junobet

The only thing I ever read of Alister McGrath was his excellent refutation of Dawkins "God Delusion" called "The Dawkins Delusion? Atheist Fundamentalism and the denial of the divine". Maybe I should check this one out, too. What I find comforting whenever I doubt is that the Bible tells us that Jesus chose chronic doubters for His first disciples. Not just Thomas. Peter’s faith is too weak to walk on water and he openly denies Christ 2 or 3 times. And the whole lot of them are a bunch of idiots, who hardly ever get what Jesus is driving at. So it seems that Christ loves us in all our human weakness, even when our faith is just as small as a mustardseed. Love, junobet

Actually I’m quite surprised myself how much of a discussion this has attracted. It was your thread by the way that made my wandering mind think of this one. The song mentioned in the OP begins with the line “Lucifer, son of the morning, I’m gonna chase you out of earth.” It’s a classical Christian misinterpretation to associate Lucifer as mentioned in Isaiah 14 with Satan falling from heaven. Look at the text and you’ll find that it actually talks about a Babylonian king, whose star (i.e. Empire) will fall. The point of my question here was: do Rastafaris worship Christ when they believe in the triune God and think Haile Selassie was Christ in the second coming? (even though Haile Selassie himself disputed to be Christ) On a side note: By now I found out that these days not all Rastafaris hold Haile Selassie to be Christ, but that some just see themselves as part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (one of the oldest churches there is).

Sometimes this forum makes my mind wander to weird places. One of the threads here made me think of Max Romeo’s “I Chase the Devil”. So when I got home I looked it up on you-tube and ended up listening to a play-list of reggae all evening. Now, I’m not a big reggae fan myself and I have just very basic knowledge of what the Rastafari religion is all about. But I wondered: would you say that it’s Christian?

This is not about tempting God but about loving God: in loving our neighbours we love God and surely we can’t love God too much (Mt. 22, 36-40; Mt. 25:31-46, 1 Cor. 13).

Indeed: " 14 But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; 15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: 16 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. 17 For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing." (1 Peter 3:14-17)

Yes, it’s no wonder that we disagree: we are from completely different cultural backgrounds. And I’m sure the sermons I hear in my Church are very different from those you hear in yours. Yet we are both Christians referring back to the same Bible. So maybe we should look for what makes us Christian in our commonalities rather than in what seperates us. The Nicene Creed may be a start. Concerning necromancy you misunderstood what I meant: Not believing in necromancy isn’t the same as wanting to burn people on the stake for witchcraft. Quite the contrary: The latter supposes you believe that there are real witches, and I don’t believe that. The reason that I’d oppose my children playing with Quja-Boards etc. is that I wouldn’t want them to take psychological harm in mindgames their impressionable little minds aren’t equipped for. I would not fear for a second that a real ghost might show up. Concerning the stoning the adulteress you’ve taken me by surprise. So you believe all this was just about Jesus playing cunning tricks to escape punishment, rather than Him conveying truth? I suppose you must think the same about the double-commandment of love then. What else do you think He didn’t really mean?

So basically your answer is: gut feeling. The danger here is that many of our gut feelings are utterly human rather than divinely inspired. They hang very much on what we grew up with. See the nudity for example: you are abhorred by it. But I grew up in a society in which it is utterly normal for people to go to mixed saunas. It’s the kind of innocent nakedness we don’t associate with shame or sexual lust. In answer to your questions here are my gut feelings: If my son liked wearing dresses I’d be slightly worried that he may get bullied. But if he can cope with that and enjoys wearing dresses and sees to it that he’s warm enough, that’s his business. My love for my children would not depend on their personal fashion choices. God knows that I’m thankful that my Mum was always rather tolerant of mine. If a 20 year old desired to marry his mother, I’d recommend seeking out the help of a therapist. There are good genetic reasons to ban incest, but I’d say actual cases are rare and mostly occur when siblings didn’t grow up together. Necromancy: I don’t believe in the occult. Polygamy: we cannot serve more than one master and IMHO we cannot fully commit to more than one partner. And I doubt we can become “one flesh” with more than one partner. Calf in Mother’s milk: I’d feel sorry for the calf, so I’m vegetarian. Which I suppose makes my food pretty much kosher and halal without even bothering. For all: In my experience talking to people and trying to understand their feelings and motives helps when trying to find out how to love them best. Legalism mostly does not. It just appeals to our hardness of heart (Mt 19:8) About your last passage and the death penalty in general, God’s given us an update: John 8:1-11.

