spurly

I read the article, and based on the person who wrote the articles ideas, I would have to say that I have met a lot of people who believe in God.

I have met many people who live totally different lives than the people around them live, because they realize that their real home is in another place.

I thought the following quote from the article was interesting:
My comment to the person who wrote this article would be that they had lived their lives in a very sheltered secular upbringing. There are many followers of God out there, roaming free (uh-oh, watch out), who are living out lives of tremendous faith.

Kevin
(One of those changed people who belongs in an asylum)

HaysooChreesto!

Very well put. I 100% agree with your line of thinking on this one. From what I can tell, the only religionists who are practicing to the very word of what their holy text is telling them to do are the Islamic Fundamentalists...

Thomas Ash

I guess they must generate a lot of hot air...

Starboy

spurly, what percentage of the professed are tremendously faithful, in your opinion of course. Are you a US citizen? If so, as a tremendously faithful do you see your allegence to god coming before all others including your country or your family? Just how tremendously faithful are you?

Starboy

spurly

Unfortunately, the number of professing Christians who are tremendously faithful is a lot smaller than I would like it to be. It may be 10% at the very most. Again, that's just my opinion, and that's about all I can give. I don't know where you would find stats on such a thing.

Starboy, that is a hard one to answer because I hate to set myself up as an example. The only example that I really want to point to is Christ. I am a United States citizen, and I would have to say yes, my allegiance to God comes before everything else. It shapes the entire way that I look at life, the world, the future, my family, etc. It has got to be that way if God is real.

As to how "tremendously faithful" I am, I don't know. I fall short, much more often than I would like to admit. I am not always the person I was redeemed to be. But more and more I am seeing that I was redeemed to be used as a tool of God to bring redemption to others. So I am getting more and more involved in Mother Theresa type stuff, and less and less involved in me-centered stuff.

I am single, so it is not that difficult for God to come before my family. However, I have been toying with the idea of mission work for a few years now (when I feel that God can no longer use me in youth ministry) and that drives my parents crazy. But I will probably go someday when I sense God calling me to do that. I will admit it is easier for me to do something like that because I am single.

I hope that answers your questions. If you have any more, feel free to ask.

Kevin

[ December 23, 2002: Message edited by: spurly ]</p>

Starboy

spurly, thank you for your honest and thoughtful answer. Do you see there to be any conflict between your allegence to god and that of your country?

Starboy

emur

Helen,

The eternal security doctrine is quite possible, so I have to consider it as a possibility.

Whether I was too convinced or not would simply be a guess on their part. They didn't approach me after the fact to know how persuaded I was.

However, ignoring a former "brother" completely isn't very loving, now is it?

MrDarwin,

Knowing them as evangelical ministers, I can assure you that they didn't respect my decision. One of them told my best friend that I was "rebellious". (I have no reason to believe that he would lie to me about it).

Did I want them to confront me? Yes and no. No in the sense that I didn't want to be guilt-tripped. At the time I was still quite sensitive to that. Yes in the sense that I wanted to challenge their faith, more to shred their authoritarian legalism than anything else.

Diana,

They may have understood the Hebrews passage that way. If so, they would have written me off as hopeless.

One of the things that really bothers me with evangelicalism is that you are expendable to the system. You are loved, but only if you believe the way they believe and practice the way they practice. Fail to follow the system, and you are thrown out like old food in the fridge.

I admit that I am a deep feeling person, and as a minister, being treated like crap was very painful for me. Finally, I realized that I couldn't stay within such a restrictive, authoritarian system without either becoming calloused or emotionally breaking down.

It was out of sheer survival to be the person that I am that I woke up, and saw the inconsistences, the contradictions, and all the other stuff that is part of evangelicalism.

Because of my experience within that system, I do think that those within it (and I am talking especially about leaders) do not deeply hold to all the things they say they believe.

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Mel

crocodile deathroll

I think there comes a stage where people have to trim off the epistemological fat, and if that means ditching any concept of god then so be it.

CD

spurly

At times I do. Being a Christian is not the same thing as being an American. Some things our country does are great things, but not everything falls into that category.

Many things that our country does are despicable in the eyes of God. But I think the same would be said for any country in the world because all of them are led by fallible leaders.

So as a Christian first and an American second I have to think through my actions to see if I'm doing them with the right motives, and with the right reasons. Sometimes I am with my government, and sometimes I have to speak out against them.

I guess it goes back to what Peter called his readers in the letter he wrote. He said that Christians are "aliens and strangers" in this world. Our citizenship is in another place - and we must live by the principles of that kingdom first.

Jesus put it like this: "Render to Ceasar the things that are Ceasar's and to God the things that are God's". It's a tightrope, but I've got to walk it.

Thanks for asking.

Kevin

Toto

There are people who really believe in God. There are members of a small sect that you read about occasionally who step out into traffic because they believe that God will save them. Most of these have received posthumous Darwin awards.

There is also the Catholic Worker movement, people who actually try to live lives of voluntary poverty as they imagine Jesus did. They are a small powerless sect, left to impotently picket the new megabuck Catholic Cathedral in LA while those who have reinterpreted the gospel to allow them to live in mansions have prospered.

But those are the only people I can think of.