Not a true Christian: Debate Christianity and Religion's role in Politics

Dave, that's just weird.

It's not at all hard to think oneself a Christian without seeing any need to unscrew the inscrutable. I imagine there are as many self-perceived Christians out there who never think once about that alleged mystery as there are who do.

 

Well, the official name of their religion is the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints, which kinda gives it away.

 

Mormons believe God has a wife. The most unsophisticated “I attend because my family have attended church forever, and everyone in this town attends church, and that’s as deep as I go” Christian could tell you whether or not they believe God has a wife.

 

I guess Nazis were socialists then?

 

I view them as a cultic version of Christianity.

 

We should get some orthodox to fight some papists over the filioque clause.

 

I don't see as God's sex life has anything to do with whether one tries to follow Christ or not. Its none of my business, unless you wanna tell me that thunder is the sound of domestic abuse or something?

 

Oh man I wanna party with you!

 

Dave, years ago I asked you to define "Christian" and you wouldn't do it. You know damn well that there is no accepted definition because different denominations have different defining criteria. You, of course, assume your criteria are the definitive criteria, but they aren't. I will also add that over the years you have expressed quite heretical beliefs yourself.

Val, when I was an evangelical Christian I would have said the same thing. But then I realized that evangelical Christianity is not a traditional form of Christianity either and that there is no established agreement as to what defines "Christian". Quite frankly, if you compared Christian denominations today to the Christianity of Peter and Paul's time, I would suggest that there may be no Christians alive today at all because I don't see anyone who actually follows the teachings of Jesus, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the truest Christians may actually be found among the most devoted adherents of Buddhism.

I challenge anyone and everyone who claims that others are not "True Christians" (TM) by going through the "red letters" in the Gospels with two sheets of paper labelled "specific things Jesus said to do" and "specific things Jesus said not to do" and then fill those sheets out. When I did that I learned that Christianity (as in following what Jesus taught) is less about what you believe and more about what you do.

 

Not to mention that the Hebrews also believed God had a wife.

 

Christianity is more than the teachings of Christ. If it was just that, that would mean Jesus was a philosopher, not one part of the Trinity.

 

The focus on the inclusivity of the Nicene Creed reflects the teaching of the Lutheranism of my youth. But, for those existentialist Lutherans who followed the Rudolf Bultmann demythologized/kerygmatic approach, I’m not sure it works.

 

I'll bite. Were Branch Davidians Christian?

 

Only the post-1900 non-unified Free Church of Scotland represents Christianity. No other church has either genuine Christians or Scotsmen.

 

Ah yes, I remember Jesus saying "Anyone who practices and teaches what I command will go to Hell because they believed the wrong things about me".

And what about that time he said: "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the ones who believe the right things about me".

What's that? I misquoted those? You mean the last one actually is: "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." But then, what does Jesus know about true Christianity anyway?

 

God was a lesbian?

 

Pansexual?

But then, wouldn't Pansexual be someone sexually attracted to the Greek god?

 

Where do you think the phrase "Oh God" came from?

 

Chapter and verse?

Why don’t I “debate” you on Christianity? Because you’re the kind of person who would take a statement that Christianity is more than Jesus’ sayings and turn it into whatever this was.

 

Or cookware.

 

God has no gender and therefore cannot be lesbian or gay or any of those human categories. How could God have gender? Does “He” have testicles? More body hair than female Gods? Differently shaped hips?

 

Christians were a cult at first.

 

Genesis 18 very clearly identifies God as a man. Three men meet Abraham by the oak tree. Two men go on to Sodom while one stays behind. The man who stayed behind was God.