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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Final Straws - why do religious moderates keep the faith?
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Jason™
Host emeritus
# 9037
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Posted
People have compared Purgatory to a broken record. I think it's a lot like Saturday Night Live -- everybody remembers fondly the time when they first started watching it, and everything else after that is crap compared to "The Golden Days".
But apparently a lot of us feel somewhat similarly, at least enough to be asking the same questions. So let's skip those questions for a minute and get beyond them to a question that's been on my mind a lot over the past year or two.
Let's assume, for this discussion, that you or someone you know agrees with a majority of the following, even if they must be slightly edited:
- The Bible isn't necessarily infallible or inerrant. It may be divinely inspired, but it was still written and compiled by humans.
- PSA isn't the only way to understand Christianity, and it's probably not the best way either. In fact, it might do more damage than good.
- Other religions contain elements of truth
- Hell might not exist or it might end up being empty, but the idea that people will be cast into Hell for believing the wrong things about God is rather absurd
- Evolution is most likely true, and Creationism is an embarrassing byproduct of over-literal Christianity
- Issues like homosexuality, abortion, and other morality issues are a lot more complicated and nuanced than many more literal Christians try to make them sound
If this list (mostly) describes you, then I have a follow-up question. Why do you still stay a Christian at all? Why not say "God exists" and leave it at that? Or, perhaps even more importantly, why believe God exists at all?
If your reasons have anything to do with why you actually disagree with any of the above premises, I'm less interested in discussing that because it's more of the same. What other reasons are there for self-identifying as Christian, and for maintaining belief in God?
[ 15. June 2016, 18:46: Message edited by: Belisarius ]
Posts: 4123 | From: Land of Mary | Registered: Feb 2005
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A Feminine Force
Ship's Onager
# 7812
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Posted
Because life in the Living Christ is just The. Best. Life. Ever.
I should know, I've lived a few hundred (or thousands)of lives. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Love
LAFF
[ 17. June 2009, 04:52: Message edited by: A Feminine Force ]
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C2C - The Cure for What Ails Ya?
Posts: 2115 | From: Kingdom of Heaven | Registered: Jul 2004
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Kid Who Cracked
Shipmate
# 13963
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Posted
Excellent question Jason.
I've been wondering about this myself. What it comes down to:
1. I love Jesus
2. I believe a resurrection experience (in some way shape or form) happened.
3. I haven't mustered the courage to take the leap into agnosticism, probably because religion gives structure and meaning (at least somewhat) to life.
4. My mother and family would think I was going to hell. This would be very hard on them.
5. I have already applied to a large scholarship that assumes my being Protestant. I wouldn't feel right accepting it (if I got it) were I not a Protestant.
6. I'm afraid if I leave I'll never be able to come back. And in the small chance hell is real I'd be kind of screwed.
7. Since I go to school in Texas, I see a lot of Christianity. I feel like if I left there might be a sore spot there - like an ex-girlfriend that's always around (that's not meant to debase Christianity).
I still often wonder why I stay a Christian. I often consider becoming an agnostic. I feel completely uncomfortable at church. I don't sense God like I wish I did. But for now, I linger, and hope I turn out the better for keeping the faith.
[ 17. June 2009, 04:58: Message edited by: Kid Who Cracked ]
Posts: 532 | From: Texas | Registered: Jul 2008
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Duo Seraphim
Ubi caritas et amor
# 256
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Posted
That list does describe me as a liberal Catholic. But I'm not prepared to state my faith simply as "God exists".
Why? Well, for one thing the statement "God exists" is still an outrageous one in a secular world. For it means that there is Someone bigger than you, your family, your nation, your world, someone outside human life and outside the world as we know it. But given that we have to take "God exists" on trust, as something felt but not objectively provable then being able to say "God exists" is a matter of grace which is something God-given anyway. That grace is ineffable - I can't explain why I was able to believe after years of non-belief.
What then? To be meaningful the statement "God exists" must command a response - love,rejection,anger, hate or even indifference. Otherwise it is simply stating a neutral fact. That response is faith (which may indeed have those negative attributes mixed in) which is an ongoing living process of growing closer, sometimes farther but a "turning towards" God to walk his path.
Good. So faith is lived in this world and thus it has a public dimension, even for those known to be hermits.
In the end the faith I try to live involves loving God with all my heart, soul and mind and loving my neighbour as myself. That's quite hard enough to do without excluding those who don't share my ideals or my faith.
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Embrace the serious whack. It's the Catholic thing to do. IngoB
The Messiah, Peace be upon him, said to his Apostles: 'Verily, this world is merely a bridge, so cross over it, and do not make it your abode.' (Bihar al-anwar xiv, 319)
Posts: 7952 | From: Sydney Australia | Registered: Aug 2002
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Because the Word Incarnated to bridge the gap between people and the Godhead. I'm grateful for that. I don't have to tie myself into knots over a literal interpretation of scriptures or fear of hell in order to feel that way or to feel God's act of reconciliation is of supreme importance to us.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
I don't see any meaningful connection between the list of beliefs and the question. All those things describe my beliefs, approximately. So why wouldn't I be a Christian? All those things are absolutely consistent with Jesus' message as I hear it.
