married. They'll pay taxes, none of my business.:" Then I remember...I was gay, once, in another life. Gay rights means that we, as a society, are increasingly affirming a life style marked by rampant promiscuity, sexual exploitation, various diseases (including, but definitely not limited to, hiv/aids), high rates of mental health and substance abuse issues, and an unusually high suicide rate. Just like the original sodomites--the people of Sodom and Gomorrah--sodomites today tend to be more affluent than your typical heterosexual, which may explain why such a relatively small minority gets so much respect and media attention. Money talks. Personal story: I was a random, kinda girly gay teenager about 10 years ago. No more promiscuous than any other gay dude. 10 years later, after repenting and being healed by the Lord, gay dudes (and a surprising number of straight dudes) are furious with me around here for not "knowing my place." Sissies, apparently, are supposed to be dead by 25. Seriously. The gay community has too much power. Because gays--white gay men in particular--tend to be more affluent than heteros (remember Marx: sodomy is a disease of capitalism...its true; sexual sin is more rampant at the upper and lower ends of the social hierarchy), their values have affected the whole culture. Gay marriage? Why not! Its love, isn't it? Right. Love. Gay marriage is only possible because marriage is largely dead anyway. I blame increasing affirmation of "the gay way" for the rise in hook up culture (other factors involved, to be sure, but...follow along....). Used to be that gay dudes did hook ups, straight people actually got to know each other. Now, straight people often go at it like gay dudes.
I've been rambling. OK. WItch trials, 1692, they hanged some "uppity" women for witchcraft. What do we do with uppity women these days? 10% of American women take at least 1 antidepressant. Women are over-represented in both outpatient and inpatient psychiatry. Read in between the lines: psychiatry (not psych meds, which can be helpful...psychiatry, the pseudo-scientific dogma masquerading as medicine) functions in part as a sort of modern day witch hunt. At least witches had trials....poor women can be thrown into mental hospitals "for their own good" with little to no recourse.
And addictions. Yes, we treat addiction. We hand them over to addiction psychiatrists who drug them up and switch them from fun drugs to (often expensive) un-fun drugs and condemn "addicts" to a lifetime of "treatment." While billion$ are spent locking up poor non-whites in the "War on Drugs," billion$ more are spent on "treatment"---that's docs, hospitals, therapists, and then meds--for a "disease" that isn't really a "disease." Its undesirable and/or illegal behavior that's been "medicalized." We don't call addicts "dope fiends" anymore, we talk about their faulty genes and we put them into "treatment" for a lifetime of drugged up, psycho-babble infused misery. White, middle and upper class people get "treatment"; poor and/or non-white people get incarceration. Billion$ are thrown away every year as Satan, working through drugs, continues to run rampant in our society.
We've never been all that Christian a nation. The Good News is offensive to those in the world. That's one reason they crucified Jesus. I would say, though, that our world is not only becoming less humane, we're increasingly less honest, even with ourselves. I'm a recently Born Again Christian. I believe in repentance, redemption, rehabilitation, forgiveness, mercy, etc. I believe that, in a truly Christian nation, we wouldn't need a "War on Drugs" (we'd encourage people to repent of the *sin* of drug abuse and give them medical help for complications arising from such abuse). We wouldn't need/want to lock up so many people. I mean...why? Repentance, rehabilitation, forgiveness, etc. demands mercy on a large scale, and it demands that offenders be redeemed, with the plan of redemption and rehabilitation varying on a case-by-base basis.
We've always twisted God to suit our purposes. Its only human to do so. God used to be twisted into some angry patriarch in the sky who punished deviants. Now, He's supposed to be some kind of warm and fuzzy metaphysical hug or something...He loves us unconditionally, accepts us, etc. etc. The problem with oppression and abuse today is that its so carefully hidden behind medicalization, jargon, New Age and psychobabble-isms, that we don't see it. We don't even see the lies we've been made to tell ourselves, honestly. Speaking from my own experience, only Christ could save me, heal me, and then open my mind to the lies I've told myself and been conditioned by society to believe. We have some kind of creepy, smile, have a nice day oppression going on here. We're losing solid, real freedoms--the freedom to be left alone, to privacy, to redemption, to free thought and behavior--and we're being given cheap thrills (sodomy, open marriages, free divorce, fornication, drugs, binge drinking, etc.) masquerading as true "freedom."
