Liberal Christians I need some things cleared up

[SinSaber]

I'm conservative, or traditionalist(fundamentalist is too reactionary for me). Nothings going to change that. But I need a few things cleared up.

1: If Hell doesn't exist, where did Hitler, bin Laden, and Vlad the Impaler go? If a person lives good a morally his entire life, don't you think he or she would get upset that those three are there?

2: I know you emphasis love and forgiveness, a true christian should. However, you're stepping back from the laws makes me feel like you have some humanist fear of the public's opinion. Christ said he is love, but he also said he is the way and that he came to affirm the laws.

3: You say judge them by their fruit, but your more quick to judge your conservative brothers and sisters more than anyone else. I find that to be some kind of misdirection, which again feels like your scared of public opinion.

4: I respect and love others who do not follow as I do. I just don't see why that means I change my belief system simply because their in close proximity to me. Christ broke bread with the thief yes, but he he did not commit theft.

This is no a judgement. These are just the four major issues of your faith that I need clearing up.

 

[David1967]

3: You say judge them by their fruit, but your more quick to judge your conservative brothers and sisters more than anyone else. I find that to be some kind of misdirection, which again feels like your scared of public opinion.

I prefer, "Let he who is without sin, let him cast a stone first." And, "Judge not lest you be judged." I am certainly not sinless and therefore in no position to cast (and this is the key) ,self righteous judgement on another, which is my understanding of what Jesus was speaking of.

4: I respect and love others who do not follow as I do.

Excellent! I agree, and I do.

I just don't see why that means I change my belief system simply because their in close proximity to me.

I don't think you should. I do believe that regardless of our belief ,we can and should treat others with kindness and respect.

 

[David1967]

1: If Hell doesn't exist, where did Hitler, bin Laden, and Vlad the Impaler go? If a person lives good a morally his entire life, don't you think he or she would get upset that those three are there?

I don't think they would be in the same location as the good moral person you speak of. However the question that always comes to my mind regarding the NT hell, is, why wasn't such a horrible place mentioned in the OT? Why did it take contact with the Greeks to bring the fiery hell into the mix?

 

[bobhikes]

I'm conservative, or traditionalist(fundamentalist is too reactionary for me). Nothings going to change that. But I need a few things cleared up.

1: If Hell doesn't exist, where did Hitler, bin Laden, and Vlad the Impaler go? If a person lives good a morally his entire life, don't you think he or she would get upset that those three are there?

2: I know you emphasis love and forgiveness, a true christian should. However, you're stepping back from the laws makes me feel like you have some humanist fear of the public's opinion. Christ said he is love, but he also said he is the way and that he came to affirm the laws.

3: You say judge them by their fruit, but your more quick to judge your conservative brothers and sisters more than anyone else. I find that to be some kind of misdirection, which again feels like your scared of public opinion.

4: I respect and love others who do not follow as I do. I just don't see why that means I change my belief system simply because their in close proximity to me. Christ broke bread with the thief yes, but he he did not commit theft.

This is no a judgement. These are just the four major issues of your faith that I need clearing up.

1) They die, there death is final, only the good move on.

2) What law's clarify, but If you love god above all else and love you neighbor as yourself what laws can you actually break.

3) Personally I judge no one judging is Gods job

4) What beliefs do you have to change for others? I require no one to change there beliefs for me.

 

[columbus]

1: If Hell doesn't exist, where did Hitler, bin Laden, and Vlad the Impaler go? If a person lives good a morally his entire life, don't you think he or she would get upset that those three are there?

I don't know. But I trust God to do the best things. That seems to me to be fixing them, and the rest of us sinners, rather than punishing them for eternity.
I also expect Him to fix our human wish for vengeance. I would not be upset to find Hitler in Heaven, if as God says "Vengeance is mine. And: My ways are not your ways".

Here in my limited self, there are lots of people I would like to see punished severely. Trump and GWBush are just two of them. Doubtless God is better at this than I am. I don't expect my idea of cosmic Justice to have any hold on God.

2: I know you emphasis love and forgiveness, a true christian should. However, you're stepping back from the laws makes me feel like you have some humanist fear of the public's opinion. Christ said he is love, but he also said he is the way and that he came to affirm the laws.

