When Christianity goes bad.

[it's just me]

One of my favorites but there are many throughout Scripture that give the same hope. Here a a few more.
Matthew 6:12


Romans 4:7


Romans 4:8


Deuteronomy 33:29

Psalm 85:2


Psalm 103:3

Amazing Grace how sweet a sound.

Edit- Psalm 32 is one of my very favorites.

We read through the Psalms every month as part of our lectionary, there's some very NT stuff in there.

 

[American]

Christian today means stripping the poor of much needed benefits, being anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-Nazi and the building of walls. Trump proved that.

That's what it means to non-thinkers.

 

[D_NATURED]

Religion does not go bad ,people go bad...............

Religion doesn't exist without people. I'm not sure what aspect of religion can exist independently. Your comment reminds me of the old "guns don't kill people..." cop out that fails to acknowledge that religion is a tool that, more often than admitted, harms or is an excuse to harm people.

I would love to see religion challenged more as a moral credential. I don't think it deserves the reputation it has given itself.

 

[Tanngrisnir]

That's what it means to non-thinkers.

Indeed! Non-thinkers like Trump, Roy Moore, etc.. The list is practically endless.

 

[D_NATURED]

That's what it means to non-thinkers.

How ironic to call someone a "non-thinker" in defense of Chrisrltianity.

 

[American]

How ironic to call someone a "non-thinker" in defense of Chrisrltianity.

Clearly you have a comprehension problem or you didn't read what I responded to.

 

[Glen Contrarian]

Except they ARE left wing talking points. The sad thing is that people on ground level think they are legit.

Please point out what - if anything - in my comment was false. If you can't do so, then your "left-wing talking points" claim is just what I said it was - an excuse that you use to avoid having to address solid facts and strong logic.

 

[Tanngrisnir]

Please point out what - if anything - in my comment was false. If you can't do so, then your "left-wing talking points" claim is just what I said it was - an excuse that you use to avoid having to address solid facts and strong logic.

Some people are so frightened of/alienated from reality that they're compelled to pitch simple facts as partisan talking points in order to not have to confront their own lack of ability to think rationally and discuss things honestly.

 

[it's just me]

Please point out what - if anything - in my comment was false. If you can't do so, then your "left-wing talking points" claim is just what I said it was - an excuse that you use to avoid having to address solid facts and strong logic.

Most of it is wrong - I can read. How about if you substantiate your claims to make them more believable.

I don't have to prove you're wrong, you have to prove you are right.

 

[it's just me]

Please point out what - if anything - in my comment was false. If you can't do so, then your "left-wing talking points" claim is just what I said it was - an excuse that you use to avoid having to address solid facts and strong logic.

Here's one that won't take much time or require too much typing - you say Obama comported himself as a Christian? Do you know who his "pastor" was?

 

[Glen Contrarian]

Here's one that won't take much time or require too much typing - you say Obama comported himself as a Christian? Do you know who his "pastor" was?

Oh, I'm quite aware of all y'all's talking points, like his "God damn America" line...but did you ever read enough of the speech to get the real context? Here:

And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains, the government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton field, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing "God Bless America". No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America — that's in the Bible — for killing innocent people. God damn America, for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America, as long as she tries to act like she is God, and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent.

What Wright is doing there is railing against America for the evil that WE have done to minorities, for the VERY unChristian things our nation has done to minorities. He was absolutely wrong by saying "God damn America", for only God can judge those outside the Church, and he should have learned from that...but the overarching meaning of his speech - that America has continually done wrong to our minorities - is spot on.

Mind you, I do not hold Obama - or any protestants or Catholics - to be truly Christian, for one can only be Christian if one belongs to the Church of Christ. (Yeah, I know how you'll react to that, for it's the same way I reacted at first until I understood the doctrine). But I do watch the actions of people, and by his actions, Obama sincerely tries to act as a Christian should, whereas Trump makes a joke of it, and every evangelical who rails against immigrants (whether legal or illegal) or who wants to treat minorities as second-class citizens...such people have truly forgotten the examples that Jesus set.