I am rambling, I'm sorry. I just don't think American society is making any progress on any front. "Cruel compassion"...that's the term I'm looking for...its straight out of Dr.Thomas Szasz's work. "Oh, you can't help but be a genetically defective drug addict! Let's get you some help!" We never were all that Christian, and we've always had more violent crime and higher divorce rates than many Western European countries (that dates back to the 19th century, btw), but now we've crumbled into some kind of fundamentally oppressive, dishonest, decidedly inhumane society. Some of what goes on in America today is so dishonest, its borderline Orwellian.
I'll close my rant with this: as always, Jesus is the answer.
More things change, more they stay the same. Sure, no more Jim Crow laws. Now, we have a disproportionate number of minorities (particularly men) in prison, many because of "The War on Drugs." Our nation locks up more people per capita than any other Industrialized nation (I think at one time we were neck and neck with the Soviet Union). Speaking of treatment for "mental illness," how do you think they "treat" that? If you're poor, "treatment" often involves forced and/or coerced (heavy) drugging. Court orders mean that people who are law abiding, but are usually poor, are subjected to involuntary antipsychotic treatment in order to remain outside of a mental hospital. Although de-institutionalization has largely closed the older state mental hospitals, we now have group homes and still some long term places where people can be "treated" against their will. Social class is an issue. I have mental issues. Meds ***do*** help, but psychiatry really isn't about meds, its about control. Since I have upper middle class people behind me, I can stay a voluntary outpatient and pick my own meds. If I were poor, I'd be in a state mental hospital right now.
That was a lot on mental illness. Let's talk about sexism. Sure, some things are better. We have rape shield laws, so now women can file charges against an alleged rapist and not worry about their own sex lives being put on trial. That's good. We have criminal domestic violence protections. That's...good, I guess (good to be protected, bad to have to get the state involved). Women also have the "freedom" to be porn stars and the "freedom" to get abortions and the "freedom" to join the rate race so their family won't have to make do with less. People forget...the shift towards letting women enter the work force in droves wasn't because of angry feminists. The feminist ideas were only put into place (in watered down form) once the economy changed in such a way that lots and lots of families *needed* 2 incomes.
Gay rights. How sweet. I was raised liberal Presbyterian. My first impulse is to shrug it off and say "fine, let gay people get married. They'll pay taxes, none of my business.:" Then I remember...I was gay, once, in another life. Gay rights means that we, as a society, are increasingly affirming a life style marked by rampant promiscuity, sexual exploitation, various diseases (including, but definitely not limited to, hiv/aids), high rates of mental health and substance abuse issues, and an unusually high suicide rate. Just like the original sodomites--the people of Sodom and Gomorrah--sodomites today tend to be more affluent than your typical heterosexual, which may explain why such a relatively small minority gets so much respect and media attention. Money talks. Personal story: I was a random, kinda girly gay teenager about 10 years ago. No more promiscuous than any other gay dude. 10 years later, after repenting and being healed by the Lord, gay dudes (and a surprising number of straight dudes) are furious with me around here for not "knowing my place." Sissies, apparently, are supposed to be dead by 25. Seriously. The gay community has too much power. Because gays--white gay men in particular--tend to be more affluent than heteros (remember Marx: sodomy is a disease of capitalism...its true; sexual sin is more rampant at the upper and lower ends of the social hierarchy), their values have affected the whole culture. Gay marriage? Why not! Its love, isn't it? Right. Love. Gay marriage is only possible because marriage is largely dead anyway. I blame increasing affirmation of "the gay way" for the rise in hook up culture (other factors involved, to be sure, but...follow along....). Used to be that gay dudes did hook ups, straight people actually got to know each other. Now, straight people often go at it like gay dudes.
I've been rambling. OK. WItch trials, 1692, they hanged some "uppity" women for witchcraft. What do we do with uppity women these days? 10% of American women take at least 1 antidepressant. Women are over-represented in both outpatient and inpatient psychiatry. Read in between the lines: psychiatry (not psych meds, which can be helpful...psychiatry, the pseudo-scientific dogma masquerading as medicine) functions in part as a sort of modern day witch hunt. At least witches had trials....poor women can be thrown into mental hospitals "for their own good" with little to no recourse.