I may be misunderstanding you here: did you really just say you’d be fine with nations adopting “death penalties for a number of crimes like witchcraft, cursing Father and Mother, homosexual acts or lying down with an animal.” And adultery? Ugandan and Saudi Arabian politics are fine with you? However, you did not quite answer my question: how do you discern which law in Deuteronomy falls under which of your categories? And how come Jesus put some laws over others before He died for us on the cross? Personally I have a rather simple (well not always simple) criterion for my moral decisions: “34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Mt.22:34) Love, junobet

Pray do go into more detail. Because I wonder which criteria you use to distinguish between these three types of law. Personally I’m not surprised that scriptures that were written in an ancient patriarchal society are drenched in the then societies social codes. Where it gets interesting to me – because that’s when inspiration seems to be at open play – is when these codes are suddenly broken with and entirely new thoughts get formulated. For example when Paul, in many ways a true child of his time, says: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28) As for 1 Cor. 6:9: to see what Paul really means here you'd have to learn about the then hellenistic culture, in particular the power-structures and cults that were connected with being effeminate and with men on men sexual activity. What went on in the Roman empire back then certainly has little in common with Boy George wearing glittery clothes in the 20th century.

Seeing you wear 100% cotton for comfort rather than for OT-law, this won’t affect you: but I’ve dyed clothes that said 100% cotton on the label, and then found to my dismay that the thread used for stitching was actually made of polyester, meaning that it did not take the colour.

Well, actually it says just one wife for deacons, but doesn’t tell us about others. But yes, by the time the NT was written, cultural habits had changed and people did usually just have one wife. Quite opposite to Solomon, who had hundreds of wives + concubines on top. Todays Christians fool themselves if they think the “family values” they deem sacred are actually biblical rather than just a product of social convention. Mind you, I’m all for family values myself, but if you want to argue for them biblically, you’ll have to get rather abstract, and you’ll have to ignore all bits in the Bible that are obviously against them. There’s a rather interesting Open Course Yale lecture on the topic, that you can find on youtube. In the section of New Testament studies, titled Paul and Thekla or something.

Well, sadly it’s got to be said that the New Testament does not disapprove of slavery either but simply accepted it as a social reality. It wasn’t until about 1700 years later that Christians first interpreted their prime commandments in a way that led them to become leaders in the abolitionist movement. Who knows how our minds will be broadened in future as we grow in the Spirit. Love, junobet

Just out of interest: that a woman shouldn't wear men's clothes and viice versa is from Deuteronomy. A couple of verses along it says: "Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together." (Deuteronomy 22:11) Do you stick to that one also? If so, you've got my deepest respect: I can imagine that this would make shopping for clothes rather complicated these days.

I’m German, so culturally I haven’t got a problem with nudist camps and I love going to the sauna. But with the temperatures we have at the moment I’d rather put on a woolly jumper and a big shawl on the way there. But if you couldn’t go to the sauna or a nudist camp without getting dirty thoughts, I recommend you don’t go. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. As was already indicated: Fashions change. We shouldn’t confuse our own human cultural norms and dress-codes with what is ok with God. So IMHO to scorn somebody for the way he/she dresses is slightly talibanesque.

Just my 5 cents: IMHO if God was interested in the clothes we wear, He would not have created us naked.

Hi there, to me cleaning the house is the most boring activity ever, so I liven it up by listening to audio-books, you-tube videos etc. Today I came across a sermon that I found to be very true and inspiring and that I want to share with you: Love, junobet

Didn’t you say you wanted to put me on ignore? However, glad to see you seemingly changed your mind. When Jesus taught love of neighbour and was asked “and who is my neighbour” he answered with the Parable of the Good Samaritan. (Luke 10:25-37) Now we may ask ourselves who the Samaritans were and how they were viewed by Jesus’ 1th century Jewish audience: “The Samaritans embraced a religion that was a mixture of Judaism and idolatry (2 Kings 17:26-28). Because the Israelite inhabitants of Samaria had intermarried with the foreigners and adopted their idolatrous religion, Samaritans were generally considered “half-breeds” and were universally despised by the Jews. (…) the Jews regarded the Samaritans as the worst of the human race (John 8:48) and had no dealings with them (John 4:9).” (http://www.gotquestions.org/Samaritans.html) See the parallels? Love, junobet

It’s very sad that veterans (or any others) have to sleep on the streets in a rich nation such as the US. But this hardly has to do with the US taking up so many refugees: “Since 2012, the US has accepted 2,174 Syrian refugees – roughly 0.0007% of America’s total population. … Were the country to take in an additional 10,000 Syrians, they would still only represent approximately 0.004% of its existing population. This ratio stands in marked contrast with the much poorer and much smaller countries bearing the biggest burden of the Syrian refugee crisis.” (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/19/syrian-refugees-in-america-fact-from-fiction-congress) Every single human being is loved by God. So caring for one person’s desperate need should not keep us from caring also for another’s. “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” (Luke 12:48b) Love, Junobet

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_quarterly_report It is indeed sad that this world has very many more trouble-spots than just Syria. I would not want to have to live in Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea, … either. Would you?

