Lily Philips - can she be a 'true' Christian?

[mids2019]

https://www.premierchristianity.com/opinion/lily-phillips-has-been-baptised-i-pray-its-accompanied-by-change/20772.article

This article made me think about what it means to be Christian especially about the concepts of sin, judgment and redemption.

In my view Lily of course is a Christian being baptised but to not give up a lucrative adult film career possibly does cause angst amongst more traditional Christians.

We are taught not to judge 'Let those without sin cast the first stone' and to accept the universal unconditionally of forgiveness. (We pray every day about the forgiveness of sin) so it is difficult thologically to condemn others.

However does any fellow Christian need to remind Lily she makes money from a profession where many women with less choice are coerced and manipulated for thr gratification of men? Wr have moved away from a less judgmental Christianity but how do you view participation in Christian life with such a job?

No? It's like a pickle sandwich. If people don't like pickles, you can't just take the pickles out so it appeals to them and claim it's still a pickle sandwich, because it's not anymore (probably a terrible analogy).

"When a man finds a girl, a virgin who is not betrothed, and has caught her, and lain with her, and they have been found, then the man who is lying with her has given fifty pieces of silver to the father of the girl, and she is to him for a wife; because that he has humbled her, he is not able to send her away [for] all his days.

Read that to someone in the street and ask if it is the Bible or the Quran, and most people will say it is a Muslim thing.

It's Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (LSV)

It's Mosaic law. And Jesus did not mention it.

He did however say he would not change the law. ( But to fulfill it, whatever that means)

As for Lesbians. we can see that conservatives' evangelicals favourite.

Lev 18:22 And you do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it [is] an abomination. (LSV)

That is a law for men only. Women do not even count as people.

I actually vaguely remember both of those, even though the last time I read the Bible properly was in my late teens - I guess they made an impression!

It was astonishing to me over years of reading it how deeply immoral it was, how incredibly misogynistic, and also the fact that God was a very unlikeable, psychotic 'good guy' while Satan was an uncommonly reasonable 'villain' who didn't really do anything bad.

I always thought 'fulfilling' it meant the abolishment of temple sacrifices, and instead just needing to feel bad about the sin and pray for forgiveness.

And yes, women really just weren't people in that part of the world back then (or most other parts of the world, to be fair).

And to many of the modern day evangelicals, as found in the White House, women are still not full people, cos Bible.

Charlie Kirk was an example.

Edit to add. What "fullfill" means in this context... anyone's guess.

Absolutely. Although I think in their specific cases, they're often using religion to justify their misogyny, rather than having been made misogynistic by religion (although the religion probably worsens it).

But can't we do that or Christianity effectively does or becomes imbued with hyporcisy? How many Christians in reality take but if your pickle sandwich (which is a very good analogy by the way). I would hazard both historically and currently many it is just that they dress up extracting pickles with theological argument.

I am not so sure about that. I am going to take the position that the misogyny is because of the Bible. They tend to be Bible literalists after all. And the Bible is anti women.

You might be right!

Agreed.

But in terms of modern day Christianity can we unashamedly take the gherkins out of your pickle sandwich? Maybe all Anglicans have already taken an olive or two out when Henry the 8th for divorced and there may be an olive missing when Anglicans appointed e women bishops and an arch bishop? Haven't we got precedent for pickle pinching or is there a point that when there are no pickles left it isn't a sandwich ? (Apologies for the stretched metaphore!)

It's true that Christianity has already been changed substantially. I suppose you could say it no longer is what it was originally, and we may as well give it up as a bad job, as numerous alterations made by men over the years without having originals to refer back to, mean that it's mostly likely been (subtly) corrupted beyond hope, and will no longer properly convey the original message.

But if you're going to be a Christian, you should probably go the whole hog and stick to Biblical teachings as closely as possible, while still obeying the laws of the land. Otherwise, what's the point?

I think you are starting to see it from an ex-Christian now atheists view.

It's easy for the casual Christian or casual atheist to hand wave all the bad stuff away, but when one begins to read it all with a clear mind, it totally changes it.

And every time a Christian theist makes a point they think clinches their position, just bring the book out and say... but it says here. ....

Personally, I think the mental gymnastics needed to believe in it more than superficially trains people to be dishonest. At least within themselves.

I think we might be at the point where it would start to become a bread and butter sandwich! Which I guess wouldn't be a bad thing, but I'm not sure it'd be Christianity anymore 🤔

I agree. I think self-deceit, sweeping things under the rug, and ignoring the confronting and inconvenient is a massive part of Christianity - which is probably partly why sexual abuse thrives so vigorously within religion, especially extreme religious sects, with a focus on victims needing to forgive and forget so others can brush the unpleasantness aside.

I don't worry about them because they are not arduous, just part of being in a civilised society.

I just live like a responsible citizen with regard to the rights of my friends, family and neighbours.

I respect my neighbours' property, don't allow my dogs to cr@p in the street, don't let the kids play loud music to all hours and crash around if they come in late. I pay my taxes, keep to speed limits, don't nick stuff from the corner shop and don't cheat on my husband.

Isn't this what everyone should do?

I am curious to know what oppressive "Religious Rules" people think I am following ?

Why wouldn’t anyone not challenge impossibilities like a virgin birth?

