Why are so many Christians unwilling to say they are Christians?

[Kenny]

The reality is that there are also Christians who aren't involved in feeding the hungry, helping the poor, or receiving strangers. Just because there are Christians who do these things doesn't mean there aren't other Christians who don't. For the record, Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats clearly demonstrates that fact (Matthew 25:31–46), so your objection to what I've said is rather ironic.



I won't be shamed by you because you don't like what I said about my negative reactions with some conservative Christians.

Yes... there are carnal Christians, baby Christians, mature Christians et al. i'll leave to Jesus who is the goat and who is the sheep

But your statement was more global misrepresentation than truth.

I'm a conservative Christian and your statements certainly didn't represent a mature conservative Christian.

 

[Augustus]

Can someone please explain to me why?

Hipsterism.

I was in to Jesus before he got too commercialised...

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Actually, my point is that Christians are ignorant of the teachings of God/Christ. For example, they make war, while God said "thou shalt not kill."

A "thou shalt not kill" command by a God who ordered his own followers to massacre an entire nation of people and wipe them off the face of the earth is just about as hypocritical as it gets. 1 Samuel 15:3 says that God ordered the Israelites to kill the Amalekites and wipe them off the face of the earth, killing every man, woman, child, and infant and slaughtering all of their animals. Other than this horrific atrocity committed by the God of the Bible, there's also his command to kill witches; ordering his followers, the Israelites, to massacre people of foreign nations in order to take possession of their land; and "being blessed for seizing infants and dashing their heads against a rock" (Psalms 137:9). Let's not forget that it's believed that God drowned the human race (except for Noah, his wife, and his sons) and every other living species in a global flood because he was pi**ed off that mankind was sinning against him.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Yes... there are carnal Christians, baby Christians, mature Christians et al. i'll leave to Jesus who is the goat and who is the sheep

But your statement was more global misrepresentation than truth.

I'm a conservative Christian and your statements certainly didn't represent a mature conservative Christian.

My statement wasn't intended to represent the kind of Christian you mentioned. It was intended to share the negative interactions I've had with the conservative Christians I know in real life and most of the ones I've encountered online. If you don't like what I said, then I think that's on you. Your disapproval of what I said and your persistent defense of conservative Christians doesn't negate the fact that my personal interactions with these Christians that I know in real life or have encountered online have been more negative than positive. Based on my negative experiences with conservative Christians during the years before I was a Christian, the 30 years I was a Christian, and during the last year and a half since I disavowed my faith (which I explain in specific details here), I have to say that if I meet a benevolent conservative Christian, then I will consider them to be the exception and not the rule. That is my reality.

 

[Kenny]

My statement wasn't intended to represent the kind of Christian you mentioned. It was intended to share the negative interactions I've had with the conservative Christians I know in real life and most of the ones I've encountered online. If you don't like what I said, then I think that's on you. Your disapproval of what I said and your persistent defense of conservative Christians doesn't negate the fact that my personal interactions with these Christians that I know in real life or have encountered online have been more negative than positive. Based on my negative experiences with conservative Christians during the years before I was a Christian, the 30 years I was a Christian, and during the last year and a half since I disavowed my faith (which I explain in specific details here), I have to say that if I meet a benevolent conservative Christian, then I will consider them to be the exception and not the rule. That is my reality.

Thank you for a friendly and cogent response.

 

[Psalm23]

It's too generic.

It is what it is.

 

[Kenny]

Hipsterism.

I was in to Jesus before he got too commercialised...

Frankly, I never understood statements like these.

Jesus is a person. I follow Jesus not how someone commercializes him, How does one stop following a person because of what someone else does or did?

 

[Alien826]

According to Rudolph Bultmann, the father of demythologizing the Gospels, the historical man named 'Jesus' was an eschatological Jewish prophet whose original disciples(A.D. 30's) knew him only as such, and whom the post-apostolic (i.e. non-apostolic) Hellenistic church (late first century A.D.) deified as the Son of God: "Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God...,...the kerygma of the Hellenistic church proclaimed Jesus as the crucified and risen Christ".
Bultmann recognized the two predominating cultural influences which shaped each New Testament document: [a] the historical Jesus dressed in the mythical garb of the Gnostic "heavenly redeemer"

That's interesting, thanks. I'll do some research on Bultmann.

To add, it was more than I among the Methodists that liked Borg's ideas. We had a thriving study group that discussed it. Something else Borg said was that what he called "the old paradigm" (that may not be the exact phrase, but it partly defines Christianity as "believing things") was causing people to reject the whole package, throwing out the baby with the bathwater so to speak.

