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GrumpyCoder · 07-10-2003, 01:02 PM

As a Christian, I believe Christ is returning.

But, I just read this thread and was frustrated by what it revealed. One of the posts refered to "Modern Christianity" and some perceived negative opinions about Christianity. I will not deny that in SOME Christian circles a lot of what was written had a grain of truth, but it does not define the entire religion.

Comments:

1) "Modern Christianity is all about making people conform to a "Moral Standard" that Christ himself never imposed on anyone."

> Christ may never have imposed it as condemningly as some churches, but he definately taught the "Moral Standard" as asked His followers to strive toward it. But he knew we would all fail. It's the journey and heart that matters. Many churches live by this. I attend a conservative pentacostal church, but everyone is welcome and we have curious gang members, retired bikers, and more disfunctional families than you can shake a stick at. The difference is they are striving for the goal and lives are changing with the Word.

2) Moneychangers in the temple and "Give to Caesar what is Caesars" have absolutely nothing to do with giving to your church. The moneychangers were selling "offerings" to the people and cutting profit and the Caesar scripture was Jesus teaching the people that they had to submit to their governing authorities by paying taxes to Caesar. Most churches do not do the pulpit pounding, shame filled, giving and my experience has been that those churches a) don't last long, b) become extremely unhealthy, materialistic and human focused.

3) I have not disagreement with the fact that many attrocities have been done in the name of religion...whether it is the crusades and slavery in the name of Christianity, the invasions and conquests of Mohammad in the name of Allah, or genocide of a race of people in the name of some other religion. Human-nature sucks but it is definately not solely a characteristic of Modern Christianity...

07-10-2003, 01:02 PM	#39 (permalink)
GrumpyCoder Upright	"Modern Christianity" As a Christian, I believe Christ is returning. But, I just read this thread and was frustrated by what it revealed. One of the posts refered to "Modern Christianity" and some perceived negative opinions about Christianity. I will not deny that in SOME Christian circles a lot of what was written had a grain of truth, but it does not define the entire religion. Comments: 1) "Modern Christianity is all about making people conform to a "Moral Standard" that Christ himself never imposed on anyone." > Christ may never have imposed it as condemningly as some churches, but he definately taught the "Moral Standard" as asked His followers to strive toward it. But he knew we would all fail. It's the journey and heart that matters. Many churches live by this. I attend a conservative pentacostal church, but everyone is welcome and we have curious gang members, retired bikers, and more disfunctional families than you can shake a stick at. The difference is they are striving for the goal and lives are changing with the Word. 2) Moneychangers in the temple and "Give to Caesar what is Caesars" have absolutely nothing to do with giving to your church. The moneychangers were selling "offerings" to the people and cutting profit and the Caesar scripture was Jesus teaching the people that they had to submit to their governing authorities by paying taxes to Caesar. Most churches do not do the pulpit pounding, shame filled, giving and my experience has been that those churches a) don't last long, b) become extremely unhealthy, materialistic and human focused. 3) I have not disagreement with the fact that many attrocities have been done in the name of religion...whether it is the crusades and slavery in the name of Christianity, the invasions and conquests of Mohammad in the name of Allah, or genocide of a race of people in the name of some other religion. Human-nature sucks but it is definately not solely a characteristic of Modern Christianity...