Main Idea
Throughout time, Christians have suffered at the hand of other Christians; not physically harmed, moreover being associated with negative stereotypes. All because of radical fundamentalist groups who call themselves Christian.
Crazy Church People
How can Christians survive without ridicule in a world of media fanatical firestorms? Every day, media squalls surround us with church-lead protests, opinionated internet videos, and Christ centered NFL pro-quarterbacks who display their love for the Savior and condemnation of evil for the entire world to see. Moreover, when non-Christians gaze upon a proclaimed Christians, the temptation is to group Christians into a sadly increasing category of radical fundamentalists who are becoming increasingly visible through media avenues that help expand truths in the Bible and give explanations, justifications, and judgments that sometimes offer little biblical support. Comparing Scripture with Scripture provides a comprehensive coverage of any subject and leaves nothing to be misinterpreted. Therefore, the goal of this research is to help avoid the kind of speculation usually indulged in, which is that not all Christians are crazy.
It is interesting how mere humans try to interpret the divine Word of God and offer different opinions and interpretations. This is apparent with the fact that there are over 33,000 sects of Christianity. If all took a step back, realizing that the Bible is not about condemnation, judgment, rules, and rituals, but about what God has to offer to His people. So basic is this concept, yet people overcomplicated it so. According to The Story of Christianity, this all comes about from the early beginnings of the gathering of uneducated indivi...
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Hanegraaff, H. (2009). Christianity in Crisis 21st Century. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.
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The Best of Crazy Fundamentalist Preaching. (n.d.). Retrieved 1 22, 2012, from The Church of No People: http://www.thechurchofnopeople.com/2012/01/the-best-of-crazy-fundamentalist-preaching/#more-3851
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Each man trying to correct from within were pushed further and outward away from the goal of unity. We would have a different story if it were only one man who rejected the idea of the Church being one with the world. The individual would have been marked as the antichrist. Instead, we see a few men take a stand for what they felt was the truth, which we had strayed. Noted, Campbell has seen the destruction with takes place when man messes with God’s desire for gathering of the Church. Campbell states, “What awful and distressing effects have those sad divisions produced! What aversions, what reproaches, what backbitings, what evil surmisings, what angry contentions, what enmities, what excommunications, even persecution!!!” (Campbell and Thomas) Campbell’s biggest fight was pulling back the reigns of the world. Campbell extends ejecting all human creeds that cause divisions among Christians. He states, “… for their faith must not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power and veracity of God. Therefore, no such deductions can be made terms of communion, but do properly belong to the after and progressive edification of the Church. Hence, it is evident that no such deductions or inferential truths ought to have a place in the Church’s confession.” (Campbell and Thomas) Reaching out to across all divisions, Campbell has to be unprejudiced. “That although the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are inseparably connected, making together but one perfect and entire revelation of the Divine will, for the edification and salvation of the Church, and therefore in that respect cannot be separated.” “From the nature and construction of these propositions, it will evidently appear, that they are laid in a designed subserviency to the declared end of our association; and are exhibited for the express purpose of performing a duty of pervious necessity, a duty loudly called for in
N.T Wright (2008) stated that “When we read the scriptures as Christians, we read it precisely as people of the new covenant and of the new creation” (p.281). In this statement, the author reveals a paradigm of scriptural interpretation that exists for him as a Christian, theologian, and profession and Bishop. When one surveys the entirety of modern Christendom, one finds a variety of methods and perspectives on biblical interpretation, and indeed on the how one defines the meaning in the parables of Jesus. Capon (2002) and Snodgrass (2008) offer differing perspectives on how one should approach the scriptures and how the true sense of meaning should be extracted. This paper will serve as a brief examination of the methodologies presented by these two authors. Let us begin, with an
When looking at religion from an educational perspective, conflicts may arise due to the various interpretations when analyzing religious text. When differing interpretations appear about various topics, this can then lend itself to starting conflict among people with varying opinions. Using the “The Gay Debate” by Matthew Vines as an example, we are able to look at an individual’s interpretation of the Bible regarding the topic of homosexuality and Christianity. When looking at the argument the reader has to break down the strategies used by the speaker to test its validity and then reflect on the possibility for this deductive reasoning to be applied to other arguments.
Charles, T. (n.d.). A Response to HJ McCloskey’s “On Being An Atheist”. Retrieved from Carry your cross: http://charlestinsley.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/a-response-to-hj-mccloskeys-on-being-an-atheist/
Paul Tillich. “What Faith Is”. The Human Experience: Who Am I?. 8th ed. Winthrop University: Rock Hill SC, 2012. 269-273. Print.
Throughout history many different secs of Christianity have fought over whose theology was sounder then the other. In many places often resorting to violence to try and establish their views as the most dominant. However, there is one theological belief
Persecution has been a round for sometime and can be traced historically from the time of Jesus to the present time. Early Christians were persecuted for their faith in the hands of the Jews. Many Christians have been persecuted in history for their allegiance to Christ and forced to denounce Christ and others have been persecuted for failing to follow the laws of the land. The act of persecution is on the basis of religion, gender, race, differing beliefs and sex orientation. Persecution is a cruel and inhumane act that should not be supported since people are tortured to death. In the crucible, people were persecuted because of alleged witchcraft.
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...hal. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Called to Love: Christian Witness Can Be the Best Response to Atheist Polemics." America 198 (2008): 23. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 8 Dec. 2013.
While some Christians feel as if they are being held back by the American government and fellow citizens, it may be better for them to invest their time and energy into acknowledging their own public personas, and address whether their own behavior is what is ultimately harming Christianity. If they compare their actions to Christian priests in the former Soviet Union who faced intense religious persecution at times, they might have a better chance of bringing new members into their flock, or at least gaining respect and support from those outside of their faith. For instance, in 1972 Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote a public letter to Patriarch Pimen regarding the state of the Russian Orthodox Church. As being a new member of the faith, Solzhenitsyn
For centuries now Christians have claimed to possess the special revelation of an omnipotent, loving Deity who is sovereign over all of His creation. This special revelation is in written form and is what has come to be known as The Bible which consists of two books. The first book is the Hebrew Scriptures, written by prophets in a time that was before Christ, and the second book is the New Testament, which was written by Apostles and disciples of the risen Lord after His ascension. It is well documented that Christians in the context of the early first century were used to viewing a set of writings as being not only authoritative, but divinely inspired. The fact that there were certain books out in the public that were written by followers of Jesus and recognized as being just as authoritative as the Hebrew Scriptures was never under debate. The disagreement between some groups of Christians and Gnostics centered on which exact group of books were divinely inspired and which were not. The debate also took place over the way we can know for sure what God would have us include in a book of divinely inspired writings. This ultimately led to the formation of the Biblical canon in the next centuries. Some may ask, “Isn’t Jesus really the only thing that we can and should call God’s Word?” and “Isn’t the Bible just a man made collection of writings all centered on the same thing, Jesus Christ?” This paper summarizes some of the evidences for the Old and New Testament canon’s accuracy in choosing God breathed, authoritative writings and then reflects on the wide ranging
2) Gollwitzer, Helmut. The Existence of God: As Confessed By Faith. Philadelphia: The Westminister Press, 1965
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“ Meyer. 916-17 Emanuel, James A. “Hughes’s Attitudes toward Religion.” Meyer. 914-15. The. Hughes, a.k.a.
Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity. 2nd ed. New York City, NY: HarperOne, 2010.