• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

A Christian believes --------------------------------?

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
I had one very good friend who was a Buddhist, with Christian leanings. I met him because I answered his Craigslist ad for some electronics. My late husband and I used to go over to his house and chat and later I kept in touch with him by e-mail, but eventually I lost track of him. There are a lot of Buddhist temples around where I live, so I assume there are a fair share of Buddhists in this area.
You know, it is just so enriching to learn about others and their different points of view. I first began venturing outside of my highly sheltered faith when I was 16 and began visiting other places of worship. I realize that many people are just bored silly by religion, and others are so dogmatic that they can't risk being "corrupted" by outsiders. But I honestly think that it is of enormous value to get to know our neighbors better. I think everyone should look up what Buddhist temples or Islamic mosques or whatever are in their neighborhood, and pay them a visit or two. But yeah, I know that's just me.
 

Sgt. Pepper

All you need is love.
I had one very good friend who was a Buddhist, with Christian leanings. I met him because I answered his Craigslist ad for some electronics. My late husband and I used to go over to his house and chat and later I kept in touch with him by e-mail, but eventually I lost track of him. There are a lot of Buddhist temples around where I live, so I assume there are a fair share of Buddhists in this area.

I've never met a Buddhist, although I've met people of other faiths. I'm ashamed to say that I tried to convert many of them to Christianity while I was an evangelistic street preacher. I regret that. I also regret attempting to convert other Christians to evangelical Christianity, which I believed was the only true Christianity. I feel deep remorse for those who did convert, and I hope that they were able to overcome the Christian indoctrination I subjected them to.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
I've had Tarot cards read for me before, including by someone from this forum. Each reading was a personal endeavor, so I won't go into any details about the cards or what they revealed to me, but I will say that everything that the cards predicted came true after each reading. The positive outcomes of these readings inspired me to learn to read them myself. I have my own decks now, but I use them strictly for personal reasons. I don't read them for others.
I usually find that people who read for themselves are often in error because they are predisposed to think a certain way. I read by the Holy Spirit so the results are much better since they don't come from me. If I read for other I don't let them touch the cards because then their own dispositions tend to cloud the reading.
 

Sumadji

Active Member
I don't know the doctrines of those well enough to say but I can hope they are better than Roman Catholics.
Well whatever you believe, there would be no 99 thousand 21st Century Christian churches if not for the Catholic church which for all it's human faults and human failings down the centuries, is the church that preserved the gospels and new testament writings down through 1500 years until the printing press and Martin Luther -- faithfully copied and passed on by countless generations of unremembered Catholic monks.

Without the Catholic church you cast aside as not Christian, there would be no gospels, no new testament, no memory or knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
 
Last edited:

Sumadji

Active Member
I don't know the doctrines of those well enough to say but I can hope they are better than Roman Catholics.
The Catholic Church is the biggest non-gov charity on earth, and has missionaries working with lepers and aids patients in the most difficult and dangerous places in the world

"Stalin famously said of the Church, “The Pope! How many divisions has he?” Less well known is Churchill’s response that Stalin “might have mentioned a number of legions not always visible on parade”. Indeed, the reach and influence of the Church are not easily described by statistics alone, yet the raw statistics are staggering enough.

The Church operates more than 140,000 schools, 10,000 orphanages, 5,000 hospitals and some 16,000 other health clinics. Caritas, the umbrella organisation for Catholic aid agencies, estimates that spending by its affiliates totals between £2 billion and £4 billion, making it one of the biggest aid agencies in the world.

Even these numbers only tell half the tale. Caritas does not include development spending by a host of religious orders and other Catholic charities, while most of the 200,000 Catholic parishes around the world operate their own small-scale charitable projects which are never picked up in official figures. Establishing like-for-like comparisons is hard, but there can be little doubt that in pretty much every field of social action, from education to health to social care, the Church is the largest and most significant non-state organisation in the world.

A sceptic might point out that that influence can be both positive and negative. So, for example, it might be queried whether the Church’s work in education or health would be more effective if control was switched to the state. In some ways, this is the wrong question – in much of the developing world, if the Church was not involved, the services would not be provided at all. But there is a good deal of research which has attempted to compare the performance of Catholic provision of education or health with that of other providers and, in general, Catholic institutions come out rather well.

