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 Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 1:17 pm
This particular string of words is starting to get to me...
So, here's the story...
I have been getting into allot of conversations recently that I would normally avoid having face-to-face with Christians I know...
Honestly, many of the conversations are not as ugly as they once had been, and it surprises me... That probably makes me a little bolder, and that in turn gives me the fortitude to continue the RL discussions... Still getting several eyebrows, and a few shut-outs, and a couple sneers, but nothing overly ugly.
What is even MORE surprising is that there are a few people who, once upon a time, would have tried to cast demons out of me, or would have broken all contact with me, are now willing to say that I make very good points, and that there is something to what I say...
BUT THEN... The inevitable, DETESTABLE string of words creeps into the conversation...
"... I really don't know. You might be right, Heather, but I don't want to be one of the luke-warm Christians that God spews from His mouth for not standing firm in what they believe..."
But you just admitted that you are uncertain of what you believe how can you stand firm in something you aren't firm in!? How can you take up another person's war cry as your firm belief, when YOU REALLY DON"T KNOW!!!! ?
"...I wouldn't care if gay people were allowed civil unions were allowed to Gay people, but they can't call it marriage... I think allowing marriage to gay people does say something negative about our society. I don't want to be one of those Christians who contribute to discord in the church, but if a gay couple is going to live together, they might as well have some rights, just not marriage..."
WHAT!!!!?
So you just said you don't support gay marriage, but you can support civil unions that support all of the rights of a married couple? What's the difference!? A rose by any other name still smells the same. If you are going to allow people all the privileges of the thing, how can you logically say you are being moral by renaming the thing... All you are doing is masturbating your own spirituality...
"...But I don't want to be one of those Christians who is talked about in Revelation and the verse about the church of the Laodiceans... The ones who allowed all manner of unrighteousness to creep into their church, and so became unfit in God's eyes... I am afraid the consequences if your wrong and what we were taught all our lives is really right..."
Wow. Seriously...
You, by your words just placed yourself among the ranks of the Laodiceans. You are not hot about what you believe, you are living off of the words you have been taught since you were young. You aren't sure you believe them, but you are afraid to challenge your belief and forge it into something solid, BECAUSE you are afraid...
Yet, all three of these conversations, from which these excerpts are taken from the ends of, has happened within the last two days... I suddenly realized a major cancer in Christians today... FEAR...
I mean I knew it was bad, but while I was railing at what I thought was purposeful ignorance, and laziness... I realized playing so many conversations back in my head that contained these fateful words... That it isn't ignorance, or laziness... It's people afraid to be the one who stands up for something different just to maybe be wrong...
I want to re-challenge people here... If you have uttered the words of the title in regards to your faith...
If you are like me, and have been so exasperated with the other Christians around you because they refused to be open-minded and were at times down-right bigoted towards you... realize it isn't all just ignorance or laziness on their part, but that they are afraid you could be right, and they don't know how to go about developing their own personal belief.
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Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 10:16 pm
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Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 8:11 am
I haven't ever said those words, I am sure. But then again, we all have our doubts and fears, and I know I have doubted some things, and then questioned them, and then researched into it until I was bored...
Fear though... well, everyone has them, some people get over them quickly, others take a very long time. Some fears are good, some are bad... like fear of death is the worst of all... Seriously, if you are a 100% Christian, you should not fear death. Right? Right.
And your friend is at an impasse btw...
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Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 5:27 pm
This does not come from just one friend... each is from a conversation with a different person... Each one afraid of challenging the traditional teachings that have been repeated to them since they were kids...
They each admit that there is something amiss, but at the same time, they won't do anything to try and figure out just what IS amiss...
As for the church of the Laodiceans and luke-warm... I am somewhat in agreement with you Rob, but I think there is more to it that falls in line with the fear and stagnation that I have been seeing in my fellows in this neck of the woods...
Let me explain a bit...
As for Laodicea... If you want an object lesson for luke-warm, that is exactly the place that would understand luke-warm... You see, the city itself was supplied by water with aqueducts running from the north and the south...
To the south, aqueducts brought water from hot-springs from over 5 miles away... They were supplied from the north by a river if I remember right, but it was still far enough away, that when the water had made its way to the city, it was not hot from the springs, nor cool from the river... It was all luke warm... The water of the city was described by one historian as being very hard, but still usable, barely...
If you think about water, normally it isn't luke-warm and stagnant when we get it from it's source... It normally take water being removed from it's source, and remaining still and stagnant for awhile before it becomes luke-warm...
I think this says something about Christians and luke-warm... I think that when we become still and stagnant, we allow our faith and beliefs to come to a state of unchange, we become luke-warm...
I think this is why it is better to be wrong, as long as we are open to change, and always seeking to improve our faith, than it is to settle into what we feel IS THE RIGHT WAY TO BELIEVE... As long as your spiritual current is flowing, then well, all flowing waters eventually lead to the same place...
When people would rather accept what's always been taught, they have allowed their spiritual waters to stop flowing.
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Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 5:56 pm
Well yeah. If you are still and stagnant you are dead. We have been made alive in the living truth. A truth that grows and expands. It is alive. Truth cannot be stagnant for if it were stagnant then it would be dead and not truth.
I agree that all water comes from the same source but I don't think it all flows to the same place.
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Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 6:26 pm
To argue semi-meaninglessly...
Hot water evaporates, falls as rain, and eventually flows to ditches, which flows to rivers, which flows to oceans...
