Are there any Christians on this site anymore?

[awediot]

You know who you are. Speak up.

[u-dog]

Originally Posted by awediot

You know who you are. Speak up.

Well... what am I? chopped liver?

[tdogg]

Depends on what your definition of "Christian" is.

I have some spiritual beliefs based in Christianity, which to me is the teaching of Christ. I'm not necessarily a "Paulian". But I seriously doubt I would be a Christian by your definition?

[BruceChris]

I am a student of the teachings of Christ. Beyond that, I may or may not fit your definition of a Christian. I would like to live up to my signature line, but I know that I don't, a lot of the time.

Bruce Chris

[Gennee]

I'm a Christian, Bruce. I am also a student of the teachings of Christ.


Gennee

[awediot]

Originally Posted by u-dog

Well... what am I? chopped liver?

I do not know... That is why I asked.


(but not chopped liver would be a safe bet...

[awediot]

Originally Posted by tdogg

Depends on what your definition of "Christian" is.

I have some spiritual beliefs based in Christianity, which to me is the teaching of Christ. I'm not necessarily a "Paulian". But I seriously doubt I would be a Christian by your definition?

Typically a Christians believes in the one of a kind divine nature of Jesus Christ, that His death was the sacrifice we can accept as the price owed for our sins, making Him "The Savior", that He rose from the grave, ascending to His Father's (God's) side, and that He will return as Lord over the new Earth.

Even that may be elaborating on:

Romans 10:9
That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

...but it has been a fairly cut and dried, irreducible description of one who calls them self a Christian for a long time.

[awediot]

Originally Posted by BruceChris

I am a student of the teachings of Christ. Beyond that, I may or may not fit your definition of a Christian. I would like to live up to my signature line, but I know that I don't, a lot of the time.

Bruce Chris

my post to tdogg. > Typically a Christians...


Is there anything in particular about how Christians are to treat people that hasn't been expressed by numerous other philosophers and moral teachers? If it's not a belief, but an act which singles out believers, what is the act that distinguishes them?

[awediot]

Originally Posted by Gennee

I'm a Christian, Bruce. I am also a student of the teachings of Christ.


Gennee

Thanks for the reply Gennee.

One thing about Christians is they will first just say "yeah, I am...", as though they all know exactly what is being asked and do not have to initially think about the answer... Then they may elaborate and qualify on their affirmative...but the term itself is most importantly an affirmation that doesn't care what this world has done to, nor thinks about it...

~I am too... A rotten, freakishly conservative, hypocritical, way to nonjudgmental, reluctant and blessed Christian who chose to be so, no more than I chose to be gay... Sadly, I am disillusioned by the orthodox/fundamental church that are my brethren who I'm meant to know forever, and often feel shame at the association the label brings. There are more liberal, loving and understanding congregations who radiate spiritual fruits that the mainstream mostly just judges others by... Many refuse to even believe such creatures as us can exist. I am a heretic to them and I may darken their Churches door, but I cannot join, nor so much as break bread with them... I've told many "so don't call me a Christian..." It doesn't change what I believe or who I am...

I am torn between recoiling away from the gay community as I am from what passes as the Christian Organized Religion... I am...just trying to figure out SoulForce again... Who are they, and what do they want, and can I ever call them "we", as I used to feel like doing. ~That God has ensured my knowledge, belief and faith not hinge on men, is a gift I am barely beginning to let myself appreciate.

[nmwolfboy]

i try to follow the Christ's Way, though i fall short more often than not. You lose me a bit on the substitutionary atonement doctrine. "Christus Victor" is the direction in which i lean.

Originally Posted by awediot

...but it has been a fairly cut and dried, irreducible description of one who calls them self a Christian for a long time.

In the West, perhaps. But it's hardly universal in the church catholic.

[Matt Algren]

Um...yeah. Why?

[awediot]

Originally Posted by nmwolfboy

i try to follow the Christ's Way, though i fall short more often than not. You lose me a bit on the substitutionary atonement doctrine. "Christus Victor" is the direction in which i lean.

I tend to think the "He died for my sins" pat answer is in a sense true, it is also a sort of sugar pill and blinding over-simplification.

-I've gone so far as to introduce the logical truth that whatever else Jesus was and did, He was God committing suicide... That tends to stir up some aghast, dead silence.

