Christians: Being Faithful vs. Being Honest

Sky Lark

Sky Lark

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This thread is mostly for Christians.

Do you ever have a hard time reconciling these two things? I'm referring to issues with churches and other believers, not necessarily God. Do you feel like most believers' conception of what it means to be a good Christian has narrowed and become too superficial in recent decades?

I feel like it has, especially during the last hundred years or more in the US. I've seen (and experienced) ostracism in churches without any sin or scandal involved, just because of not fitting a VERY particular mold. What does this say about the state of Christianity in our country today?

Those outside the US are welcome to respond, too. I'd love to get an idea of how the church scene is different elsewhere.

By the way, I'm a conservative-leaning moderate politically; theologically, I'm not exactly sure where my beliefs fall in terms of orthodoxy. I value relationship with God, conviction, and change of life as evidence above all. "You shall know them by their fruits."
 
You answer to God. People are going to judge you despite their religion. While you are on Earth, you will suffer humanity whether they wear a cross as you bear it.

People tend to form social structures, and go about doing the typical human shit that one does in a social structure whether they're in a group of Christians or a group of school kids. Even within Christianity, most people answer to their selves before anything else; before God.
 
I just posted an INFJs.com blog post about genealogy therapy this morning. Take a look if your interested. Here's the LINK.

Knowing and learning where you came from is very therapeutic. It feels good and makes you feel connected. :)
 
I used to be a Christian. What I have seen and continue to see is that people are more concerned with forcing others to agree with them or at least live in agreement with their morals than they are with actually worshipping God. Live and let live! God gives you freewill to make choices so allow the same for others. But it just seems like it is all about judging and fighting against "The world." Jesus hung out with hookers and thieves... And he didn't care about taking over the government and legislating his brand of morality. I kind of think that the Jehovah's Witnesses got it right by staying politically neutral. So it's interesting that in a thread about Christianity you have to bring up your political leanings.
 
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I think today, sometimes, some of the church community spends too much time trying to legislate right and wrong, rather than helping people understand the causes and effects of actions. Not enough time is spent explaining why a principle exists, and the intentional goal. Rather, religious are thrown out to the world as laws and edicts, in a very imposing manner. On the other hand, the non-Christian world doesn't always want to hear views it doesn't like or agree with, and will often put something down, or try to discredit it because it doesn't share the same views.

I was a "devout" Christian as a teen. In high school, I was a self righteous and judgmental highly introverted young Christian. I didn't understand the world. I was very sheltered, and lacked life experience and understand. I didn't understand people. I didn't leave the faith, but later on, throughout college, when I got some major culture shocks and experienced more, I let go of the rigid views I had about how to understand faith and people.

I am not at this point as Christian in thought and action as I know I should be, but I still believe the Christian faith to be true. I still feel accountable to God. The difference today is, I try to be less judgmental. :D So, I've relaxed a little, and learn to live and let live more. In the end, you can't force someone into faith. You can share it and be a model of faith-based living, but in the end, everyone is accountable to God for their own crap. You can't force people to accept faith.

One of my biggest pet peeves is churches with political affiliation. To me, it's wrong for a church to suggest or imply that being a Christian means you must be Conservative or Democratic, but it annoys me particularly when church goers are taught that only Conservative values represent the Christian faith. I think church leaders should be ashamed of this. No church should be dictating someone's political leanings.

I'm moderate with political beliefs, maybe more left than right, but I'm not a fan of the party system and how it claims to live out each philosophy. Politics is clearly more about personalities today than policies. From what I understand from the Bible, first priority shouldn't be riches, wealth, or privilege in any case. It should be to show love for God by following his principles including ensuring everyone's basic needs are reasonably provided.

Thing is, people will always pick and choose what they want to believe, regardless of what faith says, but faith exists outside of personal feelings or opinions. So, it's still a matter of choosing to believe, and no one can believe for anyone but themselves.
 
Gale said:
I think today, sometimes, some of the church community spends too much time trying to legislate right and wrong, rather than helping people understand the causes and effects of actions. Not enough time is spent explaining why a principle exists, and the intentional goal. Rather, religious are thrown out to the world as laws and edicts, in a very imposing manner. On the other hand, the non-Christian world doesn't always want to hear views it doesn't like or agree with, and will often put something down, or try to discredit it because it doesn't share the same views.

I was a "devout" Christian as a teen. In high school, I was a self righteous and judgmental highly introverted young Christian. I didn't understand the world. I was very sheltered, and lacked life experience and understand. I didn't understand people. I didn't leave the faith, but later on, throughout college, when I got some major culture shocks and experienced more, I let go of the rigid views I had about how to understand faith and people.