I don't much care about public opinion. From preemptive war to abortion I seriously oppose people choosing death for other people. I manage to annoy almost everyone with some aspects of my hard core prolifer beliefs.

You say judge them by their fruit, but your more quick to judge your conservative brothers and sisters more than anyone else. I find that to be some kind of misdirection, which again feels like your scared of public opinion.

That's not really accurate. I judge behavior the best I can. But not individual Children of God. I see a lot of nasty behavior from self described conservative Christians. But not just them, by any stretch of the imagination. I also see some totally beautiful behavior from them. I judge that as well.
For example, many of the people I work with at the local RCC "Friends of Haiti" are really conservative Christians. I don't care about their beliefs, because we're all trying to help out "The Least Among Us". Like Jesus said to do. I really don't care what they believe about Transubstantiation.

4: I respect and love others who do not follow as I do. I just don't see why that means I change my belief system simply because their in close proximity to me. Christ broke bread with the thief yes, but he he did not commit theft.

Speaking for myself, I don't care about what you believe about such things. Believe anything you want to believe.
Among my very favorite maxims, is this:
"Preach the Gospel always. Use words only when absolutely necessary."
Tom

PS ~ You might not think that I am a Christian. I don't care about that and I don't judge you for it.~

 

[Jonathan Ainsley Bain]

I need a few things cleared up

How can we really know of those who were killed by those people, who is innocent
and did not deserve to die? I actually played a bit-part in the pursuit of Bin Laden, and
felt he was certainly in need of capture/elimination. It was not a decision taken lightly
to partake in a man-hunt, however minor the role. It was still a big decision to pass on
the relevant info I had on him. But all events that come to pass, are allowed to do so
by God. We all die, and some go up and others down in the hereafter. The worse
I reckon go further down than those who are only partially bad. I think heaven and
hell exist as absolute states, but they also exist by degrees as well.

 

[pearl]

I'm conservative, or traditionalist(fundamentalist is too reactionary for me).

Limiting labels to conservative or traditionalist is to narrow, most are probably moderate. The difference is ones openness or lack of to new life situations brought on by science and theology and exegesis. That it is absolutely true that there are no absolutes in doctrine.

If a person lives good a morally his entire life, don't you think he or she would get upset that those three are there?

I think one would be so taken with being with 'God' nothing else would matter.

Christ said he is love, but he also said he is the way and that he came to affirm the laws.

And He gave the highest of laws, to love God with your whole heart and mind, and love one another as yourself, the greatest of these.

3: You say judge them by their fruit, but your more quick to judge your conservative brothers and sisters more than anyone else.

Where this is true it is quite often in self defense.

Christ broke bread with the thief yes, but he he did not commit theft.

Some of who were referred to as sinners Jesus broke bread with were simply considered the 'low lifes' by the righteous, like the 'tax' collector.

 

[Brickjectivity]

1: If Hell doesn't exist, where did Hitler, bin Laden, and Vlad the Impaler go? If a person lives good a morally his entire life, don't you think he or she would get upset that those three are there?

I think they lived like useless garbage, and garbage they are. Isn't that punishment enough?

2: I know you emphasis love and forgiveness, a true christian should. However, you're stepping back from the laws makes me feel like you have some humanist fear of the public's opinion. Christ said he is love, but he also said he is the way and that he came to affirm the laws.

Not all Liberal Christians come from the same vectors. I'm a fundamentalist Liberal Christian, not an Anglican, Lutheran or Episcopalian; so I cannot speak to their motivations and whether they fear public opinions or not. I think, however that you have the mistaken idea that liberal Christians are stepping back from the laws. We are not Jewish, and the laws are for the Jews. That has not changed. If you want to be fundamentalist about it, the gospel was first preached throughout the world to all of the Jews (See the end of Mark 16), but it sounded crazy to most of them. Then Paul, long afterward, begin explaining things to Gentiles about the gospel that had been preached to the Jews; however this did not mean we were all supposed to become Jews. Unfortunately his letters do not explain things plainly, and worse they are written to third parties rather than directly to you and I.

3: You say judge them by their fruit, but your more quick to judge your conservative brothers and sisters more than anyone else. I find that to be some kind of misdirection, which again feels like your scared of public opinion.

