Christians who will throw other christians to the lions? I don't understand - do you?

Question

In a world so full of hate and divisiveness, why is it that there are so many people out there who are ready to trash people who worship the same god, simply because they disagree on one or two points of dogma? And Christians besides! Jesus said turn the other cheek and love thy neighbor - unless he is protestant and you are catholic? I see this type of division in a variety of faiths...What is wrong with people?

Absolutely chrstnwrtr - let's talk and discuss it. What amazes me is hearing one christian say I can deal with anyone except those christians over there or if you want a really bad person you need one of these christians here. You know what I mean? I see it on here a lot and I just don't get it.

Answer 1

I don't believe Jesus would ever have sanctioned a church (and all the killing, persecution, etc. that resulted) in his name. We must remember that he wasn't personally involved with the creation of the Church. Rulers of the time had a lot of influence in it's creation, which is evident in its glorification of war in God's name. Those rulers we very human and less interested in saving souls than requiring compliance with their rules, accompanied by eternal punishment for stepping out of line. This had been the model from at least the ancient Egyptians. To have broken with it at that time would have been unheard of.

So rulers needed to have reasons to go to war and "their belief system is different from ours" was good enough for them. They were sufficiently impressed with their own system that they were pleased to force their understanding of the "truth" upon everyone else. Even the Church itself felt absolutely no remorse in waging 1000 years of war in an effort to stamp out every other belief system, in the name of the most loving man who ever lived.

I appreciate Christians who do their best to adhere to Christ's words, but I certainly see a dichotomy between his message and certain actions of the Church throughout the years. I think Christians would do better to follow Christ's example instead of blatantly ignoring it while busily judging and condeming everyone around them that doesn't accept every word of their particular beliefs.

Namaste,
Gwen

Answer 2

What's wrong with people? Sin is what's wrong with people. We don't live in a perfect world, and the devil is just constantly hacking into our lives and making good christians behave like savages. That's what's wrong with poeple.

By the way, meantioned earlier "loins are better" Is not true. God does not love anyone more than someone else, even if one is an athiest and the other a repented christian.

Answer 3

Jesus didn't really say much about organized religion, which is why one can see so much division between the religions under the Christian umbrella. It isn't the people who are the problem, it's the teachings of the religious leaders. It is important to have faith, but organized religion makes it a practice to cloud faith with rules that can vary from religion to religion. Everyone ought to be careful. Fulfillment doesn't come from doing what one's told, but rather from having faith and doing what feels right in one's heart.

Answer 4

If you're convinced that you have the franchise on God, then everyone else is wrong and damned. In that case, you feel perfectly justified in making them convert or die since you have God's total approval.

I know that sounds bitter, but I've seen more hate spewed here towards other believers than anywhere else in my life. Apparently a lot of people believe that another Christian is only a brother or sister in Christ if s/he suscribes to their doctrine.

Answer 5

I am cutting and pasting something here from G. K. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy," not to be lazy or irritating (hopefully), but because it directly, succinctly, and beautifully answers the exact question you are asking here--and there is no way that I can answer it better in my own words. So...

"Last and most important, it is exactly this which explains what is so inexplicable to all the modern critics of the history of Christianity. I mean the monstrous wars about small points of theology, the earthquakes of emotion about a gesture or a word. It was only a matter of an inch; but an inch is everything when you are balancing. The Church could not afford to swerve a hair's breadth on some things if she was to continue her great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium. Once let one idea become less powerful and some other idea would become too powerful. It was no flock of sheep the Christian shepherd was leading, but a herd of bulls and tigers, of terrible ideals and devouring doctrines, each one of them strong enough to turn to a false religion and lay waste the world. Remember that the Church went in specifically for dangerous ideas; she was a lion tamer. The idea of birth through a Holy Spirit, of the death of a divine being, of the forgiveness of sins, or the fulfilment of prophecies, are ideas which, any one can see, need but a touch to turn them into something blasphemous or ferocious. The smallest link was let drop by the artificers of the Mediterranean, and the lion of ancestral pessimism burst his chain in the forgotten forests of the north. Of these theological equalisations I have to speak afterwards. Here it is enough to notice that if some small mistake were made in doctrine, huge blunders might be made in human happiness. A sentence phrased wrong about the nature of symbolism would have broken all the best statues in Europe. A slip in the definitions might stop all the dances; might wither all the Christmas trees or break all the Easter eggs. Doctrines had to be defined within strict limits, even in order that man might enjoy general human liberties. The Church had to be careful, if only that the world might be careless.

"This is the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy. People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic. The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. She swerved to left and right, so exactly as to avoid enormous obstacles. She left on one hand the huge bulk of Arianism, buttressed by all the worldly powers to make Christianity too worldly. The next instant she was swerving to avoid an orientalism, which would have made it too unworldly. The orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable. It would have been easier to have accepted the earthly power of the Arians. It would have been easy, in the Calvinistic seventeenth century, to fall into the bottomless pit of predestination. It is easy to be a madman: it is easy to be a heretic. It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one's own. It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob. To have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom -- that would indeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect."

Answer 6

First, let me say I agree with you 100%.

Most denominations preach essentially the same thing, yet if you attend the church on the corner rather than the one in the middle of the block, your condemned straight to gehenna.

Isn't that condemnation contratry to the teachings of Jesus? Did he not say "Where two or three are gather together in my name there am I in the midst of them"? as well as "The greatest commandment is Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul"? and "Judge not lest ye be judged and with what judgement you mete it shall be met unto you"??

So how then, can one person who believes themselves to be a good Christian and follow the ways of the Lord condemn another who is doing the same thing simply on the basis of where they park their butt on Sunday?

The answer is simple. Religious Politics.

These people have unwittingly replaced their faith in God with a fatih in their chosen denomination so they MUST condemn other denominations in order to justify their own message and get more warm butts in their pews. These people are following the teachings of a pastor or priest instead of those of God and truely believe that they, and ONLY they, are the one true gatekeepers to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Answer 7

All christians are not in the same place with the Lord and some of them needs deliverance. Nothing is wrong with them cause the bible says if one is well they need not a doctor and do if one is so christian and no sin then they need no church cause church is for the salvation to repentance.

Answer 8

you group christians into one big group, yet you do not know much about thier beliefs. the one or two points that you talk of are the bases of the religions. salvation by faith or baptism for example: one religion believes that the other is NOT saved and that their eternal soul will be in the wrong place. so the one or two points are HUGE!!! Just because I believe that catholicism is wrong does not mean that I don't love them. some of my best friends are catholic, but I do tell them that they should read their bible instead of just believing everything they're told.

Answer 9

Obviously you are one the wrong people.

What did Jesus say about division? The divisions he work with every day of his ministry. You quote (partially) two of his teachings, but what did he say about divisions?

Christians do not throw other Christians any where: Men throw other men. Everything you talk about is about men. There a saying if you put two men in a room, you will hear three opinions,

You focus on your world of hate and divisiveness, but forget about love and unity.

I will not bore you with book/chapter/verses, but here are the beliefs: Heaven is where God is and hell is where he is not. Earth is where man is. Everything you have talked about is on earth.

How does man get to God? Now we come to belief. What you believe is yours. What I believe is mine. Do we share any beliefs? If what we believe affects how we act, then we may march to different drum beats. Beliefs are what defines us and what also separates us.

Now let's talk about Christians (followers of Christ). If you do something that is not following what Christ taught, are you Christian?

Answer 10

I wouldn't hate on other Christians but what about open criticism about any branch of the Christian faith? Is it ok to question the Catholic doctrine?