I'm an evangelical Christian - ask me anything

[Insieme]

I'm happy to answer questions, though I'm not interested if people just come on to be insulting.

I can only give my views and talk about what I believe - evangelicalism covers a broad spectrum of beliefs and I can only speak for myself.

Ask away!

As the most persecuted religion in the world. I’m certain Christians can continue to bear your criticism Tabathatwitchett.

Summer I actually agree with you. The RCC is a bunch of medieval misogynists. That's why I'm not a Catholic anymore, but I am still a Christian.

The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church as is not associated with OP’s faith. Ditto the abuse of Catholic priests.

Most of your points are related to the Catholic faith. Not the Anglican Church. OP is Anglican. There is a BIG difference.

Hence why I refer to you as being ignorant.

My denomination has been threatened with being sacked from the Anglican Communion over the ordination of gays and lesbians. So far it's just been talk.

Ever since Martin Luther, this is how Christianity evolves.

In my diocese we have gay ordained priests. That’s an Anglican diocese.

Bechet are you C of E? Are they permitted to marry?

Blocking of gay marriage has been down to the anglican church.

That priest currently being reported in the news for countless abuses (which were covered up) was anglican.

The literal interpretations of the bible are mostly down to the charismatic churches - the re-borns.

In fact there’s that joke isn’t there...a Christian dies and reaches the pearly gates. St Peter is there and guides him around. He points to all these different people from different denominations and then the Christian points to a large compound some way off, behind gates. “Who are those?” He asks, “ah,” replies st Peter, “They’re the charismatics. They think they’re the only ones here....”

I don't believe in heaven but I wouldn't wanna go without freewill.

I think that if nothing else, the very fact that not one Christian on this thread or anywhere else I have encountered can follow the free will argument to its conclusion shows just exactly how flawed that is.

Because it is fact that if a God is not in control of what happens on earth due to his having given individuals free will, then that goes for both the good and the bad.

I can logically agree that sometimes, bad things happen in the world for various reasons. But if God cannot be blamed for the fact that bad things which are down to the free will and behaviour of humans happen, then neither is god worthy of the praise when good things, which are down to the free will and behaviour of humans, happen.

You simply cannot have one without the other. That’s not ignorance, that is fact. Otherwise, if you believe that the good is down to God, then you have to concede that the bad is also down to God, and be able to rationalise that argument as to why.

So, do we have free will or don’t we?

I don't particularly care what other Christians believe. I don't agree with absolutely everything my own church teaches, just the vast majority of it. Belief in John 3:16 is enough for me to consider them fellow Christians. Most of my former Catholic parishioners are good people who regularly ignore a lot of what their church teaches (like on birth control for example).

By the way, I should have said earlier that the leadership of the RCC is a bunch of medieval misogynists. There are plenty of progressive Catholics. Why they stay in the church is beyond my understanding, but I still respect them.

Summer, I hadn't heard that joke.

But if God cannot be blamed for the fact that bad things which are down to the free will and behaviour of humans happen, then neither is god worthy of the praise when good things, which are down to the free will and behaviour of humans, happen.

I for one don't give God credit when people do good things and make good choices, I give the person credit. I think that God (or what we think of as the Holy Spirit, God at work in the world) can indirectly get some credit by helping put us on the right path with some moral teachings that help guide us, but that's it. It's nothing more than a map.

MissConductUS
Yes I am CoE. I’m not sure about marriage. My nearest church has gay clergy.

Bechet even the RCC has some openly gay priests, but they require them to be celibate.

According to this,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_the_Anglican_Communion#Church_of_England

the CoE is slowly moving towards inclusion. Here's the most recent official development:

In November, 2016, William Nye, the Secretary General of the Archbishop's Council, confirmed the following:[1]

clergy in the Church of England are indeed permitted to enter into civil partnerships (which are legally not the same as marriage, and therefore have no bearing on the doctrine of marriage);

clergy in the Church of England are permitted to offer prayers of support on a pastoral basis for people in same-sex relationships;

churches are able to indicate that they welcome LGBTI people, just as they would welcome all people;

clergy and laity are entitled to argue for changes to teaching and practice.

Goodness! I went away for a few hours and there are so many posts!

One or two things first. Bechet and MissConduct are of course right that most of the things SummerGems is blaming evangelical Christians for, are in fact tenets of the Catholic church. I'm not Catholic, so I do not

feel any need to defend them from anything in particular, although I can't approve of the way that Catholics in general were blamed for the actions of a relative few.

Also, I have to say I'm not Anglican either, so if Summer is blaming Anglicans for delays in gay marriage, agin, I think that's unfair, but it's sort of not relevant.

One point I did agree with: a faith that has been around for 2000 years can take a whole lot of questioning and criticism, and still persist. It's still compelling for many millions of people, who follow Jesus not out of fear, but out of love.

I don't think we could say to Christians killed or tortured for their faith, that they are Christians only out of a fear of hell. God doesn't promise any of us an easy life. In fact he promises us persecution. Yet millions of people are compelled by Jesus's message of love and redemption.

And on a more personal note, I fully understand that some posters think I'm a fool, or deluded, or a bigot or whatever; and they probably think that about the other Christians who have come on here to explain their faith. I really don't much care what they think of me. But just as the message of Christianity has persisted for 2000 years, I will still be convinced by the Gospel even beyond death. And that faith is reasonable. It can be explained - not perfectly, because I'm human and don't profess to know everything. But it is not fantasy or delusion.

And for my final comment on freewill, I believe we have freewill, within the framework of natural order that God has made in creation. So we don't have freewill to sprout wings and fly, to answer that rather flippant suggestion.

I'm happy to thank God for the good things that happen in my life. I thank him that my grandchildren were born healthy; what an amazing thing that is, that a human body can be formed and there are usually so few 'mistakes' along the way.