"Perfect love casts out all fear." I really don't think that there are any Conservative Christians today. I think those who claim to be conservative brothers and sisters, such as the SBC are not conservative at all, and they pick and choose who can be in their churches and who is worthy of communion. Doing so they drink judgment, not communion I think. They microfocus on whether people believe certain beliefs. It is all a word game for conservatives I think who have somehow got entire seminaries churning out people who are paid to say things in a certain way, and this gives conservatives confidence that they are on the straight and narrow. Actually they have gimball-locked themselves. They can no longer correct problems. Even if they were to determine a problem, for example that Hell was not XYZ, they wouldn't be able to change. Somebody would lose their job over it, and that would be tragic to them.

Admittedly I'm not 100% like the 'Original' Christians, but who is and while some like to claim it by calling themselves conservative I really doubt that they are.

4: I respect and love others who do not follow as I do. I just don't see why that means I change my belief system simply because their in close proximity to me. Christ broke bread with the thief yes, but he he did not commit theft.

I say don't deny communion to people who disagree with you. That's a step in a truly conservative direction and is non-judgmental. The holy spirit goes wherever it wills, or there are no Christians at all. Love everybody, including people you think are preaching wrong things, and let God be true instead of you. Can any of us do this? I'm not sure, but that's Christianity and is conservative.

This is no a judgement. These are just the four major issues of your faith that I need clearing up.

They are unfortunately hot buttons.

 

[columbus]

Its basically a scourge on true christianity, and the pleasant words merely mask vampiric intent.

What is?
Tom

 

[columbus]

A lot of lib christians philosophy etc

What do you think is wrong with:
"Love God, love your neighbor.
That's the essence of Jesus' ministrations as far as I can tell. Also the essence of liberal Christian philosophy.

Maybe you have another three word, unsupported, assertion about what God really meant by all that. But I see no reason to believe that Jesus is bound by the beliefs of modern people who see the ethics of Bronze age people as primitive.
I don't think Jesus cares about what you believe any more than He cares about what Fred Phelps believed. He doesn't have to.

Christians don't have any authority over God. I don't care what they think about the subject. They don't!
Tom

 

[Desert Snake]

I don't care what they think about the subject.

Shouldn't have asked me then.

 

[Desert Snake]

I don't think they would be in the same location as the good moral person you speak of. However the question that always comes to my mind regarding the NT hell, is, why wasn't such a horrible place mentioned in the OT? Why did it take contact with the Greeks to bring the fiery hell into the mix?

Mm
Greeks had Hades, not as bad as the Jewish hell that xians believe in. Its traditional, but modern judaism has another idea/different ideas,

The xian hell is traditional.

 

[Magus]

Hades isn't Hell.

 

[PureX]

I'm conservative, or traditionalist(fundamentalist is too reactionary for me). Nothings going to change that. But I need a few things cleared up.

1: If Hell doesn't exist, where did Hitler, bin Laden, and Vlad the Impaler go?

No one knows what has or will happen in their future, dead or alive.

If a person lives good a morally his entire life, don't you think he or she would get upset that those three are there?

All the more reason to learn how to forgive!

2: I know you emphasis love and forgiveness, a true christian should. However, you're stepping back from the laws makes me feel like you have some humanist fear of the public's opinion.

It's sad that you would jump to such a negative presumption, about others. That kind of thing is usually the result of egotism, not insight.

Christ said he is love, but he also said he is the way and that he came to affirm the laws.

First, Jesus didn't come to "affirm" Mosaic law, he said he came to "fulfill" that law. Secondly, Jesus was a practicing Jew talking to other practicing Jews when he spoke of maintaining adherence to Jewish religious law. He was not talking to us. And as a Jew, he did not believe that non-Jews needed to convert to Judaism, or that they should follow Jewish religious dictums, rituals, or customs. And lastly, when he said "I am the way" you are assuming that he meant "My Judaic religiosity is the way". He didn't. What he meant was that being a human vessel for God's spirit of love, forgiveness, kindness and generosity in the world, as He was, is the "way".

3: You say judge them by their fruit, but your more quick to judge your conservative brothers and sisters more than anyone else. I find that to be some kind of misdirection, which again feels like your scared of public opinion.

