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AMA

I'm an evangelical Christian - ask me anything

620 replies

Insieme · 10/07/2018 21:11

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! Smile

OP posts:
Insieme · 26/07/2018 20:25

Diego Christianity does not demand that you are 'good enough' for heaven. You could be a murderer and still be forgiven, and welcomed into heaven. Heaven is full of people who committed terrible crimes, as well as people who were just ordinary, human, broken people. But they've all turned away from that life and been forgiven.

As long as you accept the gift of forgiveness that Jesus offered, and are sorry for what you have done wrong in the past, God guarantees that he will not reject you and you can be sure of going to heaven. That obviously involves admitting you've sinned - pride is what tends to make that difficult - but there are no conditions on the forgiveness. No rules that MUST be obeyed.

Christians try to live a better life afterwards in gratitude to God, but they won't be rejected if they fail.

There is no sin that is bad enough to send you to hell, except for rejecting Jesus as your saviour and lord.

OP posts:
DiegoMadonna · 26/07/2018 20:35

Right. So there are a set of rules you should follow, but it's okay if you break those rules as long as you must show repentance. .

Interestingly enough, Islam has the exact same belief. If you are genuinely repentant, then Allah forgives all sins, no matter how severe.a

Anyway, I don't think this discussion is going anywhere so I don't want to take over the whole thread. Nothing you can say will make me think you chose Christianity due to anything other than social influence, and nothing I can say that will make you think the opposite.

Insieme · 26/07/2018 20:37

"That's what I mean about your short-term perspective."

I think my perspective is probably very long term. Eternally long. I would argue that the arrival of missionaries in Africa has left a spiritual legacy. Churches were built, the Bible was translated, the gospel was preached, and that's been passed on through the generations. So for people who want to believe, the knowledge of Christianity is there.

Christianity is a faith that believes people should be told about Jesus. I'd argue that there are African people in heaven who would not be there without Christians taking the gospel to Africa, now and in the past, and God will have intended that and brought it about.

How do you feel about other religions evangelising in majority-Christian countries? Personally I'm fine with it.

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ChoudeBruxelles · 26/07/2018 20:55

Insieme god making your grandchildren healthy and him/he/it randomly helping people or not is rather capricious of god.

ChoudeBruxelles · 26/07/2018 20:57

Insieme Do you think if you’d been born in Saudi for example you’d still be Christian or would your upbringing in a Muslim country possibly have changed your faith?

Allotment123 · 26/07/2018 21:09

I would also describe myself as an evangelical Christian. Last year my Mum died unexpectedly of undiagnosed cancer, that has really shaken my faith. I believe, I don't believe, I believe, I don't believe. I believe God is good and he loves me. I believe he loved my Mum and it's good she didn't suffer but I struggle. If I lost God I would lose everything I base my life on, my identity, my friends, my career. I look at the world around me and can't believe nothing made it, but then I look at the mess it's in and wonder why it's all so bad. I think God loves me despite my unbelief, then I wonder about other religions. How did everything get so messed up?

Allotment123 · 26/07/2018 21:12

That was a rhetorical question. I've given up on answers I've had too many, given too many, it's more of a thought process and I guess a cry to be heard

Insieme · 26/07/2018 21:54

chouxdebruxelles, I've answered that question at least twice already, so if you don't mind I'll ask you to read back to find my answer, rather than repeat it here.

I'm slightly amused that Saudi Arabia is the country of choice for this question whenever it's been asked! Of course the irony is that in Saudi we couldn't have a conversation like this openly, and if I were a Saudi Christian my life would be in danger, and all of us would have to pretend to be Muslims, at least outwardly, whatever we really believed.

Yet apparently I believe in Christianity simply because that's the dominant religion in Britain.

Majority-Christian countries generally allow freedom of religion, in fact encourage it, and few people become Christians from a non-believing background like mine without at least having considered the alternatives.

OP posts:
Insieme · 26/07/2018 21:56

Allotment I'm sorry for the loss of your mum. And I hope and pray that in time you will feel God's comfort and love again. 🧡

OP posts:
nottakenpersonally · 26/07/2018 22:14

OP what a wonderful thread. You appear to have expressed beautifully my own thoughts and feelings about my faith. You have also countered all questions with Grace and Goodwill. Thank you very much.

LookMoreCloselier · 26/07/2018 22:41

I really struggle with the idea that murderers and rapists are AOK for heaven as long as they are sorry. 'Sorry and I believe in god' isn't good enough if you have done something truly evil.

You also said that God would have intended the gospel to be brought to Africa and brought that about. What about the free will thing, which is it? Can he meddle in things on earth or is it all free will, down to humans? I don't see how it can be both.

MissConductUS · 26/07/2018 22:59

You also said that God would have intended the gospel to be brought to Africa and brought that about. What about the free will thing, which is it?

Since OP has declared a state of fatigue with this question, I'll have a go. One of the most significant passages in the Gospels is commonly called The Great Commission:

The Great Commission

In that passage He instructs his followers to carry his teachings to "all nations". Christians have been following that commission for 2,000 years. They do so as a matter of free will.