-please elaborate a little on what you mean by "Christus Victor"...

In the West, perhaps. But it's hardly universal in the church catholic.

I've never heard of a Catholic who didn't believe Christ was the Savior... They do put an excessive amount of baggage on themselves and way over-complicate the process with middle men, rest stops and spectacle, but they agree on the fundamentals of Jesus' reported nature, and I consider them a theologically Christ centered Church (though many would disagree with me).

[baumgrenze]

Originally Posted by awediot

You know who you are. Speak up.

I believe I understand how you feel, if a straight, 70-year-old can approach that condition.

Several times I've tried to reach out to this forum community. Others get responses, positive or negative. I seem to get ignored and excluded.

My most recent attempt was yesterday. See response #10 in:

http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6114

Perhaps I am approaching the 'wrong' community. I, for one, believe that it is essential that we pray for influential leaders like Rick Warrren, for example. He has involved Saddleback in an AIDS ministry. In the process he has developed a 'friendship' (at least a mutually respectful social relationship) with a married gay couple. I believe we should pray for this relationship. I believe that it can teach Rick Warren things that reasoned argument never will.

Such a relationship changed Jenne Dehmlow (I met her when my wife and I attended the 1999 Evangelicals Concerned Connection in Tacoma.) Other conservative evangelicals have changed, the late Dr. Lewis Smedes (Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Seminary,) Dr. Jack Rogers (Professor of Theological Philosophy at Fuller Seminary for 17 years,) Dr. Arlo Duba (Former Director of the Chapel at Princeton Theological Seminary)...If you don't know these names, look them up. Read the stories of how they changed their perspective. Change can happen. One very powerful way we can make it happen in through prayer!

John

[kara speltz]

Originally Posted by awediot

One thing about Christians is they will first just say "yeah, I am...", as though they all know exactly what is being asked and do not have to initially think about the answer... Then they may elaborate and qualify on their affirmative...but the term itself is most importantly an affirmation that doesn't care what this world has done to, nor thinks about it...

I am torn between recoiling away from the gay community as I am from what passes as the Christian Organized Religion... I am...just trying to figure out SoulForce again... Who are they, and what do they want, and can I ever call them "we", as I used to feel like doing. ~That God has ensured my knowledge, belief and faith not hinge on men, is a gift I am barely beginning to let myself appreciate.

First of all, I have to very much disagree with your statement that "Christians just say "yeah, I am...", as though they all know exactly what is being asked and do not have to initially think about the answer..."

I was born and baptised into the Roman Catholic Church, long, long before I came out as a lesbian. I do not believe you can generalize the way you did about Christians. We're all very different, depending on our upbringing and our specific "brand" of Christianity. What gives you the right to "define a Christian"? That sounds like what Falwell and his ilk do. And why think from a perspective of "we/they"? By your very definition you've excluded Mel White, our founder, who defines himself as a follower of a Jewish carpenter, and has a very hard time with calling himself a Christian. Why the need to exclude? Doesn't the world have enough exclusion already?

I've been part of Soulforce from the beginning, and we've always striven to be a multi-faith organization. It was predominantly Christian, but never solely Christian. I'm always grateful to my non-Christian friends for teaching me to be more inclusive in my thinking. Now thanks to them, I end my prayers with, "we pray this in your many names."

I'm an out lesbian at my parish and I preach, so I'm still Catholic because I've found a really welcoming community. If I hadn't, who knows..... While I am still a follower of that Jewish carpenter, there is much within the Christian churches that I find abhorent and do not support.

At 72, I've come to understand that there is no black, no white, but various greys that reflect the diversity of the world.

Kara

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by baumgrenze

I believe I understand how you feel, if a straight, 70-year-old can approach that condition.

Several times I've tried to reach out to this forum community. Others get responses, positive or negative. I seem to get ignored and excluded.

Sorry you feel excluded. However, after being on this forum for over 3 years, I can tell you that I can remember many times when I labored over a post and it didn't get a response.

If you've been around a while you may have noticed that many of the regulars that have been here for a long while are not currently participating. There has even been several threads devoted to the topic. My own participation has ebbed and flowed. My sense is that this forum is in a transition period. What will the future bring? I don't know. But if you stick around, I'm sure you will have ample opportunity to become a potent presence.

