To my fellow Christians, Can we coexist?

Question

To my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ,

I write to you in the same way I have written to the atheists and nonbelievers that use this forum or around the world, without out pretext or agenda but with curiosity, love and a desire to see peace in this world.


We live in precarious times, a world in turmoil, unmentionable suffering, the weight of sin, one needs only look into the last lines of the book of Judges to get a glimpse of the state of our world.

The sad truth is we are as much to blame for the mess this world is in as anybody. We have a part and historically have had a part in the problems and challenges of the world.

I will admit I am struggling to understand and grasp where we are as believers in this world and what our role and responsibility really is. What I have seen in this forum and in my life is troublesome. Because I have seen and read the hypocrisy of many believers who carry with them as much malice, hate, spite and conceit as many of the nonbeliever

they engage. I don’t understand.

When I reflect in my prayer life on Christ’s teachings I am reminded that we are sinful human beings that have a tendency to overcomplicate things. Jesus said I give to you a new commandment. “love the lord God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and to love your neighbor as yourself.

Love your neighbor.

Notice carefully that Jesus didn’t put an asterix by the second commandment he gave. There is no love your neighbor but there. No but if they disagree with you don’t love them, no love them except if they’re the right gender, race or orientation. But simply to love them, and have we are we truly doing that? Are we truly demonstrating Christ’s love to all our neighbors including the ones who use this forum?
I think by in large; our problem as Christians is we do too much talking about faith. It’s everywhere, every day on TV, radio movies and online. We talk about faith.

But while we talk the world is watching us very closely. They are seeing if we back up what we say by what we do. And we don’t live up or come close. They hear us preach about taking care of the poor but see us pass by the same homeless person day in and day out ignoring their plight. They here us preach about tolerance but do we show it especially tolerance for new ideas or thoughts? And then they read us online and see that we don’t.

James challenges us by saying Faith without works is dead. I don’t believe in my heart that James is truly challenging whether or not we are saved by grace. Rather James is telling us stop talking and walk the line, back your words up with what you do, because what you do speaks more to who you are and what you believe than anything else.

Not too long ago I was in New York City near St Patrick’s Cathedral on a Sunday, and I saw an Old man about the age of 85, looking rather distraught in a crowd full of people, many of whom were just leaving the ch

. I watched as he pleaded with people to help him and I watched as person after person after person passed by. I finally found the courage to approach him. All he need was someone to tie his shoe, because he had a bad back and couldn’t so it himself. Something so simple, that would’ve taken anybody seconds to do, something that was done for each and every one of us when we were young. So I bent down on my knees and double knotted his shoe and wished him well.
Our actions not our words speak for them selves.


I know many of you do have do have a genuine deep faith in Christ. I know you want to share the good news of Jesus Christ, the love of God with the world. But in your zeal to spread the word of God as Christ commanded us to do, remember two things:

The first is we can’t take it personal if people don’t want to hear us, ignore us, reject what we say. It’s not about us, never was and never will be, because it is about Christ, about God and that person. We are called only to

. I watched as he pleaded with people to help him and I watched as person after person after person passed by. I finally found the courage to approach him. All he need was someone to tie his shoe, because he had a bad back and couldn’t so it himself. Something so simple, that would’ve taken anybody seconds to do, something that was done for each and every one of us when we were young. So I bent down on my knees and double knotted his shoe and wished him well.
Our actions not our words speak for them selves.


I know many of you do have do have a genuine deep faith in Christ. I know you want to share the good news of Jesus Christ, the love of God with the world. But in your zeal to spread the word of God as Christ commanded us to do, remember two things:

The first is we can’t take it personal if people don’t want to hear us, ignore us, reject what we say. It’s not about us, never was and never will be, because it is about Christ, about God and that person. We are called only to

to scatter the seed, where it lands or what happens to it cannot be taken personally by us. And I think by far we take it far too personal, as if we have somehow failed as if our faith will somehow be proven if this person accepts what we offer or not.

Secondly a wise woman named Amanda Millar Hughes once said of dealing with teenagers “the question you need to ask s do I want to be right or in relationship with?”

The same applies to our relationships with anyone in this world, which need is greater our need to be right or our need to be in relationship with? Important question to be answered

What I see often is an endless cycle of believers and non-believers trying to one-up or get back at each other for the injustice having been done and where does that leave us? No better off than we were before.

What I know is this:

I believe in the Constitution and the separation of church and state even though I am a Christian.

