Obama isn’t Christian enough for some people, it seems.
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Obama isn’t Christian enough for some people, it seems.
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Christians who insist that everybody who doesn’t believe exactly what they believe is going to burn in Hell for eternity have a bit of a rough time of it. I feel a little sorry for them, because they’ve bought into a highly questionable interpretation of the scriptures, mostly out of a deep-seated fear. They believe because they’re afraid to not believe, having taken certain things Jesus said way way WAAAY too literally (and in ways that don’t really make sense).
There is a generalized Christian belief that after death we face judgment and that some will face an eternity suffering for their sins in the form of fire (literal or symbolic being unclear). The Catholic Church teaches that only those who voluntarily separate themselves from God through full knowledge and will will go there, and also teaches that while the surest way of receiving God’s grace is through their doors, they conceded (reluctantly) some time ago that God’s grace might be available to others outside of the Church, but in what ways they cannot say. Orthodox Christians have a very similar mentality. Protestants are all over the map on it, from the very hard-line "believe this or burn in Hell forever" people to more moderate positions like those of the Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, and so on.
Fundamentalists declaring Obama not truly a Christian because he doesn’t believe exactly what they believe is not a surprise. Some would do the same even if Bush said the same thing–and it would not surprise me at all if Bush were to say the same thing as Obama, as that view is NOT foreign to most Christian thinking and Bush is a very moderate man on faith issues.
I wouldn’t worship a God that was going to torture the vast majority of all humanity forever just for the crime of not believing something. Such a God would be inherently unworthy of worship for any reason other than fear and terror. No, thank you.
Oh, by the way, you got excommunication a little wrong. In Catholic, Orthodox, and the few Protestant churches who still have the concept (I’m not sure how many do), it’s not self-appointed authorities who do the excommunicating, it’s very clearly appointed authorities. And usually, they want the excommunicated person to come back into the fold and will work with him if he wants to.
It has been used as a political weapon in the past, but today very rarely is. Just FYI.
For the record, W. wasn’t Christian enough for some people, too.
Oh, Obama’s Christian enough. But what I find interesting is this from the 2004 interview:
FALSANI
Do you still attend Trinity?
OBAMA:
Yep. Every week. 11 oclock service. Ever been there? Good service.
Every week, and he couldn’t remember Wright going on one of his racist, anti-semitic rants. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:To believe Obama you have to accept that he is either too racist (agrees with Wright), too dense (didn’t put it together) or too dishonest (he’s just outright lying) to be President.
Yep: There’s long been a group of ultra hard core Fundamentalist Christians who turn their backs completely on this country, who basically see the whole nation as evil and corrupt. They often live in little enclaves and they rarely come out to do things like vote. Some of them will pray for whoever’s President on general principles, while others go out of their way to avoid politics in any way.
Neither Bush nor Obama nor any of our past Presidents would be a "Christian enough" for those guys.
Once you’ve got ultimate truth and authority in something that fits in your back pocket, it’s hard to fit that box around too many people….
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Toon of the Day?
I, for one, don’t carry ultimate truth and authority in my back pocket. I carry multiple digital translations of it in my shirt pocket. (It’s on my PDA.) It tells me things… evil things…
One problem with ultimate truth, though, is that it’s long. I mean, 66 books provide a lot of opportunities for "selective scripturization." There are, in my experience, just as many people who misquote Ephesians 5 to prove Christians are misogynists as there are Christians who use it to prove that goodly Christian women can’t do stuff.
Then again, I was once told I was the "token liberal" of my church’s young adults group. So what do I know?
Maybe I missed something during my 12 years at Catholic school, but this does not hold within the Catholic faith. The only Christians I know that believe this are called fundamentalists.
I don’t really have a horse in this race but I do have a question:
If the idea of eternal punishment for unbelief is unpalatable, why is eternal reward for belief acceptable?
It seems to me they’re two side of the same coin and if you reject one side you must be logically consistent and reject the other. If one should be forgiven for choosing unbelief, and thusly escape consequence, then shouldn’t the believers be freed from the consequences of their choice as well?
And if you say no, that believers needn’t be relieved of their reward, of what value is the reward if, eventually, everyone’s going to get it anyway? How is the suffering of the righteous rewarded if the ones that are the cause of that suffering given the same reward after death?
What then, if not eternal damnation, is the consequence of unbelief and a life of sin? Eternal reward but temporary punishment? That doesn’t seem logically consistent.
We speak of the mercy of God but God’s mercy is for this side of existence. He extends His mercy here because it is here that we need it. And if we reject His mercies here, how is it really a freewill choice to side with Him when being subjected to punishment? Does not that punishment remove the possibility of a freewill choice?