[I don't mean that I don't understand the premise of the question, only that I don't accept it.]
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Because it still seems that there's Something there.
Because I made a commitment.
Because I don't know it's not true.
Because of fear of hell.
Because, in my own way, I love God, whether or not She exists.
Because I've managed to carve out a middle ground that lets me search out Christianity and other faiths and anything else that speaks truth to me--and have some fun doing it.
Because there are pieces of Christianity that are deeply a part of me.
Because many of the things that bother me in Christianity are rampant in other faiths, so it wouldn't do me much good to walk out.
Because it would rip me apart if I did walk.
Because I don't fully want to walk out.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Squibs
Shipmate
# 14408
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Posted
Much Like Timothy, I don't see your bullet points as devaluing my Christian faith despite agreeing with most of them. To my mind there is no problem.
Posts: 1124 | From: Here, there and everywhere | Registered: Dec 2008
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
What does PSA stand for please?
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
Because I love and trust in God and Jesus and believe the work of the Holy Spirit continues through all time and in all places.
Because I believe that the inner light is in each one of us, and my experience suggests to me that this is the light of Christ.
Because I believe God is too big to be contained within the constructions Man hss built for Him.
[ 17. June 2009, 06:42: Message edited by: Qlib ]
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
If this list (mostly) describes you, then I have a follow-up question. Why do you still stay a Christian at all? Why not say "God exists" and leave it at that? Or, perhaps even more importantly, why believe God exists at all?
Um, I don't see a connection between the list and belief in God either.
Are you asking why believe in God if you're a liberal?
Answer, well, why not?
The flip would be why believe in God if your a conservative?
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
What does PSA stand for please?
Penal substitutionary atonement.
as in 'He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed.'
and
'Bearing shame and scoffing rude
In my place condemned he stood,
Sealed my pardon with his blood;
Hallelujah! What a Saviour!'
[ 17. June 2009, 06:54: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Because I see it all as an allegory or a parable - the details don't have to be believed in as complete and utter fact; the overall truths can and do matter.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I suspect Jason is getting at the fact that if you belive in the liberal mode, it looks very like the liberal mode of any of the major faiths and humanism - so why be Christian specifically ?
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
My guess is that that list describes the vast majority of Christians alive today. So why do we all stay? I haven't got time to describe the many reasons I have for my faith, but I would include a knowledge of the love of God (especially in Communion), and a conviction that Jesus' teachings are the best way to live (whether or not there is life after death - but I believe there is). Forgiveness, for example, although I find it hard increasingly seems like the way to live a happy life.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
What I think is unique about Christianity is its proclamation of grace and its even more daring proclamation that God is love. Which of course means that what is unique about Christianity is Jesus.
On the other hand, a belief simply that God exists is entirely consistent with a belief in karma. Some people of faith choose to believe in and live under karma. I don't know how they do that. It hasn't been my choice.
Individuals are free to integrate scripture, tradition, reason and experience in whatever way they find satisfactory. And on our own we find many different answers, and ask many different questions.
As a Christian I have lived for many years as part of a community and have discovered above all things the inestimable value of that journey within community. It's a learning, exploring community. It does not give itself airs, and does not think it has arrived. We're learners together. Together with them I've learned much and experienced much of what we call the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
I guess if you're outside the community you might describe those experiences as simply learning about kindness and it could all happen without the superstructure of ancient belief, whether reformed (in the wider sense) or not. I don't know about that. I know that belief and behaviour are much more intimately intertwined than that.
I've kept the faith because I have learned the abiding value of its best fruit, particularly when life's experiences have themselves been bitter. A very old hymn describes it as "a well spent journey, though seven deaths lay between". I agree with that.
[ 17. June 2009, 07:25: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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PhilA
shipocaster
# 8792
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
What does PSA stand for please?
Penal Substitutionary Atonement. Wiki has a short article that defines it better than I could.
Jason I. Am,
I would reverse the question. What is the point of believing something so demonstrably untrue as the YEC position or that Scripture is infallible? You have to jump through so many hoops and ignore so much evidence in order to do so that the image of God left is one of trickery and deceit.
To believe something that is informed by our senses, reason and experience (all God given I might add) seams far more sensible than to believe a literal interpretation of a translation of a translation of a collection of texts written over a thousand year period.
Lets look at the list:
* The Bible isn't necessarily infallible or inerrant. It may be divinely inspired, but it was still written and compiled by humans.