I am not at this point as Christian in thought and action as I know I should be, but I still believe the Christian faith to be true. I still feel accountable to God. The difference today is, I try to be less judgmental. :D So, I've relaxed a little, and learn to live and let live more. In the end, you can't force someone into faith. You can share it and be a model of faith-based living, but in the end, everyone is accountable to God for their own crap. You can't force people to accept faith.

One of my biggest pet peeves is churches with political affiliation. To me, it's wrong for a church to suggest or imply that being a Christian means you must be Conservative or Democratic, but it annoys me particularly when church goers are taught that only Conservative values represent the Christian faith. I think church leaders should be ashamed of this. No church should be dictating someone's political leanings.

I'm moderate with political beliefs, maybe more left than right, but I'm not a fan of the party system and how it claims to live out each philosophy. Politics is clearly more about personalities today than policies. From what I understand from the Bible, first priority shouldn't be riches, wealth, or privilege in any case. It should be to show love for God by following his principles including ensuring everyone's basic needs are reasonably provided.

Thing is, people will always pick and choose what they want to believe, regardless of what faith says, but faith exists outside of personal feelings or opinions. So, it's still a matter of choosing to believe, and no one can believe for anyone but themselves.
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I have to ask. Since you seem to be promoting Ancestry.com are you Mormon? I do value Ancestry.com for what it provides me in connecting with my past; however, I don't state it's value based on religious stance. So, please be honest in your disclosure. The people here don't draw lines, but instead see things for what is truth.
 
FreeSp1r1t said:
I have to ask. Since you seem to be promoting Ancestry.com are you Mormon? I do value Ancestry.com for what it provides me in connecting with my past; however, I don't state it's value based on religious stance. So, please be honest in your disclosure. The people here don't draw lines, but instead see things for what is truth.
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I didn't promote the site. There is a thread on it that was already posted by another member, and I did the test. I'm really confused. What does Mormon have to do with Ancestry.com? Not sure what this has to do with the topic of this thread? I'm sorry Free but sometimes your post responses, at least to mine, do not make sense to me.
 
Gale said:
I didn't promote the site. There is a thread on it that was already posted by another member, and I did the test. I'm really confused. What does Mormon have to do with Ancestry.com? Not sure what this has to do with the topic of this thread? I'm sorry Free but sometimes your post responses, at least to mine, do not make sense to me.
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Sky Lark said:
This thread is mostly for Christians.

Do you ever have a hard time reconciling these two things? I'm referring to issues with churches and other believers, not necessarily God. Do you feel like most believers' conception of what it means to be a good Christian has narrowed and become too superficial in recent decades?

I feel like it has, especially during the last hundred years or more in the US. I've seen (and experienced) ostracism in churches without any sin or scandal involved, just because of not fitting a VERY particular mold. What does this say about the state of Christianity in our country today?

Those outside the US are welcome to respond, too. I'd love to get an idea of how the church scene is different elsewhere.

By the way, I'm a conservative-leaning moderate politically; theologically, I'm not exactly sure where my beliefs fall in terms of orthodoxy. I value relationship with God, conviction, and change of life as evidence above all. "You shall know them by their fruits."
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My apologies. Was directing the question to @Sky Lark not you. Your post was trying to question the motive behind the post - that's why I quoted it. My thoughts were on the same line as yours. I believe the Mormons own the Ancestry.com web site. So to see Ancestry.com promoted and the religious beliefs posted simultaneously leads me to believe that the post was for affiliation rather than community (INFJs.com). Especially since the poster has 11 messages. I'm certainly not trying to say that the OP is Mormon but rather to question the intent.
 
FreeSp1r1t said:
My apologies. Was directing the question to @Sky Lark not you. Your post was trying to question the motive behind the post - that's why I quoted it. My thoughts were on the same line as yours. I believe the Mormons own the Ancestry.com web site. So to see Ancestry.com promoted and the religious beliefs posted simultaneously leads me to believe that the post was for affiliation rather than community (INFJs.com). Especially since the poster has 11 messages. I'm certainly not trying to say that the OP is Mormon but rather to question the intent.
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OK, wait just a minute. I went back and looked at the original post again and the ancestry.com post was not included. Apparently I failed to see that the integrated Ad for ancestry.com was not actually part of the OP's post. That's infuriating. Uggggg. Please forgive.

Of course now it's some kind of asian female sexual site in their post. I will have to start using a browser that is more anonymous and without cookies or tracking. Seriously????!!!!!
 