It makes complete sense to me that any good Christian (as the term "liberal" would dictate) would be first and foremost angered and appalled by these other self-proclaimed Christians preaching judgment, condemnation, oppression, bigotry, greed, violence, idolatry, and their own self-righteousness in the name of Jesus Christ. So of course they are especially angered and disgusted by these phony Christians playing politics and oppressor in Jesus' name. And rightfully so! Jesus Himself would be disgusted!

4: I respect and love others who do not follow as I do. I just don't see why that means I change my belief system simply because their in close proximity to me. Christ broke bread with the thief yes, but he he did not commit theft.

He also did not call them foul names, or refuse to treat them fairly in business or public discourse, or try to pass civil laws punishing them for their "sins", either. Something that modern "conservative Christians" seem keenly intent upon doing at every opportunity, and by whatever disreputable means they can muster.

This is not a judgement. These are just the four major issues of your faith that I need clearing up.

Sorry, but what you need to clear up is your cognitive and spiritual vision.

 

[The magical volleyball]

I'm conservative, or traditionalist(fundamentalist is too reactionary for me). Nothings going to change that. But I need a few things cleared up.

1: If Hell doesn't exist, where did Hitler, bin Laden, and Vlad the Impaler go? If a person lives good a morally his entire life, don't you think he or she would get upset that those three are there?

2: I know you emphasis love and forgiveness, a true christian should. However, you're stepping back from the laws makes me feel like you have some humanist fear of the public's opinion. Christ said he is love, but he also said he is the way and that he came to affirm the laws.

3: You say judge them by their fruit, but your more quick to judge your conservative brothers and sisters more than anyone else. I find that to be some kind of misdirection, which again feels like your scared of public opinion.

4: I respect and love others who do not follow as I do. I just don't see why that means I change my belief system simply because their in close proximity to me. Christ broke bread with the thief yes, but he he did not commit theft.

This is no a judgement. These are just the four major issues of your faith that I need clearing up.

I think people should judge others based on the physical harm they cause others and dishonest and unworthy behavior. What kind of world would we live in if America had never judged bin Laden and Hitler found them guilty and too much of a danger to be left alive? Why should we wait for god to judge others?

 

[Deeje]

I'm conservative, or traditionalist(fundamentalist is too reactionary for me). Nothings going to change that. But I need a few things cleared up.

"Conservative or traditionalist" means what exactly? Are there 'levels' of Christianity in your view?

1: If Hell doesn't exist, where did Hitler, bin Laden, and Vlad the Impaler go? If a person lives good a morally his entire life, don't you think he or she would get upset that those three are there?

"Hell" is translated from different words in the original languages of the Bible....none of which ever meant a place of torment. "Hell" (Hebrew, "sheol", Greek "hades") was a place of rest......a place where no one was conscious and therefore not able to interact or communicate with the living. (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10)
The demons it seems, can impersonate the dead in a bid to perpetuate satan's first lie....the we "surely will not die". God said we would return to the dust. God's people were warned not to dabble in spiritism because it was detestable to him. (Deuteronomy 18:9-12)

Ask yourself where Lazarus was before Jesus raised him? (John 11:11-14) Jesus said he was "sleeping".

Jesus promised to awaken all those in their graves, "both the righteous and the unrighteous" under the rulership of his kingdom (John 5:28-29) to give them a fresh start.
The wicked, on the other hand, will never awaken. God does not need to punish them forever.....they just won't be alive ever again. Why does he need to do more? God's justice does not demand anything higher than the death penalty.

"Gehenna" is another word translated "hell" in many Bibles. It is the place where Jesus consigned the wicked Pharisees. (Matthew 23:33) It is a symbolic place where the dead never wake up. It just meant permanent death. To his Jewish audience this simply meant that the wicked would not be resurrected.

"Tartarus" is mentioned only once and it is the place where the demon angels were consigned. It is not a place where humans ever go. It is a state of restriction where they can no longer materialize as they did in the days of Noah. (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6)

The "lake of fire" is another designation for "gehenna". Whatever goes into this "lake of fire" never comes out. It is a place of symbolic, permanent destruction. "Death and hades" are also thrown into this place...never to be seen again. (Revelation 20:13-15)

We know that the God of the Bible has no need to torture or to incarcerate anyone for any reason because this was reflected in the laws he gave to his people. There were no prisons in ancient Israel and no punishment involved torture of any sort. The death penalty applied to capital crimes, ensuring that a murderer never re-offended. He "paid" for the life he took by forfeiting his own life....just as Jesus "paid" for the lives of Adam's children by laying down his own life for them. Justice is satisfied. Everlasting life is contrasted by everlasting death.

