Christain Pastor calls autistic kids "junk" that god didn't make

You dont "deal with it". You either have faith in things bigger than you, or you do not. But our belief in any of it has zero impact on you unless you want it to.

Also the number is 2.3 billion by most sources, and before you start with your usual Christianity is shrinking (it is not) i present you with a recent article from CNN:
Predictions about the decline of Christianity in America may be premature | CNN

 

This…

 

Well, they are predisposed to supernatural belief, and they congregate together or may belong to social circles or online social networks.

Unfortunately that might make some easy marks for con-men and women. Social media just supercharged it. It would be interesting to understand how/why some churches get taken down a path of corruption and others don’t. Maybe some denominations are more susceptible to individual bad actors. Tilly seemed to imply it has to to with size (a shed in the woods and 20 congregants, and dismiss its relevance based on that), but that of course ignores the prosperity gospel mega churches or that the Southern Baptist convention has serious issues (or the sex scandals in the Catholic Church). I think we are certainly talking about millions of people here.

 

Depends on the definition of “ok.”

 

I don’t think there is a better example than this than the number of Christians who practically worship trump. A man who is as unlike the teachings of Christ as any man alive. His combover might hide the number of the beast. lol

 

Some worship Trump. Some are deranged by him.

They are all alike believers.

 

No, just SAYING you do has no impact. Actually believing in Him changes you.

 

Nutpicking is a logical fallacy that involves picking out the worst members of a group and pretending they represent the group. This fallacy is often used as an ad hominem attack against a group.

It's what one does when they don't have a real argument.

 

Anxiety and depression are age-old problems of religion and need not be subsumed under the contemporary rubric of ‘mental illness.’

 

There are two (three actually) terms at play here I suppose. The "Christian" by belief that Jesus is who He is stated to be in scripture. And "Christ follower" (the literal definition of a Christian.)

I would say that millions have sincere faith, that has been corrupted by modern enticements. Manipulated by leaders and politicians for selfish gain.

The actual "Christ followers" are the ones who while certainly full of human error try their best to follow Christ's leading even in the modern world of greed, narcissism etc

Most honest Christians will tell you they fluctuate. Having bad times when we fall short of the actual following part, or just mislead by bad leadership and poor scriptural scholarship.

But there is the 3rd group. This is the group I know from experience to be much smaller. That is the group that teaches things like "autism is demonic". Tgis is nowhere in the mainline teachings of any Christian denomination and weird things like this are generally found in the tiny offshoots and only discovered due to social media. So when i mention 20 people in the woods, I am referring to this.

And if you think I havent been quick to call down the leadership in large denominations, you havent paid attention.

I believe denominations are anti scripture and just divide the body of believers.

I attend a fairly large NON DENOMINATIONAL church, and it is arguably the most active, living breathing, FREE community of believers I have ever seen. We dont focus on politics, but we do feed the hungry. We don't put up walls to make people feel unwelcome.

This is the new church in america and why denominations are bleeding members to non affiliated congregations instead.

And thank God for that.

Unity is beautiful.

 

The Republican Party is LED BY a nut. While obviously not all Christians are Republicans or political conservatives, that party basically doesn’t tolerate non-Christian views, and most “militant” Christian’s would certainly identify as Republican, if not a “warrior” for Donald Trump.

Tilly’s “not really a Christian” has been used like 1000 times and is quite tired at this point. I totally get what he’s saying, and I actually agree in the sense I think there actually are millions of “fake” Christians out there. I’ve often joked of the true Christian being a unicorn in the modern GOP. The problem as I see it is not of “nutpicking” a small number of individuals, it’s that the “nuts” seem to represent a majority of a political party. At least more than some seem willing to admit.

 

Also, I find it odd that your assumption about Christians is limited to American Trump supporters. There are roughly 2 billion professing Christians outside of America. There are millions of Christians that are liberals politically. There are millions of Christian conservatives who detest Trump even. So even if every Trump voter was a "Christian" it would just be a drop in the bucket to the global force that has existed for 2000 years.

 

When did this thread become political by the way? This thread is about weather Christians think Autism is "demonic". As an overwhelming rule, we do not.

We have many friends, devout in faith, who are faced with the struggle of Autism. Autism is so prevalent in churches that many are needing to accommodate the issue.

The issue is probably based on our failure to properly take care of ourselves as a species for generations and thus damaging the genetic pool that our kids swim in.

The fault is human in origin if I had to guess.

 

So the pastor is exonerated.

 

To be fair to Christians world wide they’re not as nutty and malicious as the evangelical Christians in the US that infect our society and politics.

But that’s just at this given moment. Christians as a group have committed unimaginable horror and are perfectly capable of doing so again.

 

This confuses me. 30 percent of this country still supports trump despite all the evidence that he is a conman. My theory is that most of them have been getting conned by their churches for their whole lives just like their parents before them.

 

Jesus was an evangelical.

He said “you must be born again.”

 

Oh so how am I supposed to tell the difference between a true Christian and those who just pay lip service.

 

So a translation from 1611 that didnt have those words in the lexicon is your proof?

The Bible talks of help when you are "crushed in spirit", in a "miry bog", in a "pit of destruction", my " soul is cast down and in turmoil", being stuck in "the ends 9f the earth", Proverbs 12:"anxiety in a mans heart weighs him down", Isaiah 35 deals with the " anxious heart", there are hundreds more.

The Bible discusses fears, anxiety, etc all over the place. Proverbs alone is full of reference. (Fear is often the word used in the old English translations) but when broken down to the original greek and Hebrew we find that most of these terms delt with emotional issues.

Sorry, but a 3 second google search is a bit too shallow of a dive into such a complicated matter.