These arguments against eternal punishment, in my mind, have the effect of negating any real value to the choices we make while we’re alive. In the name of humanistic survival in the hereafter they devalue what we do today to our fellow man.
I cannot see how a merciful and, most importantly, just God cannot have some kind of eternal punishment to counterbalance eternal reward.
Keep in mind, never once have I said "hellfire" or "torment."Â I’m not talking about the specifics of the punishment, just the existence of a punishment at all.
Kevin: Those are very smart questions. The answer to them lies in this, to my mind–you have bought into doctrines read into scripture that aren’t there actually. For all that you fulminate that others do this, you do this constantly. You read doctrine into scripture like you eat and breathe. Doctrines that aren’t actually there, but that you assume are there because you’ve been told they’re there (by men) all your life.
"Doctrine" just means "teaching" after all. Don’t kid yourself that you ever approach scripture without doctrines, because you do. It’s just a matter of WHOSE doctrines you approach it with. Because doctrines you have, and don’t ever be arrogant enough to think differently.
It seems to me you have a very binary on/off worldview. You’ve bought into certain doctrines which said that when Christ said the only way to Heaven was to believe in him, and therefore, you believe that BELIEF BELIEF BELIEF is what gets you into Heaven or not. Nonsense. That’s not what he said. That’s just a doctrine you yourself read into scripture that isn’t there.
This is Lutheranism and Calvinism writ large: BELIEVE OR PERISH. BELIEVE WHAT WE SAY OR DIE. That is the ultimate result of these doctrines–these teachings.
So if you don’t believe, you will be tortured forever. If you do believe, you will be rewarded.
Is that really a just God you believe in? Or do you only believe it because (A) you’re afraid to NOT believe it, or (B) you think God can never be questioned?
You are a part of a minority sect within Protestantism that says salvation only comes if you fiercely and unquestioningly BELIEVE. The Bible itself says that is false. But you’ve bought into this doctrine anyway: believe and you are saved, don’t believe and you are not. Haven’t you ever wondered at the justice of a God who chooses something so capricious? "Buy into this, or burn you despicable fuckers" is all your faith really boils down to if you buy into that. But that’s not really what Christ said–and I’ve read the same Bible you have, many times, so you might consider that I’ve got a different take on it and actually ASK ABOUT IT before you draw a judgment.
Obama made a point–a very good one–that it’s just not a part of his worldview that a little Hindu kid who’s never heard about the Bible is going to be tortured forever if he doesn’t "accept Jesus." Here’s a news flash for you: there are billions who haven’t. Do they just DESERVE such punishment?
The actual Church that Christ established has been wrestling with this question for 2,000 years, and they have some anwers. I’d love to tell you about them, if you’ll listen. I suspect you will not, but I can only offer. In any case, here is the basic answer:
NO, it is not acceptable to suggest that someone who just never heard the word will be tortured forever because they didn’t hear it or they didn’t buy it when they did hear it.
NO, it is not acceptable that just "believing" gives you an automatic ticket into Heaven just because you were smart enough to believe.
BOTH are bad answers, and BOTH are not really scriptural, although if you torture the scriptures long enough they’ll say whatever you want. Including both stupid answers.
There are real, live answers to your questions. Do you want them? Or do you want to keep pretending you can just be an infallible interpreter of the scriptures on your own, so you "know the answer" because you’re so fucking smart?
Let me know. I’ve got boatloads to share with you. Answers which start with the scriptures, but do not end with them because the scriptures all by themselves just cannot stand alone. They were never meant to, and Jesus never said they would.
I mean, really though Kevin: your idea of ultimate justice is "believe this, and you’re saved?" No matter what the fuck you do in this life, you’re saved if you believe and damned if you don’t? I can murder a million people, but it’s OK so long as I believe in Jesus? I can save a million lives, but I’m damned if I didn’t believe it all quite right?
The Mormon goes to Hell no matter how much good he did, but Hitler is rewarded if he just says "I love Jesus my personal savior?"
The contradictions in your own worldview are every bit as profound as those you claim are unbelievers. I think the answers are in the scriptures, but you have to know them right–you have to know the RIGHT TEACHINGS–before you can see them.
A song just for Kevin.
And this is where I stopped reading…
I asked questions based upon logical assumptions stemming from the existence of an eternal reward. Never once did I say anyone was wrong for questioning hell, or say they’ve misinterpreted Scripture. I simply held that I feel it’s illogical to believe in eternal reward for belief but not eternal punishment for unbelief and I asked for clarification.
