A quarter of British Christians do not believe in the resurection

[vorlon13]

And that kids, is how you start a schism.

Praise Jesus and his religion of infinite schisms.

[SteveII]

A great example of nominal or cultural Christians. However, if they do not believe in what is the very definition of what it means to be a Christian, they are mistaken in their self-identity. 

In many cases, it probably is that the person believes in God and is NOT a Muslim, Hindu, Jew, or some other religion. They arrive at Christianity by cultural default.

You speak of "the definition" as if it exists independent of the people who claim themselves to be Christian.  It's not.  Christianity is what the self-professed Christian says it is.  If 1,000 years from now, no Christians believed in the resurrection, your opinion would simply be regarded as a relic.

It does exist independently! When God himself comes to earth and preaches a clear message for three years, how much more objective can you get? John 14:6 - Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." If 1000 years from now, no one believed in the resurrection, there would be no Christians.

[LastPoet]

"The resurrection?  Nah, how did he get a stiffy after he died?"

DR Valkyrie prounounce dead way too soon?

Alright I will grab me coat.

[brewer]

You speak of "the definition" as if it exists independent of the people who claim themselves to be Christian.  It's not.  Christianity is what the self-professed Christian says it is.  If 1,000 years from now, no Christians believed in the resurrection, your opinion would simply be regarded as a relic.

It does! When God himself comes to earth and preaches a clear message for three years, how much more objective can you get? John 14:6 - Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." If 1000 years from now, no one believed in the resurrection, there would be no Christians.

More objective, by maybe providing objective and not anecdotes. 

Three years, for a god why only 3 out of 33? (insert sniggles here)

[Angrboda]

You speak of "the definition" as if it exists independent of the people who claim themselves to be Christian.  It's not.  Christianity is what the self-professed Christian says it is.  If 1,000 years from now, no Christians believed in the resurrection, your opinion would simply be regarded as a relic.

It does exist independently! When God himself comes to earth and preaches a clear message for three years, how much more objective can you get? John 14:6 - Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." If 1000 years from now, no one believed in the resurrection, there would be no Christians.

Christians have been retconning scripture from day one. Your declaration means nothing in the face of the history of continuous reconstruction of your sources. But I see you yet again appealing to the No True Christians fallacy. They might not be Christians in your eyes, but that just underscores the subjectivity of your opinion. The 'truth' of such biblical passages is whatever self-proclaimed Christians say it is, and that is constantly changing.

“I have become convinced that we must put an end to atonement theology or there will be no future for the Christian faith. ”
― John Shelby Spong

"We cannot understand without wanting to understand, that is, without wanting to let something be said. It would be an inadmissible abstraction to contend that we must first have achieved a contemporaneousness with the author or the original reader by means of a reconstruction of his historical horizon before we could begin to grasp the meaning of what is said. A kind of anticipation of meaning guides the effort to understand from the very beginning."
― Hans-Georg Gadamer

[SteveII]

It does exist independently! When God himself comes to earth and preaches a clear message for three years, how much more objective can you get? John 14:6 - Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." If 1000 years from now, no one believed in the resurrection, there would be no Christians.

Christians have been retconning scripture from day one.  Your declaration means nothing in the face of the history of continuous reconstruction of your sources.  But I see you yet again appealing to the No True Christians fallacy.  They might not be Christians in your eyes, but that just underscores the subjectivity of your opinion.  The 'truth' of such biblical passages is whatever self-proclaimed Christians say it is, and that is constantly changing.

“I have become convinced that we must put an end to atonement theology or there will be no future for the Christian faith. ”
― John Shelby Spong

I hear this line of thinking often repeated here. I just don't see how the interpretation of NT scripture has changed since the beginning. Do you have examples of where the Apostolic Fathers' writings on doctrine differed from Nicea, to Augustine, to Luther, to Calvin, to Wesley to today?

[Angrboda]

Christians have been retconning scripture from day one.  Your declaration means nothing in the face of the history of continuous reconstruction of your sources.  But I see you yet again appealing to the No True Christians fallacy.  They might not be Christians in your eyes, but that just underscores the subjectivity of your opinion.  The 'truth' of such biblical passages is whatever self-proclaimed Christians say it is, and that is constantly changing.

“I have become convinced that we must put an end to atonement theology or there will be no future for the Christian faith. ”
― John Shelby Spong

I hear this line of thinking often repeated here. I just don't see how the interpretation of NT scripture has changed since the beginning. Do you have examples of where the Apostolic Fathers' writings on doctrine differed from Nicea, to Augustine, to Luther, to Calvin, to Wesley to today?

It is readily discovered that the theologians of the primitive age disagreed regarding the soul's immortality.1 Several of them "were persuaded that the soul was mortal by nature but could become immortal by good works, or, as others preferred to stress, by union with the Spirit of God, a teaching they thought to find in St. Paul" (Brady, p. 465). Specifically the teaching of innate immortality is absent from the Apostolic Fathers, those Christian writers who lived nearest to or whose lives partly paralleled the last of the apostles. The trend toward the view of inherent immortality, it will be shown, developed with the subsequent Ante-Nicene Fathers.

http://www.truthaccordingtoscripture.com...O_iJWdw-Uk

As I said, constantly changing.

[SteveII]

I hear this line of thinking often repeated here. I just don't see how the interpretation of NT scripture has changed since the beginning. Do you have examples of where the Apostolic Fathers' writings on doctrine differed from Nicea, to Augustine, to Luther, to Calvin, to Wesley to today?

http://www.staycatholic.com/ecf_hell.htm

I don't know what this was supposed to mean. I don't see anything wrong with those writings--which are consistent with the NT.

[brewer]

http://www.staycatholic.com/ecf_hell.htm

I don't know what this was supposed to mean. I don't see anything wrong with those writings--which are consistent with the NT.

Yo, S2, did you just change someones post?

[Regina]

That means 3/4 do... which is shocking for a country of this level of education and privilege.