Sad our church turned its back on dd

[TeenLifeMum]

Dd has been to church all her life. At one point we moved to a different church that suited us more but we made lovely friends etc and dd was attending youth group until she was 15. Suddenly she was less keen but focusing on GCSEs so we didn’t push it. With clubs etc for the other dc, regular attendance dropped a bit but we were fairly relaxed.

I believe in god but have always had issues with “the church”, but put that aside to be with people of faith.

I recently learned why dd stopped going to youth - they did a full session on how they should pray for gay people in the hope of healing them. How they are so angry about people loving each other is beyond me.

dd is gay. Her girlfriend is loving, kind, polite, and caring. I want all my dc to have loving healthy relationships so have no issue and naively thought others wouldn’t care. Turns out they do. Two of her closest friends stepped away due to her being gay (parents we’d met through church) and now she understandably doesn’t want to go to church, and neither do I.

I’m angry. I hope they’re really proud of themselves from their high horses. On the off chance they’re on here - no, you’re not good Christians.

Thanks for humouring my rant.

Surely he only "core" beliefs are The 10 Commandments? Otherwise, who is senior enough to pick out of the bible what is and isn't relevant to modern day life?

These beliefs are central to the Christian faith. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 - Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
and Galatians 1 - I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel - which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!

@jayjayel This is known as false doctrine and is one way of identifying who Jesus called the 'wolves in sheep's clothing'.

https://www.gotquestions.org/false-doctrine.html

I'm not surprised by this (unfortunately), I used to church as a younger person and every church I went to taught and believed stuff like this (evangelical, baptist, pentecostal).

The important thing is that you are loving and supportive. You have nothing to feel guilty about.

Of course two people loving each other, doing absolutely no harm, could not possibly be a sin.

@Bogstandards i asked this question upthread but didn’t get an answer.

i used to think a bit like you as a teenager, (which makes me feel hugely regretful) but there was always something that didn’t sit right with me about things and I have been able to think critically about it and read round the subject from both sides.

Ive found it incredibly interesting reading about the history of the bible from a neutral standpoint without a religious agenda. There is so much that Christian theological ‘academic’ sources don’t tell you.

and as I’ve done that I’ve realised more and more how flawed it is, full of contradictions and inconsistencies, and how some aspects of the doctrine eg. the existence of Hell, have very very wobbly grounds (what did Jesus say about hell - not very much!)

anyhoo I’m interested on your take on Revelation 2:22-23 and the Jesus that is described there (murdering children and potentially a rapist). I was shocked when I read that as funnily enough in all my years of church there hadn’t been a sermon on that passage. Doesn’t really fit with the “what a friend we have” narrative does it.

As core principles go, that's fine - and it doesn't mention marriage, homosexuality, the place of women, slavery. So by that logic, all of those things are open to debate and interpretation, and no one Christian movement is necessarily right about them. That makes sense.

Of course I can.

For me the absence of God means that there isn't an all powerful being who is looking at the universe they have created, specifically this world and its people, and thinking that it's all fine. I've always found the 'free will' argument to be a really weak one, a way of giving God plausible deniability. If they're willing to smite Sodom and Gomorrah, why is there no smiting going on now? Far more comforting to believe that there is no God and that all the shit humans do is just because we're - well, a bit shit some of the time. And we can choose not to be, as evidenced by all the good, selfless, kind things humans do too. So as an atheist, that places a duty on me to leave this world a better place than I found it, where I can. It means I have a duty to look after people, bring them a little happiness, carry out small acts of kindness. It means doing my best not to judge (though that one is a really difficult one) and to think before I form an opinion. It's hard work, but it's better than the alternative.

Good post, @pointythings. For many people who grew up in a devoutly religious context, atheism is refreshing and enabling. We make our own meanings, and, absolutely, we need to act well, knowing no one is watching us, and without the idea of the divine carrot and stick.

So as an atheist, that places a duty on me to leave this world a better place than I found it, where I can. It means I have a duty to look after people, bring them a little happiness, carry out small acts of kindness.

This made me smile. It reminds me of a long running (good natured) argument between my mum and my wife- DW is an atheist who spends a lot of time doing ‘good works’ because she is that kind of person… my mum loves to tell her she is doing Gods work and will be ‘saved’, whether she likes it or not! DW replies that she ‘won’t go to heaven and no one can make her’, and it gets dafter from there.

Over 25 years and they still enjoy a good bicker about it.

I’m not sure it is ‘daft’, though. I get that you say it’s good-natured, but it’s pretty arrogant to try to recuperate someone else’s basic human decency into your own religious worldview and try to insist that a being the other person believes is your delusion is going to reward the atheist after death in an afterlife that person doesn’t believe in.

My mum is pretty arrogant as it goes, about most things.