[awediot]

Originally Posted by baumgrenze

I believe I understand how you feel, if a straight, 70-year-old can approach that condition.

Several times I've tried to reach out to this forum community. Others get responses, positive or negative. I seem to get ignored and excluded.

hi John...it is nice to meet you... I'm 44, a strangely conservative, comfortably heretical Christian since I can remember, who happens to be gay...

~I've got a squirming can of worms I'm feeling compelled to open about and on this forum. It is clearly not a Christ centered site or discussion board (not that there's anything wrong with that)... I thought it was when I first came here, but found it to be more ecumenical, "Spiritual but not religious" and deeply entrenched in "New Age", polytheistic thought and hopes... (I could and will go on at some point...)

Not to steal away the dwindling membership (like, where is everybody?), but you may really enjoy GCN - The gay Christian network site and forum. It is much more geared toward the unique issues surrounding homosexuality and Christianity, and is not so much politically/activist motivated, as theologically and philosophically. (it is also much larger and more active) (I'm "Gamel" over there...and my real name is Dean)

~I'm happy to have met you, and even though a straight, 70 year old man can't really "get" the whole queer experience, your obvious empathy, open mindedness and under-appreciated wisdom will more than make up for the flaw of your heterosexuality ...

My most recent attempt was yesterday. See response #10 in:

http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6114

Perhaps I am approaching the 'wrong' community. I, for one, believe that it is essential that we pray for influential leaders like Rick Warrren, for example. He has involved Saddleback in an AIDS ministry. In the process he has developed a 'friendship' (at least a mutually respectful social relationship) with a married gay couple. I believe we should pray for this relationship. I believe that it can teach Rick Warren things that reasoned argument never will.

Such a relationship changed Jenne Dehmlow (I met her when my wife and I attended the 1999 Evangelicals Concerned Connection in Tacoma.) Other conservative evangelicals have changed, the late Dr. Lewis Smedes (Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Seminary,) Dr. Jack Rogers (Professor of Theological Philosophy at Fuller Seminary for 17 years,) Dr. Arlo Duba (Former Director of the Chapel at Princeton Theological Seminary)...If you don't know these names, look them up. Read the stories of how they changed their perspective. Change can happen. One very powerful way we can make it happen in through prayer!

John

I agree in principle, but have some block on petitioning for prayer chains and the like... Prayer is a very interesting topic in general... maybe a new thread on it specifically...

See ya around, and thanks for the ... AND mutual perspective... hope to see ya at GCN.

[nmwolfboy]

i didn't say that i disbelieved that Christ is the Savior, only with the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, specifically the idea of penal substitution.

Christus Victor, from Theopedia:

Christus Victor (Christ the Victor) is a view of the atonement taken from the title of Gustaf Aulén's groundbreaking book, first published in 1931, where he drew attention back to the early church's Ransom theory. In Christus Victor, the atonement is viewed as divine conflict and victory over the hostile powers that hold humanity in subjection. Aulén argues that the classic Ransom theory is not so much a rational systematic theory as it is a drama, a passion story of God triumphing over the powers and liberating humanity from the bondage of sin. As Gustav Aulén writes, "the work of Christ is first and foremost a victory over the powers which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death, and the devil."[1]

The Ransom Theory was predominant in the early church and for the first thousand years of church history and supported by all Greek Church Fathers from Irenaeus to John of Damascus. To mention only the most important names Origen, Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and John Chrysostom. The Christus Victor view was also dominant among the Latin Fathers of the Patristic period including Ambrose, Augustine, Leo the Great, and Gregory the Great.

A major shift occurred when Anselm of Canterbury published his Cur Deos Homo around 1097 AD which marks the point where the predominate understanding of the atonement shifted from the ransom theory to the Satisfaction Doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church and subsequently the Protestant Church. The Eastern Orthodox Church still holds to the Ransom or Christus Victor view. This is built upon the understanding of the atonement put forward by Irenaeus, called "recapitulation".[1]

As the term Christus Victor indicates, the idea of “ransom” should not be seen in terms (as Anselm did) of a business transaction, but more of a rescue or liberation of humanity from the slavery of sin. Unlike the Satisfaction or Penal-substitution views of the atonement rooted in the idea of Christ paying the penalty of sin to satisfy the demands of justice, the Christus Victor view is rooted in the incarnation and how Christ entered into human misery and wickedness and thus redeemed it. Irenaeus called this "Recapitulation" (re-creation). As it is often expressed: "Jesus became what we are so that we could become what he is".