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FreeSp1r1t said:
My apologies. Was directing the question to @Sky Lark not you. Your post was trying to question the motive behind the post - that's why I quoted it. My thoughts were on the same line as yours.
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Ah, ok. I wasn't questioning the motive of the OP's post. I just answered based on how I understood the OP, and just shared my experience. In any case, seems to be a genuine misunderstanding, so it's all good. :)
 
I grew up in a church that was dominated by wealthy conservatives and I saw a lot of conspicuous righteousness. Everybody loved to show off how "blessed" they were. There were a few "troubled" members who were like the church pets that the rest of the congregation used to show off their benevolence, but people with actual problems were kept at a distance and tolerated at best, at worst shunned or even kicked out of the church.

They liked to show off how they helped the poor and preached to the needy, mostly in other countries because those kind of people would never actually get into the church. Other than that, they loved to pray over members minor first world problems which would then magically go away, praise the Lord.
 
I'm not sure about the question either but what ruji said....

ruji said:
You answer to God.
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No church is perfect and Christians are by no means - perfect individuals but a work in progress. I try to hold that in my head when I get irritated with other Christians or people in general (as I'm sure they do with me - just being honest!).
 
I didn't attend church for most of my youth, the church I currently attend is fairly liberal-leaning, politically speaking. It is non-denominational, and therefore lacks some of the more "religious" aspects of attending church's that one would find in other churches. I haven't personally experienced much of the bigotry that others have, so I am lucky in that regard.


I have a problem with the title and content of your thread. It implies that one must attend church in order to be a faithful Christian, while I do cede that attending church is, in many ways, important to maintaing and strengthening your faith, I don't think it's absolutely necessary in order to be a faithful Christian. Plus, in the most strict and definitional sense, according to the Christian faith, "going to church" merely means that you should spend time in fellowship with other Christians. That's all it means.
Proverbs 27:17 "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

I think Christianity is very diverse in the United States, but when most people think "Christian in America" or "American Christian chruch", surely they think of a staunchly traditional Evangelical Christian who is of the opinion that the world is 6000 years old. This is simply too much of a generalization. So, when you refer to church, I'm really curious as to what denomination you identify with.

I think that Christians become too focused on the letter of law, which has its place of course, but the spirit of the law is what is most important.
Christ paid the price for all of our sin, and some people feel the need to show that off as if a Divine gift that they were given entitles them to bragging rights. I think that most believers don't genuinely think about their faith, and those who do, generally end up becoming atheist. This isn't always true, but I find that there is a sense of anti-questioning and anti-curiosity in most Christian denominations. So that's definitely a problem. It leads people away from Christ, because genuinely curious people are often rejected by most Christians.

I'd say that, as Christians, we should all focus on God and direct our attention to Him.
If you are particularly frustrated with the religious bigotry associated with going to a mainline Christian church, my suggestion to you would be find a liberal (not Unitarian Universalist), or at least more open-minded and nondenom church, and attend that. Non-denominational Christianity is the fastest growing branch of Christianity, and for good reason.
 
I have found this true of most Christians and a few other religious people as well. They say they are interested in "discussion" but what this really means is they are interested in telling. Yes they will listen to questions but they skirt around actually answering them and become offended when you continue to ask for an actual answer.
 
Religion is dead works, unless one enters into the kingdom of heaven with faith as a child you will not experience it. Jesus taught faith over religion. Christianity is living with a god outside mind. Sonship is living with a God inside mind. We manifest heaven into the earth from the inside out. Living waters flowing forth from our bellies drowning the world in Perfect Love. Drink the blood of Christ and eat His body. We have to keep the feast. Enter into the marriage supper and eat of the fattened calf. His joy is our strength so drink up and get intoxicated from the divine source for He is the Most High. Die to all self and ego and be crucified with Christ. Unless one loses their life they can never find it.
 
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sprinkles said:
I grew up in a church that was dominated by wealthy conservatives and I saw a lot of conspicuous righteousness. Everybody loved to show off how "blessed" they were. There were a few "troubled" members who were like the church pets that the rest of the congregation used to show off their benevolence, but people with actual problems were kept at a distance and tolerated at best, at worst shunned or even kicked out of the church.

They liked to show off how they helped the poor and preached to the needy, mostly in other countries because those kind of people would never actually get into the church. Other than that, they loved to pray over members minor first world problems which would then magically go away, praise the Lord.
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Why are you upset? This thread is mostly for Christians, what it said.
 
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