Well, unless you advocate that a great heavenly hand broke through the clouds, grabbed hold of the writers wrists and forced them to write those words and those words only, what is wrong with that statement? There are more differences in words throughout all the documents we have than there are words. For God to 'dictate' scripture and then allow so many changes to come in doesn't fit.
* PSA isn't the only way to understand Christianity, and it's probably not the best way either. In fact, it might do more damage than good.
Due to the fact that there are other ways to understand Christianity, this statement is self evident.
* Other religions contain elements of truth
Personally, I would go further than that and say that other religions contain as much truth as Christianity, but that is because I see nothing in Christianity that I would say is objectively 'better' than other religions.
* Hell might not exist or it might end up being empty, but the idea that people will be cast into Hell for believing the wrong things about God is rather absurd.
Absolutely. Saying that people have to intellectually sign up to a set of ideas is just not what Jesus taught. Jesus taught about repenting for your actions and doing the right thing and very little on believing the right thing.
* Evolution is most likely true, and Creationism is an embarrassing byproduct of over-literal Christianity
The evidence is overwhelming. Why would God trick people like that?
* Issues like homosexuality, abortion, and other morality issues are a lot more complicated and nuanced than many more literal Christians try to make them sound
This is also true. There are questions that need to be answered about all moral issues. As we learn more about the biology of humans, it makes sense to use that to inform our moral arguments based upon these discoveries. If, for example, homosexuality is 'hard wired' in to someone in the exact same way of a heterosexual person, then a homosexual having sex carries the same moral implications of a heterosexual person having sex.
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To err is human. To arr takes a pirate.
Posts: 3121 | From: Sofa | Registered: Nov 2004
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Yerevan
Shipmate
# 10383
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Posted
quote:
If this list (mostly) describes you, then I have a follow-up question. Why do you still stay a Christian at all? Why not say "God exists" and leave it at that? Or, perhaps even more importantly, why believe God exists at all?
Why not? This thread is confusing me a bit, as there seems to be an underlying assumption that Christianity = conservative evangelicalism. The OP could be paraphrased as "You're not a conservative evangelical, so why are you a Christian?"
Posts: 3758 | From: In the middle | Registered: Sep 2005
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dj_ordinaire
Host
# 4643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
quote:
If this list (mostly) describes you, then I have a follow-up question. Why do you still stay a Christian at all? Why not say "God exists" and leave it at that? Or, perhaps even more importantly, why believe God exists at all?
Why not? This thread is confusing me a bit, as there seems to be an underlying assumption that Christianity = conservative evangelicalism. The OP could be paraphrased as "You're not a conservative evangelical, so why are you a Christian?"
Yeah. I'm baffled. To me, the question makes about as much sense to me as 'You don't vote for the Conservative Party... So why do you bother to vote at all?'
I'm still a Christian because I happen to believe (in my better moments) that Christianity is true. The fact that *some* people think that Christianity necessarily includes Biblical innerancy, denial of evolution and a healthy dose of queer-bashing strikes me as neither here nor there. Either the Father created us, the Son redeemed us and the Spirit guides us, or not - what other people might believe the somewhat peculiar corollaries of these to be doesn't really concern me at all and I don't see why it should
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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Flinging wide the gates...
Posts: 10335 | From: Hanging in the balance of the reality of man | Registered: Jun 2003
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
OK so what about it do you find more convincing than liberal Islam ?
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
That Jesus lad. There's just something about him I can't shake.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
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Yerevan
Shipmate
# 10383
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Posted
Anyway to answer the question:
quote:
Why do you still stay a Christian at all?
I believe in it basically (incarnation, resurrection blah blah). Ideas like PSA, inerrancy and creationism aren't gold standards of orthodoxy by any means. Nor have they ever been. Christians have always had more than one way of understanding the atonement, salvation and the role of scripture. Most of the Christians alive now are either Catholic or Orthodox. Ditto most Christians who've ever lived. And they'd all probably find your list a bit odd. So I stay put because a) I'm actually a pretty bog standard orthodox creedal Christian b) it doesn't bother me that some people believe in inerrancy or whatever. I don't see the point in defining myself by what I don't believe (the number one problem with liberal Christianity IMO). Most people are Christian because they feel that they've met with the Christian God, not because they've weighed up the intellectual merits of rival atonement theories or whatever...
[ 17. June 2009, 08:06: Message edited by: Yerevan ]
Posts: 3758 | From: In the middle | Registered: Sep 2005
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Johnny S
Shipmate
# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
Let's assume, for this discussion, that you or someone you know agrees with a majority of the following, even if they must be slightly edited:
But why does anyone have to agree with the majority of that list at all? (even if slightly edited.)
Maybe I've missed something but it looks like you are drawing up your own list of 'anti-conservative' doctrines that you want people to sign up to?
