Mega Church pastor: "slavery is the heart of what it means to be a true Christian”

I guess Paul should have whipped them into a frenzy and incited them to rebel.

 

It is all rather convenient.

I get that no humans are perfect, even a good person can trip up and commit an act they would call sin. You can rationalize how humans could concoct a religion organized around a deity that forgives the occasional break with religious doctrine. So long as a penance is given, the promise of everlasting spiritual existence is still in play to the “rational” follower of said religion.

But it’s apparant that many (and by many I mean huge majority) who self identify as Christian make absolutely no effort to avoid sin, or constantly commit such acts or even commit acts of mortal sin. So at what point is it a farce to think one is going to be “forgiven”? At some point it’s basically as irrational as believing 72 virgins in paradise await in the afterlife.

They apparently think they can fool god. So I suppose they must see their god as both omnipotent, and somehow, also a blind idiot.

 

Rewind the clock a few hundred years, and the Puritans spoke exactly this way about sin and salvation. They would agree that a man who makes no effort to avoid sin is not a Christian, and he is in a perilous condition if he is in a pattern of sin without guilt or shame.

 

So, you're the arbiter of what parts of the New Testament are what Christ actually preached and what parts are not? You and Thomas Jefferson?

Edit: Didn't you accuse someone else on this thread of pride?

 

My understanding is the Puritans cracked down on certain vices. The sorts of Christian’s that were behind the prohibition of alcohol in this country.

I’m not even necessarily talking about that (nor do I view alcohol as sin, even though I myself choose not to drink).

I’m taking about the sorts who cheat on their wives, lie constantly, commit acts of violence or egg on violence, commit acts of fraud, theft, are unrepentantly greedy, lack compassion, have KKK or Nazi-esque leanings, etc etc etc. I’m not holding people to Puritan standards, I’m referring to people who in no way represent the supposed teachings of Jesus at ANY level. Who violate it constantly as part of their daily course. They can call themselves whatever they want. Go through the exercise on Sundays. I see it as farce. Take that preacher who harassed his neighbor with a Nazi symbol. You think that was a one off? A simple mistake? He even followed it up with a lie. So when he repents will god believe him? Guy may have the title of preacher or have some education in scripture, but it’s obviously all irrelevant by his actions. He’s a POS. So in my view either his religion is all a farce, or his omnipotent God is going to send him to hell.

 

That you ask that question suggests you have neither read the NT nor know what the Jeffersonian Bible is.

 

I assumed that "Jeffersonian Bible" referred to Thomas Jefferson's cut and paste edition of the the Gospels. If you were referring to something else then, by all means, point me to it.

Let's see, you've "...read the New Testament once and parts of it many times" but, when we disagree about the NT, your explanation is that I've read it fewer times than you have.

 

I understand what you are saying. There is a lot I don't know about the Puritan era, but their way of thinking about repentance, which they considered repentance and faith to be equally essential to the Christian life, would be unique by today's norms. They had a much higher bar for what constitutes repentance than much of modern Christianity today. They also considered pastors like the ones you mentioned to be signs of God's judgement on a society. They would be the first to tell you that repentance is hard. That enslavement to sin is actually enslaving...that a person who has not repented now but who plans to repent at the end of their life makes a grave error in assuming that they will. They in effect are playing with eternal hell fire and betting that they will not be harmed by it.

 

On the one hand, you’re entirely right. The church is chock-full of hypocrites. But don’t despair, there’s always room for one more!

On the other hand, I doubt that America has ever been a Christian nation. Indeed, back in the 70’s, Billy Graham referred to America as a pagan nation in which many Christians reside.