Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I dunno. But it certainly isn't hard for Christians to make God do or say whatever fits the bill at any given time.
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Reminder: Trump Not Christian
- Thread starter sealchan
- Start date
sealchan
Well-Known Member
Pssstt....don't you mean "white nationalist"?...
sealchan
Well-Known Member
We Christians have the powers of magical thinking...its the new form of what happened in 1 Samuel 8 I suppose.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
It's definitely a crazy compilation of books .
Is that term synonymous with conservative White Evangelicals?
Well yes. That's the main ingredient in hypocrisy.
He says he is.
There's nothing in his behaviour that suggests he isn't Christian. All of his behaviour and policies are in line with what I've seen from other Christians. The only reasons I have to doubt him:
- he doesn't seem to be that interested in Christian belief, scripture, etc. I remember an interview where someone askee him his favourite Bible passage and he said something like "I love the whole Bible." It struck me as the behaviour of someone trying to cover for his lack of knowledge of the Bible.
- I think he's generally untrustworthy and I wouldn't take his word for it on anything.
... like many Christians.
Pro-choice implies "not Christian?"
This is probably news to the many pro-choice Christians out there.
I think that your position doesn't reflect reality.
You had to vote for someone and, in a Christian viewpoint, both had moral character problems. So why is it hypocritical to vote? And why is it hypocritical to support the person that supports one's agenda? Isn't that what determines who you vote for?
...from...? Conservative-Freudian slip?
For wisdom, for direction, for wise counsel. Why do you think that when one prays it is about delivering someone from something?
sealchan
Well-Known Member
I hope not...perhaps I should pray...
sealchan
Well-Known Member
I'm not actually thinking of the vote...I understand how someone has to calculate the best of two imperfect alternatives. But leaders of Christian "organizations" saying nothing about all the willful moral errors of the President seems to be a great dereliction of representation of the attitude of the Christian faith. This video made that point effectively for me.
To be honest, I don't see where this video even addresses it.
I'm a Christian, (to the best of my ability).
I am not free from moral errors nor do I judge people on their moral errors--even non-christians. If an action is wrong, I have no problem saying an action is wrong (when I need to do it). I don't go around pointing to everyone and saying "that action is wrong".
So, rather that pointing to all the "Christian organizations" and saying they are wrong, I would prefer asking questions..;
Do you have one?
ecco
Veteran Member
If someone states they are a true Christian, I take them at their word. I realize that many Christians do not feel this way.
sealchan
Well-Known Member
To be honest, I don't see where this video even addresses it.
I'm a Christian, (to the best of my ability).
I am not free from moral errors nor do I judge people on their moral errors--even non-christians. If an action is wrong, I have no problem saying an action is wrong (when I need to do it). I don't go around pointing to everyone and saying "that action is wrong".
So, rather that pointing to all the "Christian organizations" and saying they are wrong, I would prefer asking questions..;
Do you have one?
I am speaking to willful, repeated and unapologetic immorality. That shows a profound lack of humility and empathy. Trump sometimes allows himself to be edified, but mostly he speaks his mind. He should be heavily concerned about Jesus' teaching in Matthew 5:27-30 as it spells out that we are to take the battle against sin to heart even within the confines of our own thinking. To me this is one of the key elements of Christian faith, that we try this hard, this sincerely, this humbly to mold ourselves. This video commentary lists many of these qualities that Trump does not have.
Trump has some scruples but we have to wonder how many of those are based on reminders he gets from his advisors or from the media reports he watches like the Evil Queen in Snow White.
I have read that a couple of centuries ago there was a change in how a person was perceived in their spiritual character. It went from a matter of how they acted, their moral qualities to what they believed, their belief system. In that switch we lost sight of the truth that working on the principles of religion should yield ever increasing moral fortitude. If we are merely spiritual in the beliefs we say we hold then we have lost this quality aspect of what it means to follow a religion.
Trump is so obviously an outstanding example of the sort of person that Christianity teaches about that it defies all credibility that Christian "leaders" not comment on this for the sake of not just the children in their care but the adults as well. If you can separate the sin from the sinner, why not the moral uprightness from your political philosophy?
Is Conservative Christianity failing Jesus' third temptation in an embarrassingly public way? Matthew 4:8-10
She believes in God. I suspect most Christian feel that what goes on in the world is done according to God's will. In this case it doesn't matter if Trump is a Christian.
Trump as far as I know is about as open with his religious belief as he is with his tax returns.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
He says a lot of things.
Ya, and his "familiarity" was evident when he said "Two Corinthians" and not "Second Corinthians" and didn't correct it. Anyone who goes even only occasionally to services would know the difference.
No argument from me.
Unfortunately.
Most Christians tend to be Pro-Life, especially Evangelicals and Catholics-- but often only on the issue of abortion with the Evangelicals especially It's been said that they are "Pro-Life", but only until the baby is born.