These might seem like really tiny theological differences, but i see them as increasingly divergent. The Eastern Orthodox Church still maintains a ransom/Christus Victor stance, though the Western church relegated it into the background around the time of the great East/West Schism.

[tdogg]

Originally Posted by kara speltz

First of all, I have to very much disagree with your statement that "Christians just say "yeah, I am...", as though they all know exactly what is being asked and do not have to initially think about the answer..."

I do not believe you can generalize the way you did about Christians. We're all very different, depending on our upbringing and our specific "brand" of Christianity. What gives you the right to "define a Christian"? That sounds like what Falwell and his ilk do. And why think from a perspective of "we/they"? By your very definition you've excluded Mel White, our founder, who defines himself as a follower of a Jewish carpenter, and has a very hard time with calling himself a Christian. Why the need to exclude? Doesn't the world have enough exclusion already?

I've been part of Soulforce from the beginning, and we've always striven to be a multi-faith organization. It was predominantly Christian, but never solely Christian. I'm always grateful to my non-Christian friends for teaching me to be more inclusive in my thinking. Now thanks to them, I end my prayers with, "we pray this in your many names."

While I am still a follower of that Jewish carpenter, there is much within the Christian churches that I find abhorent and do not support.

I've come to understand that there is no black, no white, but various greys that reflect the diversity of the world.

I'm in agreement with Kara on the above points. You said it well Kara!

And John, Daniel's response to you was spot-on. It sort of depends upon the day, who is on-line and has time to read/respond, and what else is going as to whether or not you'll get much response to a well-thought out post. It can be hit or miss, so be patient and if it's a thread you are very interested about, try posting something new in a few days to update and you might be surprised at how a different day will make a different in responses.

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by awediot

~I've got a squirming can of worms I'm feeling compelled to open about and on this forum. It is clearly not a Christ centered site or discussion board (not that there's anything wrong with that)... I thought it was when I first came here, but found it to be more ecumenical, "Spiritual but not religious" and deeply entrenched in "New Age", polytheistic thought and hopes... (I could and will go on at some point...)

You really don't want to go there.

It should not be forgotten that the logo of this site has two people standing together, Gandhi and King. Gandhi, as I understand it, was a Hindu, and King was a Christian. East and West together- you might say.

I was attracted to the mission of Soulforce and felt that it had a place for me when I learned that one of the original ERiders- Herrin Haven- was a Buddhist. This formerly Pentecostal boy thought that he might fit in. And I've met some really wonderful people here, both online and in 3D.

I am disinclined to call myself a Christian these days. But I really don't think that it matters. I'm not interested in what the label on the jar is, but what's inside the container.

[baumgrenze]

Originally Posted by nmwolfboy

i didn't say that i disbelieved that Christ is the Savior, only with the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, specifically the idea of penal substitution.

Christus Victor, from Theopedia:

These might seem like really tiny theological differences, but i see them as increasingly divergent. The Eastern Orthodox Church still maintains a ransom/Christus Victor stance, though the Western church relegated it into the background around the time of the great East/West Schism.

Thank you, wolfboy, for the lesson in theology.

I have on my to do list today to write to Atty General Holder. The President sent an email yesterday saying I was to roll up my sleeves.

In addition to a few words about the Justice Department's repulsive response to the Prop 8 federal suit and their inaction on "Don't Ask Don't Tell," I want to draw to his attention this website:

http://change.gov/agenda/civil_rights_agenda/

Just above the section on "Support for the LGBT Community" there is a heading that reads:

Reduce Crime Recidivism by Providing Ex-Offender Support

I will urge him to advocate the approach that seeks to reduce recidivism rather than exacting vengeance for a crime committed. It's not soft on crime or tough on crime, it is smart on crime. I believe this approach also works much better for Matthew 6:12, if we really mean what we pray. Framed properly, this should be a slam-dunk with Republican base. At a minimum it will involve them in spin and squirm on a major scale.

Thanks again,

John