It's a difficult concept, to be sure.

Insieme · 26/07/2018 23:12

Lookmorecloselier, I do believe God acts in our lives and shapes events. That doesn't prevent our free will, because he shapes our circumstances and knows how we will act.

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LookMoreCloselier · 26/07/2018 23:12

Yes you are right, it is difficult indeed.

Insieme · 26/07/2018 23:20

"I really struggle with the idea that murderers and rapists are AOK for heaven as long as they are sorry. 'Sorry and I believe in god' isn't good enough if you have done something truly evil. "

Lookmore if you find that idea a bit offensive then you have really understood it correctly! It really is as radical and shocking as that. God's grace and forgiveness can cover even the very worst sins, but only if the person is truly sorry and resolving to do better in future. It's not enough to mutter a sorry and not mean it.

If God's forgiveness was only for 'lesser' sins, where would you want to draw the line? Would we forgive thieves but not murderers? Or maybe some murderers but not others? Who would decide what was bad enough, and what if we felt that was unfair?

So God is truly radical. Everything can be forgiven, and everyone.

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Insieme · 26/07/2018 23:23

@nottakenpersonally I'm glad you've enjoyed the thread and found it encouraging. So have I!

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Madhairday · 27/07/2018 08:05

Yes - grace is outrageous, that is its nature. But actually, to tie it to another post a bit further back, it comes down to God's desperate and absolute love for his creation and longing that they be reconciled. That poster was talking about her children and how she couldn't imagine ever wanting to punish one of them, even if they went well off the rails, so couldn't reconcile in her mind the idea of a loving God who 'sends people to hell'.

But that's just the thing. God is just like you, that loving parent who longs, yearns for her children to be fulfilled and to be in good relationship with her. And would do anything and forgive anything to bring that about. So you have two kids: one is well behaved and lives well and is easy to forgive for the little things. One goes off the rails and actually hurts the parent badly. Yet the parent's huge love for the child can actually overcome that hurt and can say 'i forgive you' because she cannot do anything else.

Grace is like that. It will forgive the worst of sinners and welcome to prodigal with open arms. The narrative that has become about God sending people to hell has it upside down: God was always about welcome and inclusion, about reckless love and scandalous grace. The only place that Gehenna (NT translation of hell which doesn't actually mean eternal torment at all) comes in is when people don't make that choice to ask forgiveness and choose to be reconciled to God.

It would hardly be fair of a parent to force a child to be with them and spend a long time with them when they really hated them, would it? It would be overcoming their own autonomy and making them do and be something they were not and didn't want.

God is the same. Yearns for all to want to be with him, but will not force them. That's grace: beautiful acceptance and forgiveness but never forcing a will and making people who really don't want to spend eternity with him.

petrolpump28 · 27/07/2018 09:03

I have tried and tried for many years to have some sort of faith. Funnily enough, I now find it impossible to be a Christian.

My last period of volunteering in a Christian organisation finished me off.

headinhands · 27/07/2018 09:44

about reckless love and scandalous grace

This element of Christianity makes me feel quite cross now. (No pun intended) The idea that all of us deserve to die for how scummy we are. How I'm so bad Jesus had to be tortured to death.

Do you think you deserve to die like Jesus. Do you think I deserve to die like Jesus. And should feel grateful that he did it.

Insieme · 27/07/2018 09:53

As ever, madhairday puts it so well.

I agree with her (if I read her correctly) about Hell / Gehenna. It's a place where people are separated from God, rather than the image people often have of fire and demons. And to go there, you have to finally reject God and his grace.

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headinhands · 27/07/2018 09:54

Lookmorecloselier Would you rather have the love of people who chose to love you willingly, or of people you had created in such a way that they had to love you?

I couldn't call it willingly if they knew about what happens to the people who don't willingly love me. 🔥

Skyejuly · 27/07/2018 10:17

This is one of my favourite quotes from a book.
Gradually, it began to dawn on me that the image of God as Father, Son and Spirit was at the root of the problem. No matter what I did, I would never be ¨in his image.¨ While I had hoped to find in God a father who would love and accept my female self, it seemed that ¨he,¨ like my father and most of my professors, liked boys better. I decided that unless we could call God Mother as well as Father, Daughter as well as Son, women and girls would never be valued.

Carol.p.christ

MissConductUS · 27/07/2018 11:16

Skye I also conceive of God as female. You might have noticed that I refer to God as "Her" consistently on this thread. My parish priest is a woman and we call her Mother Jan. I'm okay with Jesus being a male. No one would have listened to a woman Rabi back then.

Skyejuly · 27/07/2018 11:39

I think Jesus Female disciples would have been well respected too. (Until they were written out of history!).

MissConductUS · 27/07/2018 11:45

They were not written out of history. The Gospel of Mary lives on in Gnostic Bible. It was found in Egypt in the late 1800's..

gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm

There's an excellent book about it. You can read the introduction here:

www.gnosis.org/library/GMary-King-Intro.html

I've always been a student of the female disciples.

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