 

[Alien826]

Yes... there are carnal Christians, baby Christians, mature Christians et al. i'll leave to Jesus who is the goat and who is the sheep

But your statement was more global misrepresentation than truth.

I'm a conservative Christian and your statements certainly didn't represent a mature conservative Christian.

Yes. I've met a spectrum of Christians ranging from the most unselfish loving person I have ever known to the nastiest most judgmental types who use Christianity as a justification for their own need to feel superior to others.

I truly believe that the "nice" group seems to be under represented because they are too busy "being nice" to argue on Internet forums. Incidentally this particular forum is very unusual in that respect. I'm still settling in, but my first impressions are very favorable.

I wonder, is this simply a matter of sorting? There are all types of people and Christianity (the churches) is so diverse that it's not hard to find a section that reinforces one's own feelings.

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

I think it has to do with the fact that a third of the world is Christian and many people don't know exactly what you mean by that word. There is all different types of Christianity; Evangelical Christianity, conservative Christianity, liberal Christianity, progressive Christianity, that all affirm certain things but nonetheless isn't specific enough where people feel comfortable using the label. Hell, syntheism as a theology is very specific but I still have the need to call myself a pantheistic syntheist so people can Google it and hopefully understand where I'm coming from ... or they can just read my title or signature too. However the case may be 99% when a Christian calls himself something other than Christian I know in my mind that they are a Christian by knowing that they follow a denomination of Christianity. If I were a Christian of any denomination I'd either call myself Christian or Judeo-Christian on here. But alas I'm not and instead I fall under the syntheist camp.

 

[Kenny]

Yes. I've met a spectrum of Christians ranging from the most unselfish loving person I have ever known to the nastiest most judgmental types who use Christianity as a justification for their own need to feel superior to others.

I truly believe that the "nice" group seems to be under represented because they are too busy "being nice" to argue on Internet forums. Incidentally this particular forum is very unusual in that respect. I'm still settling in, but my first impressions are very favorable.

I wonder, is this simply a matter of sorting? There are all types of people and Christianity (the churches) is so diverse that it's not hard to find a section that reinforces one's own feelings.

Very well said!

And welcome.

 

[rational experiences]

American idiot by green day. A song about human belief.

Is an exact warning why.

 

[Sand Dancer]

I would tend to agree. Even though there are Christians in every sphere, the tendency is to lean Republican because of its platform.
I'm actually an independent. But in Florida, that basically means you can't vote until the elections. So, to have a greater voice in the system, I registered into a party and the Republican platform lines up a little better to my values than the Dem's platform.

that doesn't mean that one is bad and the other good but rather the compilation of all the information leans more in one direction for Christians.

Half of Christians, whether Protestant or Catholic, are Democrat.

 

[Kenny]

Half of Christians, whether Protestant or Catholic, are Democrat.

Source?

 

[Sand Dancer]

Source?

U.S. religious groups and their political leanings
This is a good thing, IMO. Depends on which issue people care about most. Helping the poor vs abortion, for example.

 

[Kenny]

U.S. religious groups and their political leanings
This is a good thing, IMO. Depends on which issue people care about most. Helping the poor vs abortion, for example.

You might try a different source as it says:

"These patterns largely reflect data from exit polls during the 2012 general election."

This simply represents a current voting pattern. That chart may change this next mid-term.

Is there a chart of just "registered voters" regardless of whether they voted or not?

 

[Sand Dancer]

You might try a different source as it says:

"These patterns largely reflect data from exit polls during the 2012 general election."

This simply represents a current voting pattern. That chart may change this next mid-term.

Is there a chart of just "registered voters" regardless of whether they voted or not?

Things change all the time, but the main takeaway is that Christians are not specifically one party or another. As for your last sentence, I wouldn't be surprised if the answer was in Googleland somewhere.

 

[Kenny]

Things change all the time, but the main takeaway is that Christians are not specifically one party or another. As for your last sentence, I wouldn't be surprised if the answer was in Googleland somewhere.

Except that is what I said, or more specifically, Christians are in all facets of politics but would "tend" to lean more towards Republicans.

 

[Sand Dancer]

Except that is what I said, or more specifically, Christians are in all facets of politics but would "tend" to lean more towards Republicans.

Sadly, evangelicals don't seem to focus on Jesus' teachings.

 

[Kenny]

Sadly, evangelicals don't seem to focus on Jesus' teachings.

I think that is perspective. Maybe because those who do wrong tend to get the spotlight?