Why few can honestly call themselves Christians

[rug]

When Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, said he could imagine Christ being born in the Occupy camp outside his church, it was a striking image, but alarming too.

Published on 31 Oct 2011

Unless the son of God was still just a baby, would you want to meet him? I’m not entirely sure.

It’s a long time since I called myself a Christian, but the edicts of a church-going childhood are as hard to erase as a dragon tattoo, and almost as painful. Coming face to face with Christ might be rather unsettling. Would you drop money into the charity tin he was rattling? Sign up to a direct debit on the spot? Or begin to explain why you earn a good salary, but don’t give lots of it to the poor, all the while hoping he wouldn’t notice your Gucci shoes?

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/guest-commentary/why-few-can-honestly-call-themselves-christians-1.1132061?localLinksEnabled=false

You'll have to register to read the whole article but, come on, this headline's from Scotland.

[bluestateguy]

1. No!! If you don't work you don't eat! Starve! I don't care!*

*Actual statement by this pastor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mQvvGJYQaM

[kestrel91316]

2. In all fairness, this is a DIFFERENT pastor than the one in the OP.

[dmallind]

5. Which at least is entirely scriptural - 2Thess 3:10 nt

[Marazinia]

3. Yep, if he was real, I'd want to meet him

I'd at least be able to say I tried. And then I'd know he was real, of course.

[Book Lover]

4. I'd ask him what the hell his problem with divorce was, for one thing

I'd be just fine with not giving the man a dime, and giving him an earful as to why.

[okasha]

6. His problem with divorce was that it left the divorced wife with no means of support

unless she returned to her father's house or one of her children took her in. Too bad if dear dad was dead or didn't want her, or worse, she had no children. Very few options for self-support were available to woomen in in 1st. century Palestine. Men's urge to discard an older wife for a trophy was very much in evidence, though.

[Book Lover]

7. Thank you for your reasoned reply

Though as I understand the scripture, he equated divorce with adultery. I don't recall anything about how a divorce equaled abandonment. I have little doubt what you say was a very real effect; I'm just saying I don't see evidence that that was his position, based on textual evidence.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Women who committed adultery were subject to stoning, so

if the wife had committed adultery, she was usually killed, making divorce for adultery unnecessary.

Usually if a man divorced his first wife and married another, it was a matter of getting tired of the old wife and "trading her in for a newer model," which can be interpreted as a form of infidelity.

Remember that in the ancient world and even today in many traditional societies, marriages were arranged by sets of parents, not between individuals. You didn't necessarily love the person you married. In fact, you sometimes didn't even know them beforehand. It was a business arrangement: I'll earn the money and you have some kids and keep house for me, and as long as we both fulfill our roles, that's all we need.

In such societies, marrying someone you choose because you love them was considered immature and selfish and beside the point.

(In old Japan, married people who fell in love with someone else often committed suicide with their lovers, sometimes before the authorities could get to them--because adultery between two married people was punishable by death at certain periods in Japanese history.)

[Mariana]

16. He did not equate divorce with adultery, I don't think.

He equated remarriage to a new spouse, after divorcing the first one, with adultery. Divorce is apparently fine as long as you never have sex afterward (except perhaps with your ex, that may be allowed.)

[trotsky]

17. That's what I thought, too.

One of the reasons why as a Catholic you have to get a marriage annulled in order to remarry and be able to take communion. (And maybe not go to hell, too? I dunno, it's all so arbitrary.)

[trotsky]

8. Could you point to the bible verses that prove this?

Thanks!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. It's not in Bible but in secular research about life in those times

:-)

It wasn't like today, with court-ordered financial arrangements and child custody provisions. It was more like divorce in Europe and the U.S. before the early women's movement gained property and child custody rights for women. (Before the mid nineteenth century, a divorced woman was entitled only to "the clothes she stood up in"-- all property that a woman brought into the marriage came under her husband's control, which is why men in Jane Austen novels like to marry heiresses-- and was usually barred from ever seeing her children again.)

[trotsky]

11. I am aware of how women were treated at the time.

I'd like to know how the other poster knows what she said to be a fact about Jesus.

[NMMNG]

12. Other Ways of Knowing?

:shrug:

[trotsky]

13. Evidently.

Sure is convenient that god always seems to be on the same side of every political issue that the individual believer is.

[okasha]

20. I can't cite the verse because I don't have a Bible handy,

but if you look at the passage in question, Jesus says Moses allowed divorce accomodating the "hard hearts" of the divorcing husbands. (Women didn't have the privilege of initiating divorce.) "Hard hearts" has consistently been interpreted as a number of things: divorcing a woman because she was childless, because hubby got tired of her and/or wanted a newer model, or even, unfortunately, because the couople were genuinely incompatible. As Lydia says, you have to look at the secular research into the historical period, which would include the current flaming scandal of Herodias' divorce from Herod Philip and her marriage to his brother Antipas. You also have to look at the respect with which the gospels show Jesus dealing with woomen. It's in the context.

If you have a counter argument, I'm sure we'd all like to see it.

[trotsky]

21. So there are no verses.

Got it. Thanks!

[okasha]

25. So you have no counter argument.

Got it. Thanks!

[trotsky]

26. In order for me to present a counter-argument, you have to present an argument first.

I'm still waiting.

[laconicsax]

22. Here:

http://bibleresources.bible.com/bible_read.php
http://www.biblegateway.com/
http://www.readbibleonline.net/

[Humanist_Activist]

14. No honest person can call themselves a Christian, how many so called Christians here...

gave up all their possessions and left their families to follow Christ?

[laconicsax]

15. Oh, but that part's metaphor.

Just like every other part they don't like.

[trotsky]

18. But I am absolutely sure that Jesus opposes the things I oppose.

The bible is pretty clear on that - he does not like Internet trolls or black jellybeans.

[laconicsax]

19. Jesus does too like black jellybeans, now you take that back!

:grr:

[trotsky]

24. OK, thanks for the input Pat Robertson!

:-P

[Angry Dragon]

23. Was Jesus a Christian??

[Manifestor_of_Light]

27. No, but he was a badass, into smiting his enemies.

Condemning people to hell, and other such rude and cruel actions.