My guess is that people will agree / disagree to all of those points to varying degrees ... are you trying to come up with some kind of consensus? If so, how is that any different from conservatives who try to 'sharpen' the boundaries between belief and unbelief?
Posts: 6834 | From: London | Registered: Apr 2007
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
I'm not going to answer point by point because doing so doesn't really describe where I'm at.
I detect - whether intentional or not - an underlying assumption that the most reasonable thing in the world would be to be an atheist and that there is no point in following a religion unless one chooses the most conservative form of it. Both are points that don't speak to me at all.
On 'the God thing'. I simply have a 101% (hyperbole) total inner conviction that God exists. I could no more believe that God does not exist than I could believe that the sky is purple or that grass is orange.
I have an inner attraction to liberal Judaism but I know in my heart of hearts that I could never not-believe in the divinity of Jesus.
I also have a strong inner conviction that moderation is almost always best in all things. Having grown up fundamentalist, I've seen the very destructive effects of the lives of people that the tenacious desire to control one's life, one's ideas and the minds of others has had. I believe this is a dis-ease of the mind and much hyper-conservative religion (of all faiths) seems to be more about this kind of illusion of human control than it is about anything spiritual. (We can know all the right ideas about God and so stave off chaos and save ourselves.)
I had a strong 'conversion experience' of God's love and I believe in it.
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
Posts: 4152 | From: Northeast Ohio | Registered: Dec 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
Why a liberal Christian, and not a liberal Muslim or a unitarian?
Firstly, I'd say that I see most of that list as being about peripherals to Christianity. The great achievements in theological philosophy of the Fathers and the Scholastics stand apart from that list.
Secondly, I'd say it's the incarnation and the doctrine of the Trinity.
The incarnation says of God that God emptied himself to enter creaturely existence and become a creature. That says something important about the relation between God and creation. For one thing, it suggests that God doesn't just wave an omnipotent hand and reorder creation how God wants. God has to get involved, which means that God respects creation as an other to God. That says something about how we should respect other people, and also suggests that the problem of evil isn't insuperable.
The Trinity also suggests that God's fundamental being is loving others as different. Arguably, the Western concept of a person as an irreducible source of autonomous value owes its existence to Trinitarian debates. And something apparently secular like Bakhtin's idea of language as dialogue in fact owes something to Trinitarian theology as well.
And of course, thirdly, Christianity is my own tradition: the tradition I've grown up in. The question as it presents itself to me practically is why leave?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Haydee
Shipmate
# 14734
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
Let's assume, for this discussion, that you or someone you know agrees with a majority of the following, even if they must be slightly edited:
- The Bible isn't necessarily infallible or inerrant. It may be divinely inspired, but it was still written and compiled by humans.
- PSA isn't the only way to understand Christianity, and it's probably not the best way either. In fact, it might do more damage than good.
- Other religions contain elements of truth
- Hell might not exist or it might end up being empty, but the idea that people will be cast into Hell for believing the wrong things about God is rather absurd
- Evolution is most likely true, and Creationism is an embarrassing byproduct of over-literal Christianity
- Issues like homosexuality, abortion, and other morality issues are a lot more complicated and nuanced than many more literal Christians try to make them sound
If this list (mostly) describes you, then I have a follow-up question. Why do you still stay a Christian at all? Why not say "God exists" and leave it at that? Or, perhaps even more importantly, why believe God exists at all?
So, to be a Real Christian you have to agree with inerrancy, PSA, etc etc? That's what this question implies.
Why can't you be a Christian and agree with this list? Isn't Christianity something to do with Jesus? And nothing he said is incompatible with the beliefs in this list...
Posts: 433 | Registered: Apr 2009
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opaWim
Shipmate
# 11137
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Posted
I consider it inherently impossible for creatures to completely comprehend their Creator.
People who have inerrant knowledge of all things God, and make that knowledge the yardstick of Christianness, must therefore be self-delusionary and/or liars.
The question should not be why people who subscribe to the beliefs in the OP would bother to call themselves Christians.
The real question is whether people who tie themselves into knots, after bending over backwards, to trick themselves into believing things their God-given intelligence warns them about as unlikely or even impossible,
are any use at all in determining what makes anybody a Christian.
Of course I subscribe to the list in the OP.
I am reasonably intelligent, reasonably honest, and reasonably compos mentis.
What other honest choice do I have?
Do I consider myself a Christian?
In the sense that I'm convinced that God loves each and everyone of us more than we can comprehend, that She/He demonstrates that love as unconditional in the Person of Jesus Christ, and that the Holy Spirit works in me to help me grow into how God dreamed me, I do.
[ 17. June 2009, 09:53: Message edited by: joris2 ]
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It's the Thirties all over again, possibly even worse.
