The Dark Side of Christianity

[DesertSW]

1 hour ago, Cobalt1959 said:

So . . . this makes people damaged goods because they got divorced?  

This entire attitude of treating people who got divorced as if they are 3rd class citizens, especially within the church has never made sense to me. 

The problem is your attitude towards divorced people.  

Full disclosure. I am also a divorced Christian but it was NOT my choice to divorce. My spouse made that decision and I fought it and rejected it but she chose to do it. So I am the "damaged goods" and the way I get treated is a 3rd class citizen. That's just the way it is. Most Christians I meet are kind of naive about marriage and most are shocked to discover the 33% divorce rate. Barna reported it but people didn't want to accept it. When Christians behave and mirror the unsaved, it's a hard pill to swallow but it is reality.

In the men's group I attend, half the attendee's are divorcee's.

I do get treated differently for being a divorced Christian. It is what it is. Nothing I could do about it. Only recourse is that I tell them it wasn't my choice to divorce, it was my spouses.

 

[frienduff thaylorde]

8 minutes ago, Davida said:

When many Churches don't believe the inerrancy of God's word & they have slipped on not preaching the full bible, and accepting modern societal norms, so what do we get? - a worldly version of the Church that is preaching false doctrines. People are people and they are sinful and our human hearts are desperately wicked so what do we expect from each other.... perfection?   I expect people to fail both as married couples and as Church bodies in dealing with marital, family issues & individual interactions.  There are lots of reasons why divorce is so high in the Christian community, in the first place most Churches are worldly not Biblical versions so it is reflecting similar stats to the world.  Who is presenting the Biblical teaching in Church of what to look for in a mate or how to Biblically sustain a marriage?  or how to not be unequally yoked with a non-believer? or how not to exchange Biblical Christian values for social acceptance? etc...etc...

 why divorce is so high in the Christian community, in the first place most Churches are worldly not Biblical versions

 

AND THAT IS TRUTH .    most churches have long left off Truth in search of compromise by emotions.       They aint christain to begin with .  THAT IS TRUE DAVIDA

that is very true .   

[frienduff thaylorde]

23 minutes ago, Davida said:

You would not be treated differently in the church I attend.

Sadly I was divorced too.   years before I came to Christ .    Our past sins aint held against us .   So I chose not to commit adultery by remarriage and remain single.

 

[DesertSW]

59 minutes ago, Davida said:

You would not be treated differently in the church I attend.

Thank you for saying that but I have a hard time believing that. When I posted about another couple divorcing, you replied that they are not saved and that they are just phony Christians, in name only. That's what happens every time. A Christian says they are divorced or divorcing, the first thing comes is judgment and condemnation that they are unsaved. You said it yourself:

4 hours ago, Davida said:

Not real Christians but those in name only.  I would guess these 1 in 3 don't have any marks of a Christian and they are attending if at all.....a heretic Church. It is not a shame and a gasp thing--it 3/4 of the time is a misidentity thing. The gap is widening between the true believers and the imposters who are part of the emergent church, and the ecumenical movement.

[DesertSW]

40 minutes ago, frienduff thaylorde said:

Sadly I was divorced too.   years before I came to Christ .    Our past sins aint held against us .   So I chose not to commit adultery by remarriage and remain single.

 

Your scenario is different because the divorce happened BEFORE you became a Christian. I am specifically referring to Christian divorces. Those who divorced who are Christians.

[Wayne222]

44 minutes ago, frienduff thaylorde said:

 why divorce is so high in the Christian community, in the first place most Churches are worldly not Biblical versions

 

AND THAT IS TRUTH .    most churches have long left off Truth in search of compromise by emotions.       They aint christain to begin with .  THAT IS TRUE DAVIDA

that is very true .   

I wonder how you would know most church's are worldly ? How can you say they ain't Christian to begin with.  There are thousands upon thousands of church's in the world. I doubt you very much on this. 