And addictions. Yes, we treat addiction. We hand them over to addiction psychiatrists who drug them up and switch them from fun drugs to (often expensive) un-fun drugs and condemn "addicts" to a lifetime of "treatment." While billion$ are spent locking up poor non-whites in the "War on Drugs," billion$ more are spent on "treatment"---that's docs, hospitals, therapists, and then meds--for a "disease" that isn't really a "disease." Its undesirable and/or illegal behavior that's been "medicalized." We don't call addicts "dope fiends" anymore, we talk about their faulty genes and we put them into "treatment" for a lifetime of drugged up, psycho-babble infused misery. White, middle and upper class people get "treatment"; poor and/or non-white people get incarceration. Billion$ are thrown away every year as Satan, working through drugs, continues to run rampant in our society.
We've never been all that Christian a nation. The Good News is offensive to those in the world. That's one reason they crucified Jesus. I would say, though, that our world is not only becoming less humane, we're increasingly less honest, even with ourselves. I'm a recently Born Again Christian. I believe in repentance, redemption, rehabilitation, forgiveness, mercy, etc. I believe that, in a truly Christian nation, we wouldn't need a "War on Drugs" (we'd encourage people to repent of the *sin* of drug abuse and give them medical help for complications arising from such abuse). We wouldn't need/want to lock up so many people. I mean...why? Repentance, rehabilitation, forgiveness, etc. demands mercy on a large scale, and it demands that offenders be redeemed, with the plan of redemption and rehabilitation varying on a case-by-base basis.
We've always twisted God to suit our purposes. Its only human to do so. God used to be twisted into some angry patriarch in the sky who punished deviants. Now, He's supposed to be some kind of warm and fuzzy metaphysical hug or something...He loves us unconditionally, accepts us, etc. etc. The problem with oppression and abuse today is that its so carefully hidden behind medicalization, jargon, New Age and psychobabble-isms, that we don't see it. We don't even see the lies we've been made to tell ourselves, honestly. Speaking from my own experience, only Christ could save me, heal me, and then open my mind to the lies I've told myself and been conditioned by society to believe. We have some kind of creepy, smile, have a nice day oppression going on here. We're losing solid, real freedoms--the freedom to be left alone, to privacy, to redemption, to free thought and behavior--and we're being given cheap thrills (sodomy, open marriages, free divorce, fornication, drugs, binge drinking, etc.) masquerading as true "freedom."
I am rambling, I'm sorry. I just don't think American society is making any progress on any front. "Cruel compassion"...that's the term I'm looking for...its straight out of Dr.Thomas Szasz's work. "Oh, you can't help but be a genetically defective drug addict! Let's get you some help!" We never were all that Christian, and we've always had more violent crime and higher divorce rates than many Western European countries (that dates back to the 19th century, btw), but now we've crumbled into some kind of fundamentally oppressive, dishonest, decidedly inhumane society. Some of what goes on in America today is so dishonest, its borderline Orwellian.
I'll close my rant with this: as always, Jesus is the answer.
K
kevinmaynard
Guest
You feel negative so you see the negative. You must examine why you feel so negative.
Yes the amount of people in prison is troubling, but there are people working and striving to right that wrong.
Addiction isn't just treated with psychiatric drugs. AA is the single largest organization towards sobriety.
I see you spent a great deal of thought on homosexuality and feminism. I don't know what being ex gay means. Seeing yourself and your inherent desires as evil and negative might have a lot to do with your pessimistic negative view of the world. As for feminism. I don't see it as bad. Women make up half the population. I think it is good they get treated equally.
Yes the amount of people in prison is troubling, but there are people working and striving to right that wrong.
Addiction isn't just treated with psychiatric drugs. AA is the single largest organization towards sobriety.
I see you spent a great deal of thought on homosexuality and feminism. I don't know what being ex gay means. Seeing yourself and your inherent desires as evil and negative might have a lot to do with your pessimistic negative view of the world. As for feminism. I don't see it as bad. Women make up half the population. I think it is good they get treated equally.