Posts: 524 | From: The Marshes | Registered: Mar 2006
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Hel
Shipmate
# 5248
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Posted
Because if it all (i.e. Christianity) turns out to be nonsense, at least I've tried to live my life in a 'good' way. Whereas if I rejected it all and it turned out to be true, I'd have missed out on a lifetime of relationship with God. And who knows about the rest of time after that?
Posts: 667 | From: Manchester, England | Registered: Nov 2003
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RadicalWhig
Shipmate
# 13190
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Posted
This question - in almost identical terms - was put to me about three or four years ago by the person who led a home group / bible study I was attending. I'd been going along for several months, and never been shy about my theological liberalism. One day he confronted me (he's a conservative evangelical) with this very same ultimatum: reject this list of liberal beliefs (and others, like its ok to be gay), or stop "pretending" to be a Christian.
I give to JasonI.Am the same answer as I gave to this homegroup leader: "Who are you to insist that your narrow, unhistorical, 'biblicalist' view of Christianity is the only one? I sit on a three-legged stool of scripture (as myth and allegory), reason (in large doses) and tradition (in smaller doses); you sit on a spike."
Christianity is so much bigger, broaders, and more complex, than these brittle conservative evangelicals imagine.
That said, if the conservative evangelicals want to appropriate the term "Christian" for themselves, they are welcome to it. I'd sooner be associated, in a two-way fight, with Richard Dawkins than Ted Haggard, although I believe that both are inflexible and unsubtle in their thinking.
So I'll quite happily redefine myself as "an agnostic pantheist who is deeply inspired by Christian mythology and imagery as a way of giving poetic meaning to an essentially rationalistic understanding of the universe and a civic-humanist view of ethics", if that helps. "A rose by any other name", and all that.
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Radical Whiggery for Beginners: "Trampling on the Common Prayer Book, talking against the Scriptures, commending Commonwealths, justifying the murder of King Charles I, railing against priests in general." (Sir Arthur Charlett on John Toland, 1695)
Posts: 3193 | From: Scotland | Registered: Nov 2007
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opaWim
Shipmate
# 11137
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Posted
- Cont.
Most of the deciding arguments for the convictions mentioned in my last post are rooted in experiences that are -of course- not convincing to anybody but myself, because they were meant for me as an unique individual.
And there are also quite a lot of arbitrary decisions I made. The main one articulated in the post by Hel.
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It's the Thirties all over again, possibly even worse.
Posts: 524 | From: The Marshes | Registered: Mar 2006
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Bob Two-Owls
Shipmate
# 9680
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Posted
I came to Christianity through an Alpha course (dragged along by the OH) so while I was working through whether I wanted to be part of this all the above points were up for discussion. All was fine and dandy, I got confirmed and thought that it would be OK for me to believe the Bible is made up by people who wanted to express some kind of truth through nice stories. I completely rejected the OT as a nasty piece of work by people who just wanted a divine excuse for killing and general beastliness but I found a lot of inspiration and comfort in the NT as an allegorical tale. I decided to learn a little more so I enrolled on a theology course where I found to my amazement that a lot of my tutors and fellow students were staunch evangelicals, YECs and worse (shudder!). Within six months I had gone from being a liberal Christian to being essentially an atheist with favourable views on some of the teachings of Christ. I don't think there is a place in the church for me and I don't really think there ever was, just the assumption that my liberal tendencies could be argued out of me, my views were only tolerated with the proviso that I was on the way to changing them.
While I think that liberal Christianity has many admirable qualities I just can't see it surviving in the face of overwhelming influx of conservative pressure. This is what I see locally, I really hope it isn't more than a local phenomena but from here and other Christian sites it looks like my fears are probably confirmed.
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Dave Marshall
Shipmate
# 7533
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Posted
I don't usually self-identify as Christian, although I suspect there are situations where I might. I'm Church of England. My commitment, such as it is, is to that institution and to those who see it as a framework for working out in spirit and in truth what God is like.
The traditions, the Jesus story, what people happen to believe at any particular time in history, are just part of the fabric of the institution. They're there if needed, but they're not the essence of anything for me personally.
That's more the making reliable sense of reality as we experience it, which seems entirely consistent with what Jesus was about. So while I mostly see little value in saying I'm a Christian because it is such a broad label, neither in general terms does it seem correct to say I'm not.
Posts: 4763 | From: Derbyshire Dales | Registered: Jun 2004
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sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
If this list (mostly) describes you, then I have a follow-up question. Why do you still stay a Christian at all? Why not say "God exists" and leave it at that?
Jason I. Am, good post. I would say that your list leaves out one important criterion which could swing the balance on that question: "I believe that God has intervened/intervenes in human history"
If you don't believe that, I'm not sure that I recognise Christianity from Christian-inspired humanism/deism. If, OTOH, one believes in the incarnation (however expressed), then one believes in a God that actually gets involved. Without interventionism (revelation counts, btw), all you're left in is some sort of deistic God which has about as much relevance to human life as Russell's teapot.