[DesertSW]

1 hour ago, Cobalt1959 said:

Then I fail to see the point of citing Barna group statistics and constantly inferring that Christians should never get divorced.  Christians make mistakes, including who they marry and why they end a marriage.  What is worse than treating divorced people as 3rd class citizens is this non-biblical attitude that divorce is a sin in every case, no matter what.  It isn't.  I've been divorced, and I simply don't allow people to treat me like I have to wear a badge of shame because of it.  If they attempt to do so, things become very unpleasant for them.

I just go with it. Fighting it is a losing battle. It's like aging, I'm 44 years old. I am not the young person when I was 20 or 30 years old. I get treated differently in job interviews and get rejected at times because of my age. It's just the way it is. My prime has come and gone. That's just life.

I am waiting to see my Lord and Savior in heaven. My eyes are on heaven. Jesus said, "love not his world" and the Apostle Paul said, "to live is Christ, to die is gain...I desire to be in heaven and be with the Lord as it is better by far..."

[frienduff thaylorde]

3 hours ago, DesertSW said:

I just go with it. Fighting it is a losing battle. It's like aging, I'm 44 years old. I am not the young person when I was 20 or 30 years old. I get treated differently in job interviews and get rejected at times because of my age. It's just the way it is. My prime has come and gone. That's just life.

I am waiting to see my Lord and Savior in heaven. My eyes are on heaven. Jesus said, "love not his world" and the Apostle Paul said, "to live is Christ, to die is gain...I desire to be in heaven and be with the Lord as it is better by far..."

My friend try telling that one to Quasar ,  the guy is ninety five years old and still a trodding onward.  To Him ,  you and I are but pups that aint even graduated up to a dog bone yet .

 

[DesertSW]

22 hours ago, Davida said:

Its good to desire to be in heaven with the Lord but don't give up yet. Really don't let life get you down, it is just mind over matter. Your prime does not have to be gone.  You sound like you are just in a rut or a little depressed, you can change & turn things around.

 

Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity. John 12:25

The 12 apostles lost everything in the end and died horrible deaths due to their faith. The Apostle Paul likewise.

I've noticed Christians will fall into two categories:
1  - They love this world and life and if offered to go to heaven today, they would turn it down

2 - They live in the world but are not of the world and if offered to go to heaven to day, they would accept it

The Bible is pretty clear what mindset the Christian should have when it comes to the above...

Many Christians want to be successful and travel, save up 401K's and have a great retirement (Bible talks nothing about retirement, it's a modern invention), etc. Those things in and of themselves are not wrong per say, but they are not the mindset of what God wants us to have. Modern Christianity preaches health and wealth but the Bible preaches something totally different.

Edited March 16, 2018 by DesertSW

[Wayne222]

3 minutes ago, Cobalt1959 said:

You are living a life filled with bitterness.  I understand this quite easily because there have been a couple of times in my life when I lived my life embroiled in the same bitterness.  Second-guessing and clinging to that bitterness will not make you feel better and it will not bring people you wished you had not lost back to you.  When people you love leave your life, they rarely come back.

We are all flawed.  You.  Me.   Your ex-wife.  Love is a highly subjective emotion when you are dealing with a flawed human being relying 90% on returned input.  This input does not affect how much you love the other person, but it affects the relationship because if you are not receiving enough input that the other person loves you an equal amount back, there are built-in emotional deficiencies in the relationship that are going to cause problems at some point.

You cannot force someone to love you.  Quit blaming your ex-wife for every problem and accept that part of the problem might have been your fault.  Quit giving her way too much control over you.  Your life is not over because you suffered through a divorce.  The Legalists will tell you that it is because they understand nothing outside of their own invented regulations and they cannot really understand God's capacity to forgive, apart from codified Do's and Don'ts.  Grace is a foreign concept to them.

Forgive your ex-wife and move on.  That is the only way you are going to recover your joy.

I agree with you Cobalt. We are still flawed even if we are in Christ.