Are you a good Samaritan or a good Christian?

[hiddley]

Don't know why this occurred to me tonight. Listening to too much Stormzy for my age I think lol.
I would consider myself a good Samaritan but not a good Christian.

For e.g., I don't go to church, I don't praise the Lord, I don't pray, I don't engage in charitable works. On the other hand, if I see a homeless person on the street I will give them whatever change I have in my pocket (usually fuck all) and roll them a cigarette.

I am also the type who will stand up for the one being picked on, which usually lands me as the new central victim. But ..........

I actually think actions speak louder than words and songs of praise.

I do recognise that the Christian and other religious communities are social centres for people also, but often, they don't carry anything spiritual out of their prayer service.

I just don't usually find people to be both. They are either one or the other.

You can tell, when they want to bring you to their church or pray with you? Thanks very much, but a Hail Mary ain't going to help me out right now, however good your intentions and faith.

You are not comparing like for like here. You say you are a 'Good Samaritan' (take note of the capitalisation here) in the sense that you embody the spirit of the parable of the Good Samaritan. But if you were to ask yourself whether you were a good Samaritan in the same way you wonder whether you are a good Christian the only conclusion that you could draw is that you are not a good Samaritan because you are not a Samaritan at all. It's possible to act in a way that is taught in the gospel without being a follower of Christianity by mere coincidence or even by design. I don't really see what they have to do with one another in this respect.

My question really wasn't about people you know.
It was directed at all of you directly.
That seems to have gotten lost along the way.
May the Lord protect us from derailing of threads. Amen.

So you are judging people who personally didn’t give you 50p when you admit you would have spent it booze?
That same person might be putting £10 a week worth of food into the food bank collection box or give to other charities.
Not giving handouts on the street doesn’t meal you are a bad person or uncharitable.
So I class myself as a Christian , go to mass sometime but would never and have never given to money to someone on the street. What do I look like?

TTbb but you do come out with some good ones. I had to read that twice to make head or tail of it.
Have you never heard of the term 'the good Samaritan'?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/muslims-are-britains-top-charity-givers-c7w0mrzzknf your wrong scientifically

Jonsnowswife - does your experience of one Sunday morning mean that no Christians are ever out on the streets trying to help others? Half of them may have been up all night working with Street Pastors, picking up drunk vulnerable girls off the streets and seeing them home safely or giving them a drink to rehydrate them, or giving people somewhere to sit for a while and talk. A few of them may be around a different part of the city ministering to the homeless in a soup kitchen. There will definitely be a few at the local hospital helping out and listening to people there. And a load will be in church, meeting together and encouraging one another in faith as Christians have always done. Jesus certainly revered the temple, as stories such as his boyhood visit and his anger at the consumerism in the temple show. Can't Christians do both and, or is it another case of they can't win either way? Can they not be in church on a Sunday morning, or evening, or midweek, and still help people who need help at other times? Perhaps the church meeting is focussed around encouraging to help others. On our meeting this week we had an impromptu collection to build a block of toilets in a girl's school in Uganda to try and give these young girls some dignity in their lives. On other occasions we have been out onto the streets and given out food and drink to the homeless and the addicts who gather in our churchyard - they know a lot of us now because we stop and say hello and listen and give them money and food and clothes. On Christmas day we are putting on a Christmas dinner for people who are lonely or homeless or poor or just need to be with others. Going to church does not preclude being out in the community.

Op I'm so sorry for your experience and so angry at the priest and those who walked on by like the priests in the original parable. I can see you've been to the depths and it must have been hideous. I wonder if those saying they'd pray said it because they really would and felt it might actually help - I so hope they showed their love in practical action, as well. As James said, faith without works is useless.

As for priests/Christians thinking they're better than others, if they are then they've simply got the wrong memo about Christianity. The first will be last, the last will be first. Christianity is a faith system which subverts the social and evolutionary narrative of the strongest winning out and promotes the weak and the powerless. Jesus was utterly radical in his uncompromising teaching about how we should treat the vulnerable and the marginalised, and if these.so called Christians are choosing to ignore those founder's example then they are paying lip service to the name of their faith. I'm so sad that Christianity has come to be so mixed up with pharisaic behaviour when that is the very thing it existed to go up against and rail against in its countercultural message of liberty and justice.

I hope you're doing ok now, OP

That's your choice cantspell. As I've said. You only gain empathy for a situation when you've been in similar. I wasn't entitled to food banks either as had no-one to refer me.

Do you want to know what happened me one day? I was sitting on a bench in MY park (it sort of became that to me) and some lovely friendly guy came and sat chatting. He then offered me £5 to give him a blow-job.
Thanks be to God, there were people who threw me a few pence here and there to save me having to do that.
But you stay up there on your white horse. I hope you never fall off it.

hiddley you realise there are samaritans living today practising a religion called samaritanism in israel

It's a shame the all-powerful deity the Christians fawn over can't be arsed to help the needy. Maybe it's part of some unfathomable plan.