I do note that the majority of answers so far have been couched in terms of experience, community and the like. Does that mean the ideas themselves are some sort of spiritual placebo?
- Chris.
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Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
I'm not entirely on all fours with the OP's list, but I would answer the question with one word: Jesus.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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opaWim
Shipmate
# 11137
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Posted
quote:
I do note that the majority of answers so far have been couched in terms of experience, community and the like. Does that mean the ideas themselves are some sort of spiritual placebo?
No.
But there no conceivable way to prove that ![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
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It's the Thirties all over again, possibly even worse.
Posts: 524 | From: The Marshes | Registered: Mar 2006
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
Jason I. Am, good post. I would say that your list leaves out one important criterion which could swing the balance on that question: "I believe that God has intervened/intervenes in human history"
If you don't believe that, I'm not sure that I recognise Christianity from Christian-inspired humanism/deism. If, OTOH, one believes in the incarnation (however expressed), then one believes in a God that actually gets involved. Without interventionism (revelation counts, btw), all you're left in is some sort of deistic God which has about as much relevance to human life as Russell's teapot.
I do note that the majority of answers so far have been couched in terms of experience, community and the like. Does that mean the ideas themselves are some sort of spiritual placebo?
- Chris.
I, too, observe, that the majority of the replies do not require Christianity in the traditional sense to be true. Not the meaning traditional Christianity gave to the phrase "Christ is God" anyway.
We are left with too vague and general statements / feelings that could well be valid even if Christ wasn't God in the traditional sense.
I will disagree though with your opinion that it boils down to whether God intervenes or not. All traditional monotheistic religions believe that God intervenes. All traditional monotheistic religions are grounded in revelation, in intervention, in God's actions in human history.
It's not just Christianity that speaks in those terms.
So, that can't be an answer to the question "why Christianity in particular?"
The only satisfactory answer to that question, in my view, would be "because this specific story about God is correct". Which, however, few are willing to accept, diluting the story with lots of niceness of their own making, to sweeten the pill and make it easier to swallow. Which is just arbitrary. And gives no answer. And leads us back to where we started.
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opaWim
Shipmate
# 11137
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Posted
quote:
I don't think there is a place in the church for me and I don't really think there ever was, just the assumption that my liberal tendencies could be argued out of me, my views were only tolerated with the proviso that I was on the way to changing them.
You might be yielding there to a class of religious people similar to the ones that had Jesus Christ crucified in the first place, and wouldn't know how to act differently would the opportunity present itself again.
[ 17. June 2009, 10:57: Message edited by: joris2 ]
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It's the Thirties all over again, possibly even worse.
Posts: 524 | From: The Marshes | Registered: Mar 2006
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bob Two-Owls:
While I think that liberal Christianity has many admirable qualities I just can't see it surviving in the face of overwhelming influx of conservative pressure. This is what I see locally, I really hope it isn't more than a local phenomena but from here and other Christian sites it looks like my fears are probably confirmed.
Actually, I think we will survive. But survival is not the same as being big and loud and successful and having a lot of money and believing the myth that 'I have the right answers about everything'.
Our culture is about being 'successful' - in terms of having a successful marketing methodology, and seeing growth in numbers and money as success. The conservative evangelicals have this in spades.
Speaking very personally - because I can't generalize either about non-conservatives or non-liberals - I have the unshakable faith that God loves humanity; this is my passion. That kind of passion will never be extinguished and no money or 'success' will put out the flame of God's love.
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
Posts: 4152 | From: Northeast Ohio | Registered: Dec 2001
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RadicalWhig
Shipmate
# 13190
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bob Two-Owls:
I don't think there is a place in the church for me and I don't really think there ever was, just the assumption that my liberal tendencies could be argued out of me, my views were only tolerated with the proviso that I was on the way to changing them.
While I think that liberal Christianity has many admirable qualities I just can't see it surviving in the face of overwhelming influx of conservative pressure.
This is a pity, but probably true. The world around us becomes increasingly polarised between two opposing camps: a sterile consumerist materialism on one hand, and a reactionary facile religion on the other. Where is the place for doubting heretics who care about the improvement of the human condition, care about beauty, truth, and love, but cannot buy into any religious system? A dwindling congregation of octogenarian Unitarians?
I'm reading Andre Comte-Sponville's "The Book of Atheist Spirituality" at the moment. He argues (I think quite convincingly) that we, as a society of human beings, can do without religious belief, but not without "communion" - some sort of shared mythology and ritual which binds us together. As a liberal I am worried, in part, by the totalitarian potentiality of that idea, if taken too far; but as a civic-republican I am convinced that it is the only way to recover the values of civic-virtue, holistic personhood, and community spirit in the face of dehumanising global capitalism and austere materialism. We need a new religion; but in the absence thereof, we must re-hash the old and put it to new uses. "New wine in old bottles"*.
