RE: Bible-less Christians
July 20, 2013 at 7:33 pm
(This post was last modified: July 20, 2013 at 7:38 pm by Undeceived.)
(July 20, 2013 at 8:54 am)wandering soul Wrote: But in Christianity there is not only the aspect of personal human tendencies which come into play, but a particular new 20th cent. paradigm, ideological stance toward conversion that has affected American Christianity and made it both a haven for the tempermentally xenophobic and an new added substructure of exclusionist doctrines which feed a set of ideas that give a strong sense of cohesion, belonging, support, and emotional resources but have the side effect of taking them out of natural human sympathetic connections to humanity as a whole.
That part is a problem, but not a virulent one as I believe the evolution of ideas and religious ideas will, as with viruses and bacteria, tone it down to less virulent strains with time.
Isn't the point of religion to go beyond physical needs and satisfy spiritual needs? In Christianity, all are accepted:
Galatians 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
And in Christianity, physical needs are not ignored:
Matthew 6
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
John 6
35 Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Matthew 11
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
Hebrews 4
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.
So I don't understand what Christianity has to do with some "new 20th cent. paradigm." The Bible has not changed since 1st century AD, and if anything, the church is more attuned to modern needs, with translations in over 2,800 languages and scripture available through every type of social media.
Of course Christianity is different from many cultural ideologies, but isn't that what you'd expect from a true religion? If a religion coheres to any one culture, doesn't that indicate it is a product of that culture? Given the choice, would you rather have truth "toned down" to fit a culture, or preserved?