I also believe in free speech and will support that

I also know we have to find a way to co-exist, for juts as Christians or believers of any kind are not just going to stop believing tomorrow any more than you will start to believe.

My question to you is how do we find a way to coexist? Are there not areas and ways in which those who believe and those who do not intersect? Is the suffering in Darfur such a case? How about the Millennium Development Goals with the aim to eradicate poverty, is that not something we can agree on?

I guess my hope is we can begin to see where we have common ground rather then every place we don’t. To find a way to respect each other’s right to believe or not to believe.

Can we not admit to ourselves there is a slight possibility the other is right? I

As I said before I am A Christian, and I am willing to admit I may be wrong about matters of faith, that’s why I say I have faith because I don’t and cannot know for sure. I trust.
In the end I want to embrace the spirit of ubuntu as outlined by

by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a man I have the highest admiration for

A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.

From An African Prayer Book by Desmond Tutu

God Free You

May God free you, may God guard you night and day.
May God set you in your right place, and may you
Spread out like the grass of a prairie,
Spread out like palm leaves; continue your walk,
And may life be with you
May God place you where God’s stars are placed
At dawn and at night
Spread out like water of a lake
Be numerous in the feet of a millipede

Samburu, Kenya

Answer 1

I appreciate what you are doing by asking these two questions you have tonight. I agree that you wrote too much for one asking questions, but that is a minor criticism which you didn't deserve to be bashed for. I am willing to get along with anyone who believes differently from me. I know, at times it seems like this website is a war zone but that is because someone will see something that makes them mad, and fire back with an accusing question of their own and it becomes a vicious cycle. Don't let it discourage you when you see that here. I'm sure in their every day lives, the people who write one sided arguments here are really more considerate than that in their every day dealings with others.

I notice that not one Christian got mad at you for apologizing to non-be livers. I won't either. It was the right thing to do. But the key is to show what a true believer is, instead of talking about what one isn't. I think you have showed a lot of dignity tonight. Thank you for that.

Answer 2

Christians and Non-Christians have always co-existed on earth. There is no real choice in this matter unless Christians convert every single non-believer on earth which you know from your own statement that some seed will always fall upon unfertile soil . Even if every was converted, all new human beings would continually converted from Sinners at birth to Christians.

When we leave this earth Christians will only be around other Christians and ditto for Non-Christians. Does a true Christian settle for merely co-existing ?

Answer 3

What is love? Does it not involve an action of some kind? If you saw a loved one drowning, wouldn't you try to save them?

What is worse in your eyes - being called closed-minded and intolerant, or just being wrong?

In the end the answer is Jesus Christ. We must share this, or else we love no one.

Answer 4

there are various non secular Christian scientists like Ken Miller who have faith evolution. the priority is with human beings of 0.5 know-how from the two the factors. The Bible does no longer say how precisely the creation is finished (a radical assessment of Genesis Chapters a million & 2 will convince an alert ideas in this). Evolution can an attempt at looking out how the creation happened.

Answer 5

One question.

The bible says to hate sin, even the the clothes stained with sin.

I have no trouble showing love to those who just refuse to believe. And the bible says to love thy neighbor, but what if thy neighbor not only sins but persistently lead others into sin???

Do you mean to say that Jesus has NO temper? What did Jesus do at the temple when He saw people doing transactions? He took a whip!

Christianity is about love, is about loving your neighbor and most importantly loving God. If we cannot love God and His works, what makes us think that our earthly love will avail to anything?

We must know when to show love and when to show disgust. Not love everything we see.

Answer 6

Gotta agree with Dan S. Instead of pushing religion on others to "help them see the light", it's better to just live & let live. That is a way to coexisist on this planet. What someone else does or doesn't believe doesn't affect you in the slightest. Besides, no one has the "right" answers, all we have are ideas & beliefs that we happen to agree with.

Answer 7

There will never be peace until Christ comes back.It is clearly stated in the bible.
The radical Muslims & other s do not get what Christ was teaching & will ultimately try to kill us all to have their way.
I just hope Jesus comes back before they succeeed!Now think on that all you who oppose the war & our president!

Answer 8

I agree with Spanky, same here, I love with all my entire being both universal spirit of love and all others with all my my heart and soul.....and mind ;-)
There's truely nothing more powerful than love, particuliarly SPIRITUAL LOVE :-D

Answer 9

I love the Lord my God with all my heart, mind and soul

Answer 10

why even ask ,whether or not they can , is plain to see all over the world
so the answer is apparently not