* An example of how post-Christians can still use Christian imagery to enrich their civilisation.
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Radical Whiggery for Beginners: "Trampling on the Common Prayer Book, talking against the Scriptures, commending Commonwealths, justifying the murder of King Charles I, railing against priests in general." (Sir Arthur Charlett on John Toland, 1695)
Posts: 3193 | From: Scotland | Registered: Nov 2007
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
In reply to the OP:
(i) The Incarnation. That is an entirely sufficient ground.
(ii) Because I don't agree that the positions outlined in the OP are inconsistent with being a Christian, and because I believe that Christianity matters too much for it to be left to the kind of people claim that they are.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
I guess, for me, as for others here, it's the person of Jesus. Even if only a fifth of what's recorded about him in the Gospels were true he would still be the most challenging human being to have lived; and his challenges would still require a response of some sort.
At the moment the only response I can, in all honesty, come up with is that he was right; that he is the way to the best relationship with God the Father and Creator, which is not to say that there aren't other ways of relating to God.
For me to drop the faith, I would have to reject the whole Christ/Incarnation event and come to the conclusion that he was a deluded fool. In which case, I would feel my only other option would be atheism.
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Desert Daughter
Shipmate
# 13635
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Posted
Jason, I personally say "yes" to all of your bullet points, and I do indeed consider myself Christian. To me, Christianity is a way , in other words, a process. The issue of incarnation, well taken up by previous posters, leads to another, equally important one: co-creation. Man creates with and through God. That is what is meant when it says that God creaed man in His image.
If we have co-creation, then this must be a process, in other words, it cannot be one stagnant eternal truth that was written up once and for all.
To be fully human and free as God meant us to be means to continue asking and searching. It requires us to be critical and inquisitive. Faith is a dialogue with God (cf St Ignatius, St Theresa of Avila, to name but two).
So yes, a Christian must be very, very open minded. As the prologue of the rule of St Benedict says: AUSCULTA (listen).
God wants grown up men and women who think for themselves, talk to him as friends and look for Him everywhere -and that most certainly includes other faiths.
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"Prayer is the rejection of concepts." (Evagrius Ponticus)
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Blue Scarf Menace
Apprentice
# 13051
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
Why do you still stay a Christian at all?
I believe, and self-identify, as a Christian because I believe the Christian story ( as in creation/fall/redemption kind of thing) to be true. Perhaps this gives rise to the next question of what do does "being true" actually mean.
I struggle to see how any of the points in the OP list can be used as some kind of bench mark to work out what makes a "proper" Christian. While not wishing to dismiss them too flippantly, they do to me appear to be just "details".
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Boomshanka
Posts: 18 | From: Sherwood Forest | Registered: Oct 2007
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sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
I, too, observe, that the majority of the replies do not require Christianity in the traditional sense to be true. Not the meaning traditional Christianity gave to the phrase "Christ is God" anyway.
We are left with too vague and general statements / feelings that could well be valid even if Christ wasn't God in the traditional sense.
I will disagree though with your opinion that it boils down to whether God intervenes or not. All traditional monotheistic religions believe that God intervenes. All traditional monotheistic religions are grounded in revelation, in intervention, in God's actions in human history.
It's not just Christianity that speaks in those terms.
So, that can't be an answer to the question "why Christianity in particular?"
The only satisfactory answer to that question, in my view, would be "because this specific story about God is correct". Which, however, few are willing to accept, diluting the story with lots of niceness of their own making, to sweeten the pill and make it easier to swallow. Which is just arbitrary. And gives no answer. And leads us back to where we started.
§Andrew, you're right, of course: most monotheistic religions I can think of require an interventionist God. Not surprising really, as Deism is perfectly good as a belief, but not as a religion ![[Smile]](smile.gif) .
I suppose what I was trying to say was: if you do believe in an interventionist God, being an agnostic/humanist is no longer an option. To call yourself a Christian, you must also believed that Jesus was a "special case" of divine intervention.
If I may be a little personal, your comments about "this specific story" do remind me a little of my own "inner fundamentalist." Having associated with a particular sort of Christianity in my youth, the constant temptation is to react against it (it really used to make me angry, and still can), but also to secretly believe that that caricature of belief is "what Christianity is" - anyone who doesn't believe in what you reacted against can't be a proper Christian.
You don't own the word "Christian." Neither do I. My inner fundamentalist insists that he does, but he's wrong. We don't get to decide what the word means. Defining the only "valid" Christianity as a hardline position you can't accept in order to draw a line and put yourself on the other side of it seems unhelpful to me. It reminds me of Richard Dawkins' religion strawman, I'm sorry to say.
If (or iff) one believes that Jesus represents a unique instance of Divine intervention, then I think the label Christian is appropriate. Finding a church is a different problem!