I will also thank the people involved in the good things that happen in my life. The two are not mutually exclusive.

And when something horrible happens, I will ask God why. I will pray for help for people who are suffering, and ask him to improve situations. If he chooses not to, then I am prepared to accept that there is a reason for that that I don't understand. Sometimes that makes me angry. God knows that.

And I will do what I can to prevent evil, of course. That's our part to play, our responsibility.

And yes, there is a tension between freewill and God's control. Jesus acknowledged that. Some things we can't explain now, because we are not God. One day we will understand clearly. That's enough for me.

DiegoMadonna (love the name, btw) I answered a couple of similar questions earlier. One about why I thought the Bible was the true holy book, rather than any of the others, and also whether I thought I'd be a Muslim if I lived in Saudi Arabia. You may be interested in responding back what I said there.

But to look at the question more generally of why I think Christianity is true rather than any other religion: it's the only one that accepts me as I am, and accepts I will always fail, yet tells me God loves me anyway, and helps me start again, over and over.

It's not a religion of rules that I have to keep, in the vain hope I'll be good enough to pass a standard to get into heaven. It's a faith in a God who promises me he will never let me down, and he'll love me whatever I do, and that his son has done everything necessary for me to be reconciled to God.

Literally, all I have to do it accept God's offer. Once I've done that, I'll obviously try to live in a way that pleases God, but there are plenty of people who have accepted Christ on their death bed, with no opportunity to do anything 'good' afterwards. They are still welcomed.

I was interested in your question about Christianity being forced on people via invasions, by force. You cannot make people believe (or not believe) by force. You may be able to make them comply, or conform outwardly, but that's not spreading the gospel, and it's indefensible. It certainly has not effectively increased the number of believing Christians.

OP i think this thread alone is worth all the other AMA's that have been rolling around. As a fellow Christian you explain your faith so well.

it's the only one that accepts me as I am, and accepts I will always fail, yet tells me God loves me anyway

But that is true of all the current major religions that believe in a God. To me it seems incredibly coincidental that 90% of people who believe that Christianity is for sure the one true religion just happened to be born in majority Christian countries, while 90% of people who believe that Islam is for sure the one true religion just happened to be born in majority Muslim countries, and 90% of people who believe that Hinduism is for sure the one true religion just happened to be born in majority Hindu countries, etc.

Which is kind of linked to your other statement that You cannot make people believe (or not believe) by force (...) It certainly has not effectively increased the number of believing Christians

You're taking such a short-term perspective. African countries that were colonised by the British empire absolutely were forced to follow Christianity. It may not have turn all the natives into believers overnight, but it certainly worked long-term. Ghana today is 70% Christian, do you really think that would be the case if the Europeans hadn't gone over there and raped and pillaged them 400 years ago?

I went to a CofE school and as a child learning about ancient Egypt, I couldn't help wonder why nobody believed in their Gods any longer, but here was a school full of people believing in this other God just because everyone around us was telling us to. And then over in Pakistan, they were all believing in Allah because that's what they were being told to do.

I respect the desire to believe in something bigger, but choosing one very specific ideology just because of where you were born and what those around you believe, it's just social compliance and a lack of critical thinking.

Thank God you're back Insieme.

On the "who gets the credit" question, I thought of an example from my own life. I'm a recovering alcoholic. I really thought I would never be able to stop and that drink would kill me. I found the right people to help me learn how to heal myself physically and spiritually. They threw a rope into the pit I was in and helped me climb out. I did the work, but I needed the rope and their instruction.

I to this day consider my recovery a gift from God. God usually does good in the world by creating the circumstance in which the kindness of others is made available when and where it is needed. The whole concept of mutual aid and helping the stranger was part of what made Christianity so radical. The entire culture of the world 2,000 years ago was based on domination and submission. Master dominated slave. Men dominated women and children. Rome dominated everyone. Even Roman citizens served the emperor, not the other way around. There was no concept of charity or responsibility for one another. One of the most radical things Jesus said was "As you do to the least among you, so you do to me". His ministry was all about the sick, the oppressed and the helpless.

This is one of the central points of the book I linked to up thread:

The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World

Regardless of the many and well known failures of its leaders and followers God has transformed the world by the power of ideas and fundamental reordering of social relationships in ways so profound that we aren't even aware of them anymore.

I'm also in agreement with what Insieme said about not being God and not assuming that Her motives and logic and methods will be understandable by us.

I'm not really sure what your point is about Ghana though. People in Ghana today are free to be Christians or not. I think that is a good thing.

What may have happened in the past may have in some respects been wrong, but it can't be changed now. Modern-day Christians are not responsible for that.

However, I think you're failing to see that there's a difference between colonisation / invasion, and missionary work. Those who invaded countries were usually more interested in the land and resources. Missionaries (who often came later) may not always have got things right, but their motivations would be to improve lives and share God's love, rather than steal another countries resources.

*Diego

"But that is true of all the current major religions that believe in a God"*

No, it's really not.

Other religions make demands that you lead a good life. Muslims have no assurance that Allah will accept them, until they die and he judges them. Buddhists try to live as well as possible to be reincarnated as a better creature, or ultimately reach nirvana. Just two examples.

Christianity accepts me as I am, warts and all, forgives me, and offers complete assurance that I'm accepted.

@MissConductUS what an example of God's power and the love he can show through other people! Thank you for sharing that part of your life.

@ItsHot thank you! Do join in!

People in Ghana today are free to be Christians or not

That's what I mean about your short-term perspective. Of course they're "free" to believe whatever they want, and then 70% of them just happen to believe in Christianity, what a surprise!

Other religions make demands that you lead a good life

I don't really understand this. They don't make demands any more than Christianity does. What is the purpose of hell if it's not to make you follow the rules?