But they also tend not to be Pro-life when it comes to the death penalty nor do they have any great compunction to abstain from war, whereas Catholicism uses the Just War Theory that only allows for defensive wars but even then with restrictions, plus Catholic social teachings are strongly in favor of reliable safety nets, both through charities and through governments. [how's that for a run-on sentence, eh?]
sealchan
Well-Known Member
If you are not a Christian then this may be reasonable and fair. But even so, you should not, in your heart, trust in a person's claim until you have heard their story. Now telling stories takes time and trust and so they are not often easily available...but in hearing their story there is in this a chance that you might be able to perceive the person's sincerity because we can often get an impression as to the depth or hollowness of the story that is told. Hollowness of story is a possible indication of the "cheapness" of that faith. This does not require you to be a Christian but to be a human being with a story of one's own. You can trust your own wisdom and experience to make a judgment.
Now it is not for anyone to openly argue with someone about their faith until such time as they wish to "spend" their credibility. It is when they say, "I am a Christian" and this is supposed to convince you of something that you should use your judgment. In Matthew 5:33-37, Jesus teaches us how not to spend our faith by making oaths that attempt to convince someone of their reliability. Just say "yes" or "no" and do what you say you will do.
sealchan
Well-Known Member
To be honest, I don't see where this video even addresses it.
I'm a Christian, (to the best of my ability).
I am not free from moral errors nor do I judge people on their moral errors--even non-christians. If an action is wrong, I have no problem saying an action is wrong (when I need to do it). I don't go around pointing to everyone and saying "that action is wrong".
So, rather that pointing to all the "Christian organizations" and saying they are wrong, I would prefer asking questions..;
Do you have one?
I do. I will share it in brief here...
When I was about 20 years old I was a default atheist with a deep criticism of church history picked up from public school education about European history and from what Carl Sagan elegantly described in his Cosmos TV series. My parents were not church going people and professed no certain opinion on the matter. I was a archetypal nerd who had been dumped by my first girlfriend about a year and a half previously and I was still in a mild, persistent depression.
One day in the summer after my second year of college, I was in my room and I felt the compulsion to complain to God, to whom I have never seriously spoken, about how unfair it was that the person I loved (and couldn't get over) didn't love me back. I got angry at God, I held Him responsible for the quality of the world and resolved to undertake my own effort to make it a better world. I began to rewrite the first chapter of the book of Genesis in terms that I had picked up from required courses in theology and philosophy and my own imagination. I wrote for hours...I still have that writing on stationary. At the end of that day I felt that my depression had lifted and it had.
About a year later I had a dream in which I knew that God was approaching me as a malevolent figure. I had to choose my secret name before he reached my bedroom door or I would be doomed. I remembered a name I came up with in association with the writings I had previously done and suddenly all the darkness and fear and doom in the dream gave way to an ecstatic, operatic music and my voice was like some great opera singer's and i was filled with emotion.
Those are the two particular experiences I had that highlight how I felt that I have encountered God as something I didn't intend and that showed me that religious experiences are real phenomenon and that they bring meaning to one's life.
Not too long ago I was in the midst of my many years long detailed study of Genesis when I realized in studying the experience of Abraham and God that this story shared many similarities with my own. I did an informal study on another forum where I asked people to share their own experiences of God in dreams and I found a remarkable similarity in a set of similar motifs shared with my own experience and that of Abram/Abraham as described in the Bible.
Other threads weave into this but the most significant is, perhaps, my life long love of myth. Several years ago I read a literary analysts' translation of the "David story" and I realized what great art went into the crafting of the story. What seemed clumsy and "ancient" writing suddenly became subtle and profound and I realize a new inspiration to study the Bible.
Anyway thank you for asking and for allowing me the opportunity to put my money where my mouth is.
Back to the thread!
sealchan
Well-Known Member
To be honest, I don't see where this video even addresses it.
I'm a Christian, (to the best of my ability).
I am not free from moral errors nor do I judge people on their moral errors--even non-christians. If an action is wrong, I have no problem saying an action is wrong (when I need to do it). I don't go around pointing to everyone and saying "that action is wrong".
So, rather that pointing to all the "Christian organizations" and saying they are wrong, I would prefer asking questions..;
Do you have one?
The President of the United States is also to be a representative of the moral character of our nation. He has so profoundly failed in this that it is distressing the very soul of this nation IMO. Anyone who is in a position of moral example who fails to acknowledge this has so deeply tarnished their credibility that they may find it to hard to recover that credibility IMO.
I also think that it is very likely that for Trump he will suffer the fate described in Matthew 7:24-27.
Again, we all make mistakes and we all have our faults. But when you profess to be the voice of others and yet you do not show the most basic moral competencies in that regard, is it not justice when the rain should fall, the streams rise and the winds blow that the house come crashing down.