 

[it's just me]

Oh, I'm quite aware of all y'all's talking points, like his "God damn America" line...but did you ever read enough of the speech to get the real context? Here:

And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains, the government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton field, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing "God Bless America". No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America — that's in the Bible — for killing innocent people. God damn America, for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America, as long as she tries to act like she is God, and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent.

What Wright is doing there is railing against America for the evil that WE have done to minorities, for the VERY unChristian things our nation has done to minorities. He was absolutely wrong by saying "God damn America", for only God can judge those outside the Church, and he should have learned from that...but the overarching meaning of his speech - that America has continually done wrong to our minorities - is spot on.

Mind you, I do not hold Obama - or any protestants or Catholics - to be truly Christian, for one can only be Christian if one belongs to the Church of Christ. (Yeah, I know how you'll react to that, for it's the same way I reacted at first until I understood the doctrine). But I do watch the actions of people, and by his actions, Obama sincerely tries to act as a Christian should, whereas Trump makes a joke of it, and every evangelical who rails against immigrants (whether legal or illegal) or who wants to treat minorities as second-class citizens...such people have truly forgotten the examples that Jesus set.

I was talking about Wright's anti semitic, racist rants. Explain that away.

 

[Glen Contrarian]

I was talking about Wright's anti semitic, racist rants. Explain that away.

I don't see them on the Wiki - please point them out.

 

[it's just me]

I don't see them on the Wiki - please point them out.

It's on the Jeremiah Wright wiki page. I am on my phone and I can't paste links.

 

[Glen Contrarian]

It's on the Jeremiah Wright wiki page. I am on my phone and I can't paste links.

I see the anti-Zionist rant...but that's not racism at all. That's anti-Zionism, another animal altogether. It's a pseudo-religious branch of Judaism. Pull up a chair so you can learn a bit of what you will NEVER hear on Fox News. From the wiki on Zionism:

Zionism was established with the political goal of creating a Jewish state in order to create a nation where Jews could be the majority, rather than the minority which they were in a variety of nations in the diaspora. Theodor Herzl, the ideological father of Zionism, considered Antisemitism to be an eternal feature of all societies in which Jews lived as minorities, and that only a separation could allow Jews to escape eternal persecution. "Let them give us sovereignty over a piece of the Earth's surface, just sufficient for the needs of our people, then we will do the rest!" he proclaimed exposing his plan.

Herzl proposed two possible destinations to colonize, Argentina and Palestine. He preferred Argentina for its vast and sparsely populated territory and temperate climate, but conceded that Palestine would have greater attraction because of the historic ties of Jews with that area. He also accepted to evaluate Joseph Chamberlain's proposal for possible Jewish settlement in Great Britain's East African colonies.

The key is this: one doesn't have to be a Zionist in order to be a Jew. In fact, there's many Jews who are anti-Zionist - does this make them racist, too? From the link:

Jewish anti-Zionism is as old as Zionism itself, and enjoyed widespread support in the Jewish community until World War II.[9] The Jewish community is not a single united group and responses vary both among and within Jewish groups. One of the principal divisions is that between secular Jews and religious Jews. The reasons for secular opposition to the Zionist movement are very different from those of religious Jews. Opposition to a Jewish state has changed over time and has taken on a diverse spectrum of religious, ethical and political positions.

The legitimacy of anti-Zionist views has been disputed to the present day, including the more recent and disputed relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Other views regarding the various forms of anti-Zionism have also been discussed and debated.

Before 1948
There is a long tradition of Jewish anti-Zionism that has opposed the Zionist project from its origins. The Bundists, the Autonomists, Reform Judaism and the Agude regarded both the rationale and territorial ambitions of Zionism as flawed. Orthodox Judaism, which grounds civic responsibilities and patriotic feelings in religion, was strongly opposed to Zionism because, though the two shared the same values, Zionism espoused nationalism in secular fashion, and used "Zion", "Jerusalem", "Land of Israel", "redemption" and "ingathering of exiles" as literal rather than sacred terms, endeavouring to achieve them in this world. Orthodox Jews also opposed the creation of a Jewish state prior to the appearance of the messiah, as contradicting divine will. By contrast, reform Jews rejected Judaism as a national or ethnic identity, and renounced any messianic expectations of the advent of a Jewish state.

