Posted on 07/15/2012 5:53:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
bump
In 50+yrs of being in the business world, I’ve never heard of “extensions of grace”, from anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyplace. Does Roger drink too much?
>>The best argument against Christianity is sometimes the life lived out by a professing Christian.
We never see this hand-wringing over any other religion. Everyone expects Christians to be perfect in every way, but they give the rest of the world a pass. If we aren’t perfect, it somehow becomes “proof” that Christianity is a lie and a scam. Here’s the bottom line: Christians are humans too!
When all the world’s Jews and all the world’s Hindus and all the world’s Buddhists become perfect in the practice of their religions and all of the requirements of those religions, then we can start expecting perfection from Christians. After all, those three religions have been practicing for a lot longer than the followers of Christ.
Unchristian behavior in “the life lived out by a professing Christian” IS evil. Might want to re-think your parenthetical comment in the title.
As a devout Christian and businessman, I ALWAYS adhere to an old rule when dealing with Christian-professing businesses and businessmen..."when they tell you they are Christians, grab onto and hold tight to your wallet."
The problem is not one of Christianity, but one of self-righteousness. While professing Christians may (in many cases) have been given salvation, they are still fully capable of evil and fully capable of ignorance of how evil and selfishness are at work in themselves.
The Lord may one day hold them blameless...but they unfortunately hold themselves blameless right now!
OTOH, the world expects Christians to be perfect because Christ was perfect.
They may deny His divinity, but they still know the Truth in their heart of hearts.
This complaint makes perfect sense when you make yourself and a book you get to interpret the only standard you have to answer to....
Sadly I have come to the same conclusion. I had our house built by a "Christian" contractor 10 years ago who had a good reputation and had built several other houses in our neighborhood. When he found out I was a Christian it seems we hit it off and I felt confident he would do a quality job. We allowed him to do his job and left him alone to do it as much as possible. Unfortunately he saw that as an opportunity to cut corners and our house was not built to the same standards as the others he built for non-Christians. When we tried to get him to come back to correct mistakes he did shoddy work and it was obvious he was too busy. We now have a custom house built poorly with siding falling off. This has spoiled my view of any business that advertises as "Christian".
Thank you. I just restrained myself from posting a couple of stories... (Not gonna change my tagline though.)
Just thank you for your post.
A wonderful article. I enjoyed it.
This is a study done showing non-beleiver’s widespread humanist dark stereotypes of Christians.
None of it matches my experience of Christians. The constant message from humanists to Christians is ‘roll over die.’ They claim Christians make them hate because Christians won’t be converted to humanism.
Christians...dangerousSecular-humanists...extremely dangerous.
Found this online:
Abraham lied. Sarah laughed at God's promises. Moses stuttered. David's armor didn't fit. John Mark was rejected by Paul. Timothy had ulcers. Hosea's wife was a prostitute. Amos' only training was in the school of fig-tree pruning. Jacob was a liar. David had an affair. Solomon was too rich. Jesus was too poor. Abraham was too old. David was too young. Peter was afraid of death. Lazarus was dead. John was self-righteous. Naomi was a widow. Paul was a murderer. So was Moses. Jonah ran from God. Miriam was a gossip. Gideon and Thomas both doubted. Jeremiah was depressed and suicidal. Elijah was burned out. John the Baptist was a loudmouth. Martha was a worry-wort. Mary may have been lazy. Samson had long hair. Noah got drunk. Did I mention Moses had a short fuse? So did Peter, Paul and lots of folks.
Our resident Sunday morning optimist! :)
;-)
Maybe because the others are false. We don't become Christians in order to be liked; We become Christians in order to abide God's commands, ask for Salvation, and to love one another - and for that we are warned: "And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved."
Good essay.
I worked for a large, well-known Christian business. There were two groups that felt entitled to frequent and big discounts. Churches and schools.
Consider that the vast majority of the early planets we discovered around other stars were “hot Jupiters” - Jupiter sized planets well inside the orbit of our Mercury that orbit their stars in days. This caused some people to fret about why the universe is full of hot Jupiters when our planet formation theories suggested they should be rare. The truth is that we were seeing only hot Jupiters because that's all our detection techniques could easily find. In truth now that we can detect other types of planets now we're seeing the universe is NOT dominated by hot jupiters - it was an illusion created by our sampling technique.
There is unfortunately a rare breed of “Christian” that makes a spectacle of their “beliefs,” but in their hearts they are corrupt and dishonest people. They use Christianity to disarm their victims. I've seen it in my personal dealings as well as on TV with a few very visible mega-pastors. The problem is these people are very visible and get lots of press, creating the impression Christianity is overrun by them. It's simply not true. The vast majority of Christians are kind, humble, decent and honest people who would give you the shirt off their back - quietly. These folks are living examples of Christ's teachings but because they do so for the benefit of others, not themselves, they generally stay below the radar. As a result, they are often hard to see even though they greatly outnumber the spectacle Christians.
Bottom line is that those predisposed to find fault in Christianity can easily do so by fixating on the spectacles rather than the humble servants. This says more about the observer than it does about Christianity.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.