Thank you melony. Just one little objection: the OT also knows love of enemy (Exo 23:4-5; Pro 24:17; Pro 25:21). So the NT is not completely different to the OT, but it shows us where Jesus’ wants us to focus when finding our way through OT-scriptures. It saddens me deeply that many in Christianity have seemingly lost this focus: We certainly could have done better at loving our enemies over the past 2000 years. And more often than not we still aren’t up to it. May the Lord have mercy on our souls. Love, junobet

Why? Because you don't want the West to take any responsibility for a human catastrophe that was ultimately caused by failed Western politics after 9/11? Neighbouring Muslim countries are filled to the brim: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/syrias-refugee-crisis-in-numbers/

Davida, there are certain media that haven’t got the slightest qualms to insinuate that refugees are invaders. If I remember right, in this very thread this has already happened more than once. Sad. And have you still not noticed that I’m not all that interested in petty categories of left or right, but in the doing of the good? IMHO if a Christian’s alliances are with earthly political wings rather than with Jesus Christ, who always sided with the weak and outcast, that Christian has a problem. And yes, my understanding of the Christian gospel leads me to think that the American Christian right in particular has some very massive problems. May the Lord have mercy. Love, junobet

We ought to be grateful that these days it's just heated arguments. Back in the olden days we didn't have the slightest qualms to burn each other on the stake for our differing interpretations of scripture. Hardly a Christian thing to do if you ask me, but here you go: it happened.

That is a good prayer request, melony! And I have to thank you for reviving fond memories: back in the days of my youth I studied in Münster and got introduced to New Testament studies and the basics of textual criticism there. My Greek would have been too bad to go into that field myself but I was left with deep respect for those who did: One really has to have a burning love for the Bible to immerse oneself so deeply in it! When all of Münster went swimming in the canal on a hot summers day, they’d still be brooding over a “καί”, well knowing that it wouldn’t make a difference to the meaning of the text and still trying to find out whether the original text had it or not. The wealth of manuscripts that were found and analyzed since guys like Tischendorf started their search is overwhelming. And who knows how much more are waiting in the desert sands. Praise be to God!

Yes, the Daily Mail is one of the newspapers that very eagerly do ISIS’s bidding: “In the discussion of ISIS and its actions we need to clearly get a handle on what it is that ISIS is hoping to accomplish with the attacks in Paris and Beirut and Baghdad and the Russian airplane bombing. What they are doing is using terrorism, and even more so the responses to terrorism, to provide them with ways and means that they do NOT themselves have to achieve their ends. We need to recognize and accept that for ISIS terrorism is Psychological Operations (PSYOPs). PSYOPs are defined as: “Planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator’s objectives. Also called PSYOP.” Calls for closing mosques or special identification for Muslims or religious tests for refugees, let alone simply not accepting any, are all the result of ISIS being able to influence emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of the US government, American organizations and groups, and US citizens. Threats of reprisal and actual attacks on Muslims as reprisals, or those perceived to be Muslim, even more so. President Hollande’s response was not only morally correct, but also demonstrated how not to fall into ISIS’s PSYOPs trap: “Life should resume fully,” Hollande told a gathering of the country’s mayors, who gave him a standing ovation. “What would France be without its museums, without its terraces, its concerts, its sports competitions? “France should remain as it is. Our duty is to carry on our lives.” In the same spirit, he added, “30,000 refugees will be welcomed over the next two years. Our country has the duty to respect this commitment,” explaining that they will undergo vigorous security checks. Hollande noted that “some people say the tragic events of the last few days have sown doubts in their minds,” but called it a “humanitarian duty” to help those people … but one that will go hand in hand with “our duty to protect our people.” “We have to reinforce our borders while remaining true to our values,” he said. So far American news media, far too many politicians at all levels of US government, and far too many Americans have decided to provide ISIS the ways and means to achieve their ends. Ways and means that they do NOT actually have. We went down this rabbit hole after 9-11 into a land of demagoguery; fear; and paranoia. It got us two unsuccessful wars without declaring war, a mess of an economy, and no real good solutions for, or resolutions of, how to deal with the extremist, violent strain within Islam that is at war with Islam and the rest of the world. The question that has not been fully answered, though we are seeing hints and teasers of what the answer might be, is have we learned anything over the past fourteen years?" https://www.balloon-juice.com/2015/11/19/booo-isis-and-the-use-of-terrorism-as-psychological-operations/ The worst thing that could happen to ISIS is us showing the world our Christian compassion by caring for those they persecute, Muslim, Christians, Yazidis alike. Love, junobet