If you study Islam, Jews are considered to be "people of the book". They might be treated as second-class citizens in Islamic countries, but no more so than are Christians - in fact, if you'll check, Jews in Iran are considered a protected class. Remember Ayatollah Khomenei, the guy who led Iran to take over our embassy in Teheran? Here's what he said:

In the holy Quran, Moses, salutations upon him and all his kin, has been mentioned more than any other prophet. Prophet Moses was a mere shepherd when he stood up to the might of pharaoh and destroyed him. Moses, the Speaker-to-Allah, represented pharaoh's slaves, the downtrodden, the mostazafeen]] of his time.

At the end of the discussion, Khomeini declared that "We recognize our Jews as separate from those godless, bloodsucking Zionists." and issued a fatwa decreeing that the Jews were to be protected

And that's how most of the Muslim world sees Israel - not to be hated for being Jewish, but because they're Zionists who (in their eyes - it's a complicated story) stole the land from the Palestinians.

So...NO, it is NOT racist to condemn Zionists or Zionism, for such condemnation is not of a race, but of a pseudo-religious political force.

 

[it's just me]

I can't quote you here, your post is too long. But as for your comments about "Zionism" - how very Hitlerian.

Here's the quote from the Wiki page:

On June 9, 2009, in an interview with the Daily Press of Newport News, Wright indicated that he hadn't had contact with Obama up to that point because "Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office." Wright also suggested that Obama did not send a delegation to the Durban Review Conference in Geneva on racism because of Zionist pressure saying: "[T]he Jewish vote, the A-I-P-A-C vote, that's controlling him, that would not let him send representation to the Durban Review Conference, that's talking this craziness on this trip, cause they’re Zionists, they would not let him talk to someone who calls a spade what it is."[34] On June 11, 2009, Wright amended his remarks during an interview with Mark Thompson on his radio program, Make it Plain. "Let me say like Hillary, I misspoke. Let me just say: Zionists... I’m not talking about all Jews, all people of the Jewish faith, I’m talking about Zionists."[35]

Wright wrote on his Facebook page apologizing for his remarks on June 12, 2009. He wrote, "I mis-spoke and I sincerely meant no harm or ill-will to the American Jewish community or the Obama administration... I have great respect for the Jewish faith and the foundational (and central) part of our Judeo-Christian tradition."[36] In response, Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg alleged, "In other words, he regrets speaking plainly instead of deploying a euphemism."[37] The Anti Defamation League released a statement condemning Wright's remarks as "inflammatory and false. The notions of Jewish control of the White House in Wright's statement express classic anti-Semitism in its most vile form."[38]

Onward and downward:

What Wright is doing there is railing against America for the evil that WE have done to minorities, for the VERY unChristian things our nation has done to minorities. He was absolutely wrong by saying "God damn America", for only God can judge those outside the Church, and he should have learned from that...but the overarching meaning of his speech - that America has continually done wrong to our minorities - is spot on.

This is the problem with leftists - they want to be God. They want to be able to say who is condemned and who isn't. By Christian doctrine, I bear no blood guilt, and this is aside from the fact that neither I nor any of my ancestors kept slaves or killed Cherokee, etc.

Furthermore, showing favoritism is not Christian: James 2:8-9, 1 Timothy 5:21, Acts 10:34, John 3:16.

Finally, the smallest minority in the world is the individual. I will be judged how I deserve, not for the color of my skin.

Mind you, I do not hold Obama - or any protestants or Catholics - to be truly Christian, for one can only be Christian if one belongs to the Church of Christ.

I run into these people every now and then. Some of their doctrines are just plain silly, others are heresy. Aside from that, they are hardly the original Church, since they have no historical ties to the first century Church. Not that it matters to me - even among the cults I firmly believe that there are some who have found the true faith in spite of what they have been taught.

Please back these statements up with concrete evidence instead of slander:

whereas Trump couldn't care less about how Christians are supposed to act

Trump's told literally hundreds of lies

Just give me the top 20.