The health analyst Kenneth White, of Virginia Commonwealth University, found Catholic hospitals in the US to be on average more efficient than equivalent secular hospitals. This was a particularly remarkable finding given that he also discovered evidence that Catholic hospitals, reflecting their mission to reach out to disadvantaged communities, were providing more compassionate care and stigmatised services (to groups that often face discrimination) than other providers.

In Africa, a recent research review found not only that maternal care at Church-run mission hospitals was of the same or better quality than at public facilities, but that Church hospitals were also more likely to offer services accessible to the poor.

Looking at education ... it is well established that Catholic schools perform exceptionally well on standard academic criteria …"
Read Full Article

Bradburne pic.jpg
Mutemwa leper centre in Zimbabwe

Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of raising questions, doubts, inquiries, but is living, is able to unsettle, is able to enliven. It has a face that is supple, a body that moves and develops, flesh that is tender; Christian doctrine is called Jesus Christ
Pope Francis
 
Last edited:

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
The Catholic Church is the biggest non-gov charity on earth, and has missionaries working with lepers and aids patients in the most difficult and dangerous places in the world
Certainly in my area, the two charities that get the largest percent of your donation dollar to the actual people they are helping are Catholic Charities and Salvation Army. It may be different elsewhere. I think United Way was way at the bottom. Some charities spend 80% of donations on fundraising. Believe it or not, there are some charities taht spend 95% on the salaries of their executives (can you say scam?)

As a former educator, I always found it curious that Parochial Schools delivered a far superior academic education for about half the price of public schools.

I don't think anyone doubts that the Catholic church is megalithic. It is the largest denomination of the largest religion in the word, having approximately 1.4 billion Catholics. Being huge like that has its advantages, but also disadvantages. Max Weber's work on bureaucracy highlights how hierarchical structures can lead to inefficiencies and rigidity, particularly in large organizations. His theories suggest that the more formalized and structured an organization is, the more resistant it may be to change.
 

Sumadji

Active Member
It is the largest denomination of the largest religion in the word, having approximately 1.4 billion Catholics.
Thank you. I'm just trying to correct the image of the Catholic church as centred on the Vatican with the collection money going to golden thrones for cardinals and child abusers. The majority of Catholics are ordinary people in areas like South America and Africa, and it was always the simple monks who preserved the scriptures and liturgies day to day, during all the centuries of war and change, that modern churches take for granted, while dismissing Catholicism.
Being huge like that has its advantages, but also disadvantages. Max Weber's work on bureaucracy highlights how hierarchical structures can lead to inefficiencies and rigidity, particularly in large organizations. His theories suggest that the more formalized and structured an organization is, the more resistant it may be to change.
The Pope is like a politician having to walk the tightrope between the extreme liberal and extreme conservative factions, having to sell his ideas about change to a college of cardinals

Some quotes by Pope Francis:

Jesus's face is similar to that of so many of our brothers and sisters, humiliated, rendered slaves. Emptied. God took on that face. And that face looks at us.

Life itself is a great gift. For it is a time to love, and be loved.

If we accept that God's love in unconditional, that the Father's love cannot be bought or sold, then we will become capable of showing boundless love and forgiving others even if they have wronged us.

God is full of patience. He never tires of offering us his forgiveness each time we ask for it. His is a pardon that is full and complete, one that assures us that even if we fall back into the same sins, he is merciful and never ceases to love us.

When the Lord calls us, he doesn't worry about what we are, what we have been, or what we have done or not done. Quite the opposite. When he calls us, he is thinking about everything we have to give, all the love we are capable of spreading.

How does Jesus pray for us today? I believe that Jesus shows his wounds to the Father, because the wounds went with him after the resurrection. He shows the wounds to the Father and names each of us. A Christian is enlivened by the awareness that at this very moment Jesus is interceding for us.

The incarnation of the word in a human family, in Nazareth, by its very newness changed the history of the world.