Her and my DW are very close- she has known DW since she was a child- it isn’t a usual MIL relationship. My DW is often heard telling my mum to ‘pick up her mat and walk’ (my mum is a wheelchair user)… they just have the kind of relationship where they take the piss a lot 🤷‍♀️.

Mum lives with us so they have had decades of daily opportunities to wind each other up and thoroughly enjoy it.

What a grotesque message to give to a child.

Absolutely. Not to mention deeply illogical. You are born with some kind of automatic, pre-existing taint, which (hurray!) has been magically atoned for by a the deeply unpleasant death of a Jewish preacher who lived 2000 years ago.

One of the nicest elements of realising I didn’t believe any of this stuff any more was no longer engaging in the frankly insane mental gymnastics of Christian apologetics.

I agree so much. Not only is the whole idea of original sin ridiculous - because it goes against every innate sense of justice - but the concept has also been used to oppress and demonise women throughout history.

In fact the whole concept of sin is ridiculous.

What are people's experience of hybrid cars, currently have a deisel car and looking to change. Would ye recommend hybrid over a diesel/petrol car.

@bluesteps recommend you withdraw that post and repost in the Cars board, if there is such a thing...

nonononono, the core beliefs are the two picked out and emphasised by Christ. He said so very clearly! Matthew 22:37-40

Which by the way make homophobia a very iffy creed to adhere to, because he absolutely is not quoted as having said that homosexual love was excluded from them. And since the committee, Matthew, will have known perfectly well that homosexual love existed, their failure to exclude it implies rather more acceptance than that possessed by the small-minded and shrivel-souled folk who seek to exclude it now.

I didn’t say it was an exhaustive list @pointythings. These are the very basics of Christian belief.

@User364837
I am not a ‘baby’ Christian nor is there anything wrong with my critical thinking skills.

The apparent inconsistencies and contradictions within the Bible usually come from a lack of understanding and spiritual maturity. In order to gain a greater understanding of the Word of God, a person needs to have and be guided by the Holy Spirit. It is not a matter of intelligence or level of education. Consistently doing this leads to clarity and discernment and an ability to separate the truth from the lies.
The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:14.

Jesus actually spoke more about Hell than is found anywhere else in the Scriptures. As C. S. Lewis says,

There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord's own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason. If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it.

As regards to Revelation 2:18, Jesus is giving a message to a church which will exist in the End Times. A church which has become corrupted by false teaching about sexual immorality and has begun following demonic pagan deities. Jezebel is a reference to the wife of Ahab (King of Israel) who led him and the Nation of Israel away from God, into the worship of Baal and Asherah and killed the prophets.

And Ahab made an Asherah. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him. 1 Kings 16:33.

The passage reads:

“‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. Only hold fast what you have until I come.’"

This is similar to the warnings we find in the book of Jude. The example of Jezebel and her children are metaphorical here. We do indeed have a friend in Jesus, but many people make the mistake of focussing on 'hyper grace' and forget He will also come to judge and repay wrongdoing - that includes anyone who does not acknowledge, turn from their sins and put their faith and trust in Him. Having said that, even this passage reflects God’s great patience and mercy in spite of our failings (see underlined verses). Jesus is the Prince of Peace, the Lamb of God and the Good Shepherd but He is also the Lion of Judah, the Alpha and Omega and King of Kings.

Yep

Ah @Bogstandards ok I see, so the inconsistencies and contradictions in the bible usually only appear as such because the reader is lacking the Holy Spirit, lacking understanding and spiritual maturity.
Righto 😆

and people who discern the truth and come to a different conclusion, they must not have the Holy Spirit? Because surely everyone with the Holy Spirit would come to the same ‘true’ conclusion?

To give credit to my former self, I think I would have found some of what you’re saying ridiculous even when I did consider myself a spirit filled Christian!

Thank you for sharing such an interesting and intricate view point. I think I'll be pondering this for the rest of the day. It's wonderful!

There's a song I love called The Absence of God, by Rilo Kiley. If you haven't heard it take a listen - I think you would find it interesting.

Harking back for a moment to a sort of ultimate "and this proves it!" upthread

Corinthians 15 - Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

simply translates as saying "I told you this thing. If you don't believe me and stick to it no matter what, forget being saved, because it won't happen"

and
Galatians 1 - I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel - which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!

means "You are listening to people other than me, and they have got it all wrong. Anyone preaching anything I haven't given the OK to should be cursed!"

How ever can some people assert that Xtianity (a splendid word I nicked from Augustus Carp, Esq., By Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man, a book which very thoroughly shows up this sort of canting crap, and I don't think his name was an accident) is a cult, with people in it who want to be the One True Head Honcho? Goodness me, I can't imagine why.

Substitutionary atonement is a wild concept. Saying "Jesus was crucified for our sins against God" is like saying "You stole my watch so I kicked my kitten. We're now even. You're welcome."

It doesn't add up to anything like a coherent moral or just act.