Trump shows real compassion for no one

Really? That's not what I have heard from people who know him personally.

Trump despises the poor

Those are just the lowlights. I have to get ready to leave.

 

[upsideguy]

Because you're better than those Christians?

Edit: To be clear I do not think you believe that, but looking throughout biblical history God has worked through many very flawed leaders.

Yes, and if your read Kings, God has allowed many atrocious leaders. History has a way of repeating itself.

 

[Logicman]

Yes, and if your read Kings, God has allowed many atrocious leaders. History has a way of repeating itself.

Sometimes God gives people what they deserve - a lousy leader.

 

[zyzygy]

Sometimes God gives people what they deserve - a lousy leader.

Praise Shiva!

 

[RAMOSS]

Sometimes God gives people what they deserve - a lousy leader.

So you think that we deserve Trump?

 

[jbander]

I do not think it is your place to tell any one what they can be. Christianity is not to reason for Trump as president, nor is it evidence of "Christianity gone bad".

Whatever this means . I can decide what I think about anyone I want . Without the fake Christians, the Evangelicals. Scum bag would not be president , if I remember correctly 80% to 85% voted for scum bag. They elected a pagan a person who thinks that he himself is God. No Christian would vote for a ***** grabbing man who wants to have sex with his daughter , who said that it was OK to call his daughter a piece of ass. and who daily shows his hatred of all things except money. Add in the fact that he paid off Prostitutes all around this country to keep their mouth shut right before the election. Anyone who voted for Scum Bag is in no way a Christian, so yup that is Christianity gone bad.

 

[Logicman]

Whatever this means . I can decide what I think about anyone I want . Without the fake Christians, the Evangelicals. Scum bag would not be president , if I remember correctly 80% to 85% voted for scum bag.

As opposed to voting for the most corrupt and vile, incompetent woman in American political history? You prefer her? Wow.

They elected a pagan a person who thinks that he himself is God.

He just converted to Christianity, maybe 18 months ago, and he knows he isn't God.

No Christian would vote for a ***** grabbing man who wants to have sex with his daughter , who said that it was OK to call his daughter a piece of ass. and who daily shows his hatred of all things except money. Add in the fact that he paid off Prostitutes all around this country to keep their mouth shut right before the election. Anyone who voted for Scum Bag is in no way a Christian, so yup that is Christianity gone bad.

That's garbage.

 

[D_NATURED]

Clearly you have a comprehension problem or you didn't read what I responded to.

My comprehension skills are fine. You were reminded of some of the inhumanity supported by the oh-so-holy right wing and it, obviously hurt enough for you to claim that they weren't thinking right. However, you failed to demonstrate anything that contradicts the claim that American christians have taken unto themselves the responsibility for being hateful to women, gays and immigrants.

That's pretty typical conservative stuff there and why you're in denial about it is beyond me. So many other christian conservatives have found ways to be proud of their phobias and their ignorance. I'm sure you could do the same if you tried.

 

[American]

My comprehension skills are fine. You were reminded of some of the inhumanity supported by the oh-so-holy right wing and it, obviously hurt enough for you to claim that they weren't thinking right. However, you failed to demonstrate anything that contradicts the claim that American christians have taken unto themselves the responsibility for being hateful to women, gays and immigrants.

That's pretty typical conservative stuff there and why you're in denial about it is beyond me. So many other christian conservatives have found ways to be proud of their phobias and their ignorance. I'm sure you could do the same if you tried.

The simple-minded hyperbole in your post doesn't warrant the kind of response you seek here. Speaking of irony. :lol: phobias and ignorance are just the kind insults we have come to expect from leftwingers.

 

[D_NATURED]

The simple-minded hyperbole in your post doesn't warrant the kind of response you seek here. Speaking of irony. :lol: phobias and ignorance are just the kind insults we have come to expect from leftwingers.

What's really funny is that you receive a consistent criticism and it doesn't spark a milligram of introspection in your ilk. I guess when you have a magical deity that tells you you're his favorites, the petty complaints of your fellow humans are meaningless.