We are God's beloved children, always. So you can see that not to accept ourselves, to live glumly, to be negative, means not to recognise our deepest identity. It is like walking away when God wants to look at me, trying to spoil his dream for me.

When it comes to JESUS we cannot sit around waiting with arms folded; he offers us life we can't respond by thinking about it or "texting" a few words!

Is it possible to forgive totally? It is a grace we must ask of the Lord. We, by ourselves, cannot: we make the effort, but forgiveness is a grace that the Lord gives. Ask the grace of meekness of heart. And there we also find the grace that opens the way to forgiveness.

We are called to find Christ In the poor, to lend our voice to their causes, but also to be their friends, to listen to them, to speak for them.

Blessed indeed are they who can forgive, who show heartfelt compassion, who are capable of offering the very best to others; The best, Not what is left over: The best!

God does not hide from those who seek him. Jesus shows Thomas his glorious wounds; He makes him touch with his hand the infinite tenderness of God, The vivid signs Of how much he Suffered out of love for humanity.

To be "blessed", in order to taste the comfort of friendship with Jesus Christ, it is necessary to have an open heart.

Jesus is the Lord of risk. Jesus is not the Lord of comfort, security and ease. Following Jesus demands a good dose of courage, a readiness to trade in the sofa for a pair of walking shoes and to set out on new and uncharted paths.

The Church must be implanted and rooted in Christ, allowing herself to be led by the Spirit, thus everything will be possible with genius and creativity.

The Father's Mercy constantly invites us to be part of the Kingdom. It is a kingdom of joy, a kingdom always joyful, always driving us forward. A Kingdom able to give us the strength to change things.

Peace builds bridges, whereas hatred is the builder of walls. You must decide, in life: either I will make bridges or I will make walls.

Thomas says to Jesus "My Lord and my God!" We would do well, today, and every day, to pray these magnificent words, and to say to the Lord: you are my on treasure, the path I must follow, the core of my life, my all.

Mary is that space, preserved free from sin, where God chose to mirror himself. She is the stairway God took to descend and draw near to us.

Following Jesus entails blazing trails that open up new horizons capable of spreading joy, the joy that is born of God's love and wells up in your hearts with every act of mercy.

When one realises that life, even in the middle of so many contradictions, is a gift, that love is the source and the meaning of life, how can they withhold their urge to do good to another fellow being?

With Mary may each of us become a sign and sacrament of the mercy of God, who pardons always and pardons everything.

The risen Lord is the hope that never fails, that does not disappoint. The hope of Christians is strong, safe and sound in this land where God has called us to walk, and is open to eternity, because it is founded on God, who is always faithful.

Mercy is not easy. It takes courage. That is why Jesus tells us: It is much better than antidepressants and anxiety medication. It is much more effective than walls, grates, alarms and weapons. "Do not be afraid" for mercy is the best antidote to fear. And it is free: it is a gift from GOD.

In order to meet God, we need to go where he is. We need to bow down, to humble ourselves, to make ourselves small.

We must not underestimate the power of the face of Christ. His face is the image of his transcendence. It is the 'face' of mercy. Let us allow ourselves to be looked at by him. Let us always be unsettled by his question: "Who do you say that I am?"

We didn't come into this world to "vegetate", to take it easy, to make our lives a comfortable sofa to fall asleep on. No, we came for another reason: to leave a mark. It is very sad to pass through life without leaving a mark.

Jesus is the one who got his hands really dirty. Jesus got the most dirty. He was not a "fastidious" man; instead he went to the people, among the people, and accepted the people as they were, not as they should have been.

We have to realise that all of us are a complex mixture of light and shadows. The other person is much more than the sum of the little things that annoy me.

Jesus' heart is won over by sincere openness, by hearts capable of acknowledging and grieving over their weakness, yet trusting that precisely there God's mercy will be active.

When the heart is open and able to dream, there is room for mercy, there is room to caress those who suffer, there is room to draw close to those who have no peace of heart, or who do not have the most beautiful thing of all: the faith.