There is no immortal soul that goes anywhere at death. We go to the same place as all living things do when they die.(Ecclesiastes 3:18-20)...back to the dust from which we were taken. (Genesis 3:19) The "righteous and the unrighteous" will be restored to life, but the incorrigibly wicked will not.

A promised resurrection is what makes us different to the animals.

2: I know you emphasis love and forgiveness, a true christian should. However, you're stepping back from the laws makes me feel like you have some humanist fear of the public's opinion. Christ said he is love, but he also said he is the way and that he came to affirm the laws.

Jesus said he came to "fulfill the law"..."not to destroy it". What parts of the law was he referring to? The sacrificial parts....the ceremonial parts of the law that all pointed forward to his ministry and his sacrificial death. He reaffirmed the moral aspects of the law as well, by inferring that all of the law was based on just two fundamental principles.....'love of God and neighbor.' (Matthew 22:37-40)

3: You say judge them by their fruit, but your more quick to judge your conservative brothers and sisters more than anyone else. I find that to be some kind of misdirection, which again feels like your scared of public opinion.

The first person any of us should judge, is ourselves. (log and straw parable) We are the only ones that we are under obligation to change. We can offer our brothers and others advice and correction if necessary, but not from a position of superiority. It would be offered humbly and lovingly, like Jesus did.

4: I respect and love others who do not follow as I do. I just don't see why that means I change my belief system simply because their in close proximity to me. Christ broke bread with the thief yes, but he he did not commit theft.

The only reason Jesus kept company with 'sinners' was to offer them the message and hope of the Kingdom, which was lost in apostate Judaism. He tried to correct wrong thinking and attitudes, but only the humble ones responded to his teachings.
God sent him, not to the self-righteous Pharisees, but to "the lost sheep of the House of Israel". Those lost sheep were floundering because their shepherds had neglected them. They became a flock under the Find Shepherd who offered them refreshment, not condemnation.....they were different in their attitudes and conduct to their former religious teachers. Jesus set the example for all of us who claim him as our "Lord".....but "many" will not be found "doing the will" of his Father. (Matthew 7:21-23)..."Few" he said are on the "cramped and narrow" road to life. (Matthew 7:13-14)

This is no a judgement. These are just the four major issues of your faith that I need clearing up.

These are issues of every faith that need clearing up.

Christians are commanded to be "no part of this world" and Jesus said that they would be "hated" for that stance. (John 15:18-21) They are no part of its conflicts, greed or immorality because of who is running that show. (1 John 5:19)

They were commanded to preach the "good news (gospel) of the kingdom" before the foretold "end" of the present world system would "come". (Matthew 24:14; 28:19-20)

They would be following Jesus' commands.....all of them....not just the convenient ones. That includes his instructions on marriage and divorce. (Matthew 19:9)

Christians can't pick and choose what parts of Jesus' instructions they will follow and what they won't. True Christianity does not compromise for the sake of pleasing selfish humans.

It sometimes involves great sacrifice, but none greater than what Christ did for us.

That is my take on things.

 

[SinSaber]

No one knows what has or will happen in their future, dead or alive.

All the more reason to learn how to forgive!


It's sad that you would jump to such a negative presumption, about others. That kind of thing is usually the result of egotism, not insight.

First, Jesus didn't come to "affirm" Mosaic law, he said he came to "fulfill" that law. Secondly, Jesus was a practicing Jew talking to other practicing Jews when he spoke of maintaining adherence to Jewish religious law. He was not talking to us. And as a Jew, he did not believe that non-Jews needed to convert to Judaism, or that they should follow Jewish religious dictums, rituals, or customs. And lastly, when he said "I am the way" you are assuming that he meant "My Judaic religiosity is the way". He didn't. What he meant was that being a human vessel for God's spirit of love, forgiveness, kindness and generosity in the world, as He was, is the "way".