Springs are what forms rivers that flow to oceans...
It is water that is trapped that runs the risk of never making it there.
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Posted: Sat May 12, 2012 10:45 pm
Eltanin Sadachbia To argue semi-meaninglessly... Hot water evaporates, falls as rain, and eventually flows to ditches, which flows to rivers, which flows to oceans... Springs are what forms rivers that flow to oceans... It is water that is trapped that runs the risk of never making it there. Okay your analogy is making more sense now. I don't know why it wasn't making sense earlier.
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Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 8:09 am
My 2 cents:
I believe the only way one can be a luke warm Christian is if Christ does not play a prominent role in your life. For example, many people in surveys will put down "Christian" as their faith because that's the type of home they were raised in, but since leaving home have not since cultivated their relationship with Christ and instead have allowed themselves to be swayed by cultural and public opinion.
The mere fact that you and this other person are having this debate proves that neither of you are luke warm. At best, you two are struggling to make sense of something written over two thousand years ago. Sure one will inevitably be wrong and the other right, but as an observer neither of you are passive in your faith nor are you ambivalent about the role you want Christ to play in your life. You both want to be right with God. Also, fear is not inherently bad. We are suppose to have a fear of God (the fear of upsetting him). Luke warm people tend to make God out to be more accomodating than he is.
As the for gay marriage/civil union debate, I personally like to side with Kierkegaard (I think it was him) who said the church should stay away from the marriage institution. I look at Adam and Eve, the first husband and wife. Their union was sanctified by no man, but God himself. Likewise, I believe the only real marriages are ones ordained by God. There are heterosexual unions that aren't approved by God. Examples of illegitimate marriages are ones by celebrities (or anyone) that last a month, or ones that become loveless, or ones that were arranged for socio-economic puproses. Quite simply, if God isn't the center of the marriage, I can't see how it is "God approved". Approved, by society, sure! You'll have a piece of paper that says that, but the only people who know if it's God approved is the husband, wife, and God himself. So the gay marriage issue doesn't ruffle my feathers.
Also, I've met a number of gay and lesbian couples and singles (NYC) and at the first mention of God or Jesus they too often become cynical or ambivalent. If any sin condemns them, it will be rejecting Jesus before their sexuality.
(Digression: If Adam and Eve had a greater fear of God, none of us would be stuck in sin gonk . Heed the importance *and gift* of fear!)
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Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 10:17 am
I must respectfully, somewhat disagree with you... It seems to me that you are lumping all fear together, but there are 2 distinct types of fear.... I know the fear you are referring to is reverential awe of God... Respect for God above all else... But the fear I am referring to is the kind that makes one retreat. It keeps people from standing up and doing what they need to do... The fear I refer to is an antithesis, or total opposite, of the fear of God... It is what drives people to idolatry, because they are so afraid of the effects storm, they forget the One Who can abate it... The people I talk to recently are so concerned about being wrong, and that wrongness keeping them from the pearly gates, that they would rather continue the way they are going than risk not making it... They do not follow the Christian path because they love God, but because they don't want to go to Hell... They are so scared of Hell, they forgot the reason of the message they claim to serve... So they continue to denounce entire groups of people, who honestly NEED love, because they are afraid that not doing so shows a lax in their duty as a Christian. These people are not respectfully in awe of God, they are OVER-respectful of the possibility they are going to Hell for other people's sin... Jesus didn't go around pointing at individuals and telling them they were going to Hell for their sin. He held every man equally as sinners, but never refused the message of unconditional Love and Hope to anyone. The church of Laodicea became lax, not because everyone was allowing everyone else to practice ungodly actions to the point of normalcy, but because not a single one of them would stand up for themselves and do what was right as an individual on the singular level.... l Every single one of them had fallen into allowing their actions to mirror everyone else, and they had each, on the individual level, justified their lifestyle based on the lifestyle of how the majority lived... They went to their church, paid their tithe, gave to charity, did everything they were supposed to do, but they didn't do more, they didn't do less... They did as it had always been done, and they didn't try to improve anything... because that's just the way it is... They forgot (or completely ignored) the fact that there is ALWAYS room for improvement... but if you are not improving, you are stagnant... Luke-warm... Room temperature... Without some type of outside stimuli, you will remain that way forever... ...And stagnant water will eventually become toxic, putrid, poison. The people I talk to would rather stay as it has always been then challenge themselves to anything more than what they already have... because to them, being wrong=Hell... Not for respect for God...
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Posted: Sun May 13, 2012 11:34 am
You know it has to make you wonder if they lack faith in God's ability to forgive and be merciful.
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Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 4:02 am
Ah, that type of fear is an issue. The people you talk to just need to know Jesus better; I doubt they can be called "Christian" if they don't know Christ. He didn't give us fearful heart to shirk away from challenges of the physical or spiritual nature. They need to have enough faith in God to know that if they're wrong God will correct them as his children out of love. If we learn anything from the New Testament, it's that God celebrates people following him and will do anything to ensure they do. (That's why it exists. Isn't there a passage that says we are not under condemnation...I feel they just don't know the Word). I'll pray they receive God's grace and that a mature Christian to guide them in their faith. While they may commit the acts of the Laodicean people, it seems they do so out of fear and ignorance and not because they follow a "feel good" leader who holds no one accountable. In either case, though, there is always hope of intervention.
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