The Lord does not want to be feared like a powerful and aloof sovereign. He does not want to remain on his throne in heaven or in history books, but loves to come down to our everyday affairs, to walk with us.

God counts on you for what you are not for what you possess. In his eyes the clothes you wear or the kind of cell phone you use are of absolutely no concern. He doesn't care whether you are stylish or not; he cares about you, just as you are! In his eyes, you are precious, and your value is inestimable.

The Way of the Cross alone defeats sin, evil and death, resurrection and opens the horizons of a new and fuller life. For it leads to the radiant light of Christ's resurrection and opens the horizons of a new and fuller life.

Gospel realism is practical because it knows that "grains and weeds" grow together, and the best grain in this life will always be mixed with a few weeds.

Those who love not only refrain from speaking too much about themselves, but are focused on others; they do not need to be the centre of attention.

Jesus directs us to a one way street: that of going forth from ourselves. It is a one way trip, with no return ticket. It involves making an exodus from ourselves, losing our lives for his sake and setting out on the path of self-gift.

Christian doctrine is not a closed system, incapable of raising questions, doubts, inquiries, but is living, is able to unsettle, is able to enliven. It has a face that is supple, a body that moves and develops, flesh that is tender; Christian doctrine is called Jesus Christ.

To find Fulfilment, to gain new life, there is a way, a way that is not for sale, that cannot be purchased, a way that is not a thing or an object, but a person. His name is Jesus Christ.

Those who take up this Way of the Cross with generosity and faith sow seeds of hope. I want you to be Sowers of Hope.

The Word becomes flesh, Is born of a Mother, is born under the law, has friends and goes to a party. The eternal is communicated by spending time with people and in concrete situations.

To offer today's world the witness of mercy is a task from which none of us can feel exempt.

God's providence is always one step ahead of us.

Jesus wants us to open the doors we have closed because of fear: He wants us to go out to spread God's pardon and peace, with the power of the Holy Spirit.

The beatitudes are the mirror in which we see ourselves, the one that allows us to know whether we are walking on the right path: it is a mirror that does not lie.

Mercy always has a youthful face. Because a merciful heart is motivated to move beyond its comfort zone. A merciful heart can go out and meet others; it is ready to embrace everyone; it knows the meaning of tenderness and compassion.

Unless those who call themselves Christian live to serve, their lives serve no good purpose. By their lives, they deny Jesus Christ.

Service is the rule. The one who is greatest is the one who serves most, who is most at the service of others, not the one who boasts, who seeks power, money, vanity, pride.

Do you want a full life? Start right this moment by letting yourself be open and attentive! Because happiness is sown and blossoms in mercy. That is Jesus' answer, his offer, his challenge, his adventure: mercy.

Trust the memory of God: his memory is not a "hard disk" that "saves" and "archives" all our data, his memory is a heart filled with tender compassion, one that finds joy in "erasing" in us every trace of evil.

The Father is always On the lookout, waiting for the return of the prodigal son. All of us are that son.

The joy that you have freely received from GOD, please, freely give away: so many people are waiting for it! So many are waiting for it from you.

To be attracted by power, by grandeur, by appearances, is tragically human. It is a great temptation that tries to insinuate itself everywhere. But to give oneself to others, eliminating distances, dwelling in littleness and living the reality of one's everyday life: this is exquisitely divine.

The Lord poured out his blood not for some, nor for few nor for many, But For All.
 
Last edited:

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
The Pope is like a politician having to walk the tightrope between the extreme liberal and extreme conservative factions, having to sell his ideas about change to a college of cardinals
I appreciate what you are saying.

I don't dislike Francis. Maybe I even like him. He seems to be a good enough pope. But he has one personal flaw that is genuinely irritating, and it is driving a great many catholics up the wall: his lack of clarity. He makes ambiguous statements, and then when people ask him to clarify, he gets mad and refuses to answer. He says things like, "Who am I to judge." Who are you to judge? You are the pope. It is your job as a moral leader to teach what is right and wrong. Oh well. I guess no pope is perfect.

I haven't been keeping up with this Synod on Synodality. What's been happening? Anything getting said about a female diaconate?
 
Top