Both.

Christians are not perfect by any means. I know I am not but I do at least try!

We are encouraged to serve our communities. I have 4 volunteer roles within my community.

Our city churches run the night shelter and the good bank.

They also run a counselling device and a debt counselling service (widely used by everyone not particularly for Christians), a scheme to help adults with learning difficulties work in gardening, supports an orphanage in Africa and a guest house (to increase tourism) in Africa, offers lifts to people without transport, a befriending service for lonely elderly people, a weekly lunch for elderly people, again all these things are for the wider community not specific or Christians, provides the tea,coffee and cake for prison visitors.

There are more I am sure but those are the ones I know off the top off my head.

Most Christians also tythe and then give generously on top of that.

Christians are encouraged not to boast about their service - don’t blow your own trumpet - it’s between you and God.

I know serving is not exclusive to Christians and I don’t mean to imply that it is. I am simply pointing out. Some of the things we do to address the OP’s point that Christians are not Samaritans. As it’s a story often preached on in church I think most Christians try to be good Samaritans!

And before anyone suggests it NO Christians don’t do good things in order to earn their place in heaven.

No one is good enough for heaven! We all do mean things or things that are wrong even Mother Teresa did! That’s the whole point of Jesus sacrificing himself - he has attained for our sins already. All we have to do to go to heaven is accept his gift.

Christians serve as Jesus taught us to love one another and take care of one another - not to earn a place in heaven.

I am sorry that happened to you but you admit you would use the money to buy booze. I don’t have masses to give but what I can give I want to do the most good.
Most areas have church homeless projects now and I would give to them who are then in a position to offer real help to get people off the street and help with those with addiction problems.
Oh and you know fuck all about my life so piss off with the Whitehorse comments.

BartholinsSister - I think it's a great shame that after billions of years of evolution humanity can't seem to get its act together to feed the hungry and tend the broken, don't you? Even though the earth is richly enough resourced for every person living on it?

Food banks not good banks!

Bartholins - maybe it is down to us to try and help the needy people - that’s what Jesus taught us. Perhaps that is how God acts - through is.
God has all of eternity to make iit up to people who have suffered.

runners PP thinks she can tell what religion people are. It's some kind of psychic ability she believes she has.
OP Why do you say I wouldn't give to a beggar? How about you stick your offensive guesswork up your smug arse?

op I've just reread the thread. You are easily the most judgmental poster on it. You're a truly nasty piece of work

cantspell she's directed her smug judgmental ignorant superiority complex my way too. Thoroughly unpleasant

'May the Lord protect us from derailing of threads. Amen.'
I'm not a church goer but still find it odd your keenness to mock those that do

'I've just reread the thread. You are easily the most judgmental poster on it.'

Yes, it is quite ironic given the subject really.

I am neither a Good Samaritan or a good Christian.

People can lead good meaningful lives regardless of faith or lack of it, and vice versa.

The Good Samaritan is a Christian parable about how to behave and respond to people in need. A good Christian should do what the Samaritan did and not walk past on the other side. It shows that paying lip service to religious and moral teachings is an age-old concern. Read a Martin Luther and Soren Kierkegaard if you are interested in reading discussions on faith, good works and church attendance at different points in history.

I'm a priest and a get a lot of homeless people knocking on my door because it says Vicarage. I do not give money but I will cook a hot meal, make tea, keep a stock of clothes and shoes and sleeping bags to give out of that stuff has got wet or old. I will buy bus tickets if I'm told where to and put I'll put money on energy cards. Mostly I get thanks. My church is about to,open a nightshelter for the local homeless.

Fairly often I'm shouted at by callers at my door for not being a good Christian when I wont stump up £50 for a rail ticket to visit their dying granny. I've had some get very aggressive when they don't get what they want and the diocese is upgrading the security on the Vicarage because of lone working. So I'm sorry that the priest gave the OP a hard time. It shouldn't happen but sometimes it does because we have just come in from sitting with a family who have lost a child or a failed asylum seeker and unlike Jesus we are not perfect.

I suppose what I'm thinking is that Christians tend to believe that attending church achieves their spiritual obligations

No, we don't actually

'But you stay up there on your white horse. I hope you never fall off it.'
Why would you presume that other posters aren't experiencing hardship?

'Atheists and Christians (declared, I'm not sure if other faiths/non-faiths also commented) tried to help you. It's the same in life, some people try to help and some don't, some can and some can't, but it doesn't depend on their faith or lack of it.'

This! ^

madhair sadly despite all the evolution we still don't have the omnipotent power of the Christians' invisible friend.