Please, Dean, do not respond to me on this matter. When the issue of hell (or anything like it) comes up you are always on attack and raw emotion. My proof?
You couldn’t go two sentences without saying I’m reading Scripture wrong when my reading of Scripture has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Sentence three you lump me in with some group that is irrelevant to the discussion, sentence four you say I read my beliefs into Scripture rather than the other way around, but then in sentence five you kindly imply that it’s not my fault – I’ve been lied to all my life.
Again, please, do not respond to me on this matter because I will not read you. Not because I don’t want to hear what you have to say, but because you have to preface your answer with, "Everything you believe is wrong and everyone you’ve learned from has lied to you."
Thank you but kiss my ass.
Kevin,
I guess the answer to your question depends on how you interpret the unknowable will of god. You’re presenting it as believers = reward, unbelievers = punishment. but it could also be believers = reward, unbelievers = nothing (i.e.: neither heaven nor hell). Or it could be that belief is just one chit you get to count against your sins, but that it in itself is neither necessary nor sufficient for entry into heaven. This last bit seems to be Dean’s take. It really gets to the heart of the faith or works debate.
Yeah I’m not at all surprised that you stopped reading there, Kevin. After all, you spend your entire time theologically it seems accusing others of reading doctrines into scripture, so it must really offend you when others point out that this is all you ever do. And that all you ever do is follow the words and wisdom of whatever preachers and writers you personally find most convincing, while telling yourself that you’re just following Jesus when you follow these men.
I can’t talk to you about theological issues because you just can’t see the logical traps you’ve encaged yourself in.
I answered your question forthrightly: the Church that Jesus established has been wrestling with this question for 2,000 years, but you are uncurious about its answers. That’s pretty much what I expected your answer to be. So you will continue to vainly seek permanent answers from the scriptures when the scriptures were never designed to answer that for you if you didn’t have God’s teachings in mind when you read them. So it goes.
It’s not a matter of lack of respect for you my friend. It’s just out of frustration that you apparently cannot escape from the doctrinal boxes you’ve been raised with. Understand that most Christians don’t see it your way, or don’t. Ultimately I can’t help you if you don’t want to be helped.
But your binary worldview doesn’t work for most of us who’ve read the Bible for ourselves. You’ll just have to live with it until you learn that "sola fide" isn’t even scriptural let alone infallible.
Zach, just FYI in case you’re still reading: "sola fide," which is the 15th Century Protestant doctrine that salvation comes from belief alone, has been taken to ultimate extremes by Fundamentalists. I think the doctrine (i.e. teaching) is wrong all of its own, but the fundamentalist worldview just takes this doctrine to extremes that most Christians reject: believe, believe, you MUST believe, if you don’t BELIEVE you’re damned forever.
That’s not what the Bible says. Or so most Christians believe. It’s a logical trap that the fundamentalists cannot (it seems) escape, but it’s not what the Bible actually says or what most Christians actually believe.
It really is, in my view, almost psychotic: "you have to think what we think or you’ll be punished horribly you fucker." I honestly don’t quite get it that some people think that’s a picture of a just and merciful God, and I honestly don’t think the Bible really says that. But hey, what do I know? Maybe the Cosmic Torture Artist is really just waiting there in the wings for all of you who don’t think and believe exactly the right things. Me? I think it was the Reformationists’ biggest mistake, even though they had some good objections otherwise to certain bad things going on in the Church (and the Bible pretty clearly says that the people who run the Church are gonna fuck it up now and then, by the way).
God loves us and wants us to be with Him, and He gave us a capacity for reason–reason itself being one of His gifts to us, along with curiosity and wonderment. That capacity is limited because all human faculties are limited, but He didn’t really mean to say we should eject reason and just blindly follow. I truly believe that.
What most Christians actually believe is that we are all flawed and we all fuck up, but God wants to work with us on fixing that stuff and Jesus gave us some answers to help us on that path. Believe it or don’t; I don’t think God will punish you just for doubting. I mean, if nothing else that would just be a horrible waste of energy, y’know?
The truth is that "believe this or be tortured" is NOT mainstream Christian thinking, although some so-called "fundamentalists" insist that it is so. I’m not just speaking as a Catholic; Orthodox and many mainline Protestants will say the same.
Dean,Not trying to insert myself into a debate that has really nothing to do with me, but while you accuse Kevin of simply listening to those preachers/teachings he finds most convincing, isn’t that what EVERYONE ultimately does as they navigate their own spiritual paths? Â Or was that your point to begin with?
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