Worshipping a god (don’t think it matters which one), no sex before marriage, abortions, same sex relationships, making sure you end up in heaven etc

Passing the buck too. " Nothing we can do about it, it's on Gods hands". Or " That criminal is just evil. Nothing society can do".

When there is a disaster why doesn’t this powerful god step in to help instead of it being “free will “?

Numerous countries are being devastated by fires - why doesn’t god do something good?

@RedTagAlan
What was it he done ? Pimped his 90 year old wife Sarah out 2 or 3 times to get money
Where is this recorded ?

God wants Abraham and Sarah to be the founder of a nation but Sarah's hormones aren't cooperating.
So Abraham gets permission to have sex with Hagar.
Hagar gets pregnant and hey-ho the next thing Sarah is pregnant as well.

How many of us know of a couple who want a child but can't seem to have one? So they arrange to adopt one. And lo and behold, the ink isn't dry on the adoption papers when the wife is pregnant. Don't ask me why this happens but I've seen it many times.
In Biblical times they didn't have IVF or AID/H but God knew what instructions to give Abraham to make sure he got a male heir.
Hagar was banished to the desert because the two women had a big bust-up and an angel (apparently) appeared to her and gave her instructions. (I'm not repeating it all because those that are interested can read it in Genesis)

It seems like a lousy thing to do but we are dealing with the customs of the time and as Hagar was a slave she had no rights.

Climate Change. Nothing we can do. That's up to God.

Or variations of.

And before anyone says " ah but Christians don't deny Climate change", I point across the water to the US Republican Party. A Bible in one hand, an AR rifle in the other " Climate change is a Communist China hoax".

A school shooting... not enough God in schools.

You forgot to mention that Abraham and his sister were married. That is, that Sarah, his wife, was also his sister.

Quote " Where is this recorded ?" ( The pimping).

Gen 12:14 And it comes to pass, at the entering of Abram into Egypt, that the Egyptians see the woman that she [is] exceedingly beautiful;
Gen 12:15 and princes of Pharaoh see her, and praise her to Pharaoh, and the woman is taken [to] Pharaoh's house;
Gen 12:16 and to Abram he has done good because of her, and he has sheep and oxen, and male donkeys, and menservants, and handmaids, and female donkeys, and camels.

A 90 year old can’t get pregnant.

Destructive events in nature are morally neutral in themselves.

A flood is just a wave of water passing over dry land. An earthquake is a shaking of the ground, typically caused by the motion of tectonic plates. Other “natural disasters”—volcanic eruptions, heat waves, cold waves, storms, and so on—fit the same pattern. They are changes in an environment caused by natural, physical forces.

We think of them as destructive disasters because of the impact they have on humans and other life-forms. If a flood, quake, or volcanic eruption occurs on a lifeless planet or moon then there is no harm. Such events are only physical evils when they impact life. Otherwise, they just involve natural forces moving matter around.

Sometimes an event is good for some life forms and bad for others. The cataclysm that killed the dinosaurs made the rise of mammals and man possible. If an earthquake causes a fox’s den to collapse, killing the fox, it allows all the rabbits the fox would have eaten to live.

With infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world “in a state of journeying” towards its ultimate perfection. In God’s plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.

Fires are caused by the abuse of disposable BBQs - do you want God to send a thunderbolt into the factory that produces them ? Really?

We have a drought in much of UK because we haven't used our resources wisely. Instead of being proactive and building reservoirs and mending leaks in pipes, Water Companies have concentrated on giving divvies to their shareholders.
Nothing to do with God. More to do with Man's greed.
Now we are experiencing the results of that folly.

We could live in a civilised rule based society without religion and many of us indeed do. Law is quite fundamental to any civilised society and we are all subject to it and can all participate in the formation of laws through parliament.

The problem arise when the law of the land does not align with what you perceive as religious law. An obvious example is Lily's videos are perfectly legal (subject to being watched by someone over 18). Those of a conservative religious bent will silently wish the production of pornography is prosecuted under law but they aren't going to get their wish. To a a Christian production of pornography may be a worse crime than doing 72 mph on a motorway but this is not the way society perceives it.

I think the misalignment of thrones of the land and regions law is particularly of concern within the Muslim community and from conversation many would wish laws of the land to correspond to their beliefs especially as Islam is quite legalistic or rules based in its following.

No but this is the OT when people didn't have clocks or a reliable measure of time.
Our Lord was in the desert for "40 days and 40 nights" apparently - with no food /water - he would have starved.
That expression is taken to mean "a long time".
If you lived in a town you might have had a better notion of time due to shadows sunrise/set etc.
If you live in a desert then one day was much the same as the next.

The common understanding is that these ages had symbolic value in the times in which they were written. In this line of thought, there is no need to justify the possibility of such long life spans, because the author never intended for them to be taken literally.
In the modern world, if we saw a list of significant people and all were listed as having died in round number ages (70, 80, 90, etc.) we would instinctively know that it was highly unlikely that everyone on the list died in years of ten and that the age listed was an approximation. In a similar way, many of the prominent ages reported in Genesis (Adam, Methuselah, Noah) are multiples of 19.

What exactly these numbers signify is greatly debated by theologians and scholars.