It makes complete sense to me that any good Christian (as the term "liberal" would dictate) would be first and foremost angered and appalled by these other self-proclaimed Christians preaching judgment, condemnation, oppression, bigotry, greed, violence, idolatry, and their own self-righteousness in the name of Jesus Christ. So of course they are especially angered and disgusted by these phony Christians playing politics and oppressor in Jesus' name. And rightfully so! Jesus Himself would be disgusted!

He also did not call them foul names, or refuse to treat them fairly in business or public discourse, or try to pass civil laws punishing them for their "sins", either. Something that modern "conservative Christians" seem keenly intent upon doing at every opportunity, and by whatever disreputable means they can muster.

Sorry, but what you need to clear up is your cognitive and spiritual vision.

I'm sorry, but I already have a clear vision. There isn't a hateful bone in my body. In referring to the judging conservatives part, I'm referring to how you like us all to West Borough Baptists. Your response, I'm sorry to say, comes across as pretty self-righteous itself. Especially when you equate liberal to good.

 

[PureX]

I'm sorry, but I already have a clear vision.

If your vision is so clear why were you asking for clarification?

There isn't a hateful bone in my body.

I wasn't accusing you of having any. You asked for clarification (and then made repeated accusations) and I gave you that clarification, with some counter accusations. (Didn't like that much, did you.)

In referring to the judging conservatives part, I'm referring to how you like us all to West Borough Baptists.

You do all share the same judgmental, self-righteous, holier-than-thou theme, if not all to the same level of intensity. And if you're honest with yourself about it, you know that it's the truth. Wanting to force prayer into public schools, religious monuments into public buildings, religious taboos into civil and criminal law, and doing so by any dispicible means available (voting for criminals, stacking the courts with biased judges, rigging elections, and so on).

Your response, I'm sorry to say, comes across as pretty self-righteous itself.

I've said nothing to glorify myself. I'm not even a religious Christian. So I don't have a "side" in this debate.

Especially when you equate liberal to good.

When you remove the political bias, liberalism is a good thing in terms of Christianity. Jesus was not about protecting the status quo, which is what drives "conservatism". Jesus was about sharing a radical new spiritual vision of mankind's relationship to God. Not "conserving" an old one.

 

[Corvus]

1: If Hell doesn't exist, where did Hitler, bin Laden, and Vlad the Impaler go? If a person lives good a morally his entire life, don't you think he or she would get upset that those three are there?

Yet if he/she fails to profess magic words of belief in Jesus, then he/she is going to join Hitler et al anyway? Regardless of moral conduct in life. Which to me is illogical.

By the way don't judge Vlad the Impaler too harshly, he did what he did to the Turks to save Wallachia from being overrun. True he inserted oiled stakes into his enemies, allowing them to die in the most horrendous way imaginable, in order to terrify a superior force, but you have to understand that Vlad while captive in Turkey as a young boy was the victim of repeated institutionalised rape and sexual assault. This may have tainted his perspective somewhat.

 

[SinSaber]

If your vision is so clear why were you asking for clarification?
I wasn't accusing you of having any. You asked for clarification (and then made repeated accusations) and I gave you that clarification, with some counter accusations. (Didn't like that much, did you.)
You do all share the same judgmental, self-righteous, holier-than-thou theme, if not all to the same level of intensity. And if you're honest with yourself about it, you know that it's the truth. Wanting to force prayer into public schools, religious monuments into public buildings, religious taboos into civil and criminal law, and doing so by any dispicible means available (voting for criminals, stacking the courts with biased judges, rigging elections, and so on).
I've said nothing to glorify myself. I'm not even a religious Christian. So I don't have a "side" in this debate.
When you remove the political bias, liberalism is a good thing in terms of Christianity. Jesus was not about protecting the status quo, which is what drives "conservatism". Jesus was about sharing a radical new spiritual vision of mankind's relationship to God. Not "conserving" an old one.

I just want to understand. I never accused, I just said what things appear to me. Also, you don't have to glorify yourself to be self-righteous, its also done by putting down those who don't share your views without admitting your own problems. However, equating everything liberal as good is already self-glorification. Conservative may have been bad in accordance of Christ's time, but a post Christ world conservative is just believing what people have believed for thousands of years. You equating us to Pharisees makes it sound like you think all liberal Christians are a collective messianic group and that is pretty self-righteous.