- Chris.
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Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sanityman:
We don't get to decide what the word means.
[snip]
If (or iff) one believes that Jesus represents a unique instance of Divine intervention, then I think the label Christian is appropriate.
This is contradictory. First you say we don't get to decide what the word means, and then you go on and give your own definition of who is a Christian and who isn't.
You are right though. Christianity is not a blank check we can fill any way we wish. It does have specific content, exactly because it didn't come to exist yesterday, but it's already in use for two millennia.
And there have been and there are many kinds of Christianity. From the various groups of the early Church, which had their own gospels, and fought with each other, one of which was the proto-orthodox group whose gospels made it to the canon we know today, to the various groups of today's Church, from people like the Mormons and the Pentecostals, to Billy Graham and the Pope of Rome...
Sure, if one feels free to define Christianity the way they want, then being a Christian is essentially deprived of any specific meaning and content. It's all about what the individual or the group wants it to be.
In my thought though, when I speak of traditional Christianity I mean the very specific group of people that emerged through those ancient battles and is the group that got to define things its way through the ecumenical councils we can read about in a history book.
Sure, the label of Christian can have any meaning one wants, but the content of the ecumenical councils, the groups those councils represented and their theology are very specific and not open to the individual's tastes or opinions.
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Seeker963:
quote:
Originally posted by Bob Two-Owls:
While I think that liberal Christianity has many admirable qualities I just can't see it surviving in the face of overwhelming influx of conservative pressure. This is what I see locally, I really hope it isn't more than a local phenomena but from here and other Christian sites it looks like my fears are probably confirmed.
Actually, I think we will survive. But survival is not the same as being big and loud and successful and having a lot of money and believing the myth that 'I have the right answers about everything'.
My brand of Christianity finds the obsession with survival truly foreign. My savior chose to die for me, and admonished His followers to not seek their lives lest they lose them. Nonetheless, the Church has managed to fixate on "growth."
When I look at the flavor of Christianity that insists like David on taking census, I see a faith that has already perished. But maybe that's just me.
--Tom Clune
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This space left blank intentionally.
Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
If this list (mostly) describes you
It does.
quote:
Why do you still stay a Christian at all?
Because I believe that Jesus was - and is - the Son of God.
quote:
Or, perhaps even more importantly, why believe God exists at all?
.
What other reasons are there [than the list] for self-identifying as Christian, and for maintaining belief in God?
I'm trying to decide whether you're genuinely asking why anyone should bother to believe in God at all if they subscribe to your list, as if that list is some kind of anti-creed, or if you're taking a subtle swipe at those fundamentalists who by their posts here make it look as if without their certainty about those issues there would be no religion for them to follow.
I'm kind of hoping it's the second, because otherwise you're saying that without biblical inerrancy, PSA, exclusive ownership of Truth, eternal torture for unbelievers, creationism and hatred for the homos and abortionists there's no reason at all to believe in God, never mind Christianity. Which is just hideous...
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Scarlet
Mellon Collie
# 1738
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jason I. Am:
If this list (mostly) describes you, then I have a follow-up question. Why do you still stay a Christian at all? Why not say "God exists" and leave it at that? Or, perhaps even more importantly, why believe God exists at all?
This list does pretty much describe me.
I've recently answered why I stay in the faith on the I've Tried thread. As I said there, the only thing I can hang my faith on is that Some One is hearing and responding to my prayers and guiding my life. I have subjective evidence of that.
In addition to that, I'd rather be safe than sorry. I'm not talking about the so-called "fire insurance" since I don't believe in a fiery Hell; rather what if I'm wrong. What if my rational intellectional reasoning is incorrect and I should have walked by faith and not by sight? Then I'll spend eternity apart from God.
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They took from their surroundings what was needed... and made of it something more.
—dialogue from Primer
Posts: 4769 | Registered: Nov 2001
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
quote:
If this list (mostly) describes you, then I have a follow-up question. Why do you still stay a Christian at all?
Because your list doesn't represent the working definition of a Christian.
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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Yerevan
Shipmate
# 10383
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Posted
quote:
Actually, I think we will survive. But survival is not the same as being big and loud and successful and having a lot of money and believing the myth that 'I have the right answers about everything'. Our culture is about being 'successful' - in terms of having a successful marketing methodology, and seeing growth in numbers and money as success. The conservative evangelicals have this in spades.
quote:
Nonetheless, the Church has managed to fixate on "growth."
Evangelicals are "fixated on growth" because they genuinely believe that all Christians are called to try and bring others to faith in Christ. I don't understand how thats 'worldly', as Seeker seems to imply. Its been a pretty mainstream Christian idea since forever. At the risk of offending half the Ship, some the "growth isn't everything you know" stuff sounds suspiciously like special pleading.
Posts: 3758 | From: In the middle | Registered: Sep 2005
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