The Tension of Faith

Just saw this post.Phat, you are desperately confused.If your understanding of giving unto Caesar were correct, the early Christians should not have refused to worship Caesar as God. We have to obey God above all and if there is a conflict with Caesar we suffer the consequences, which in those days meant death by one means or another. We cannot defy God.abe: Paying taxes to Caesar is our duty to Caesar and it doesn't require us to disobey God. But directly defying God's ordinance of marriage does.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What a foul piece of PC garbage that is. Uses all the PC weasel words, the usual revisionist counterfeit version of "love" and on from there. Blech, Yuck, Ugh. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Not one single statement of it is true, not one, it's all at best PC lying spin. The one that kind of gives it all away is calling illegal immigrants and potentially dangerous refugees just "immigrants." Legal and desirable immigrants are fine with us, only PC crazies refuse to make such important distinctions. Reducing the refusal to violate God's law to a meaningless refusal to make wedding cakes for gays is another lie/ I know nothing about voting for pedophiles but I'll guess that all that stuff will eventually fall apart as a bunch of lies. No idea what lie that is involving Putin but I absolutely will not listen to lying leftist political rhetoric any more. Not "liking" the impoverished makes zero sense since Christians are the biggest givers of charity of all groups. Fear? I don't see fear in any of this. You can't love people by violating God's law.Where is all this evil lying slanderous stuff coming from. Christians run prison ministries all over the country, what's all this stuff against prisoners?I've said all that enough already in this miserable forum.abe I just reread that utterly disgusting lying piece of PC. One has to ask what it is that makes you so ready to believe such slanderous twaddle?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

They are lies because they are SPIN. They do not represent the actual truth of the matter, but a PC twisting. ALL LIES.Roy Moore was only very recently dubbed a pedophile -- which he denies -- so nobody had chosen to vote for a pedophile. Typical PC lying garbage.The "immigrants" I call dangerous are not immigrants, nor are the illegal aliens, they are wannabe immigrants and it is WE who get to choose, not they, and to call them immigrants is typical leftist destruction of language and willful confusion of the public in the service of partisan politics."Fear" is evil spin. We are acting from basic biblical principles or from some other source of knowledge. Just slander, just character assassination, that's typical leftist m.o.I'm not able to keep up with the PC lies, sorry, I don't have the energy or the motivation, it's all such a big fat miserable lying mess. I'm sorry to see you so enamored of all that.

Gosh, that's good PC spin too, totally reversing the truth. I will probably faint dead away if the truth ever shows up at EvC.Hey I have lots of my own problems with today's Christianity, but my complaints are about the kind of liberal PC stuff of that article, the twisted stuff that is laying the foundation for the End Times World Religion. Can't be too far away. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

And another reversal of the truth. You're getting predictable.

Since the opinion piece used the usual PC lie "immigrants" to cover up the fact that he was talking about illegal aliens or Muslim refugees and not immigrants at all (those being the only "immigrants" Christians object to that I know of), I would suppose the same of that chart, since you offer no clarification otherwise.Are you aware, or do you care, that cultural compatibility always used to be a criterion for admission to the US, at least it determined the numbers allowed in, a most sensible criterion at that?That writer is a Liberal Christian at best, not a biblical Christian, and he sounds like any EvC leftie. Can't take him seriously about anything, sorry.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Are YOU aware that the entire world was in favor of slavery and practiced it, and it's still practiced in other parts of the world, while ONLY Christians opposed it? I would imagine not because you are on a vendetta against Christians.Are you aware that when Jesus said to Love one another He was talking about Christians loving each other, not loving the whole world? We are to be at peace with all where possible, and treat all justly and kindly as God does, but we are not told to LOVE everybody, believe it or not. But if you want to insist on it, what love means is desiring and seeking their salvation. God so loved the world that ...whosoever believeth on Him should have eternal life. That's not the kind of counterfeit love you have in mind which would promote violating God's law.And I'm not at all impressed with the credentials of your writer. Georgetown is a Jesuit school where you can find all kinds of antichristian things taught, and I'm not sure what the U of Chicago would teach but wherever he got it, he's a deep dyed Liberal, not a traditional Christian.ABE: Shouldn't we "follow our hearts" you ask. Are you aware that the Bible warns us against following our hearts because they are "deceitful above all things?" Have you thought through where many hearts would lead? The human heart is not a lover of humanity, it's selfish and combative. You don't even see the meanness and hatred in your own heart. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Doesn't it ever bother you that EvC is such a biased partisan mouthpiece? Your motto is "understanding through discussion" but anything but the leftist and antichristian party line is not given any voice here. It's not just Creationist views that are treated unfairly, the whole of "Christianity" here is all liberal Christianity. This guy Bernard is President of a branch of the World Council of Churches which is a screamingly leftist organization. with a tenuous connection to anything truly Christian. Whatever he says about Trump is going to be all formulaic LeftismI never heard of Samantha Bee before but she's obviously just another typical anti-Trumper. You accept those views but not the views of traditional Christianity, which you denounce in the most violently excoriating terms, personal terms too since one would think from your vicious slams against me that I was the only one on the planet to have such views.It's really interesting to get out of this suffocating environment and check out the conservative sites in the real world, where Trump is actually appreciated. In the leftist headlines that are the first thing that hits an internet surfer from every angle, they are trying to impeach him, everything he does is a horrific gaffe or error to be lambasted, but in the real world he's mostly doing good things and being appreciated. Leftist censorship rules what gets seen by the public and apparently you swallow it all along with the rest of the lefties. And somehow it's allowed you to justify amazingly foul personal attacks on me for one, which you deny with the most amazing kinds of rationalization and appalling self-righteousness.There are many true Christian sources out there but it seems you like the false ones like Bernard, but a quick perusal of the conservative news media is enough to show the completely other world on the other side of the great political divide that is being suppressed by the Left. Drudge, Front Page Magazine, Breitbart, Infowars, Newsmax, World Net Daily, and many more.You should take down your line about understanding which implies you care about contrary points of view. It's OK to be partisan, only it's not OK to pretend you aren't when you are.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Percy you are so supremely ignorant of Christian theology I don't know where you get your nerve to make such comments.Jesus was addressing his disciples in the upper room after the Passover meal, when he told them they were to love one another as He had loved them...and His love for them was about to be shown in His death on the cross. It is very clear that He is addressing His own followers who were later dubbed Christians. Here is one commentator on that incident:Study Guide for John 15 by David Guzik Yes that is biblical too, it is a condensation of the second tablet of the Ten Commandments as a matter of fact, which God gave to the Israelites through Moses, in which He commands not to steal or commit adultery, bear false witness, commit murder or covet your neighbor's wife. THAT is how the Bible defines loving your neighbor. In this case we are to love others with the same concern for their well being that we have for ourselves. It's love, yes, but the love Jesus expressed in the upper room to "love one another" had His love for them as the model not their love for themselves.But you define love in a totally perverted way, as if we were to do whatever anyone thinks they want without regard to whether it is good for them or society or anything. That is totally unbiblical. Gay marriage is what gays think they want but it's destructive to them and to society in general. That is not love.As for loving Muslim refugees, there are lots of Christians who have gone to help them in their refugee camps, with all kinds of food and necessities and things to improve their situation, including taking them the gospel of course. In some cases they have to protect some of them from others who are violent, rapists and whatnot. They have potential murderers among them simply because they follow the teachings of Mohammed who was a murderer and advocated murder. Would you call it love to bring dangerous people into your own town? No, I suppose you just deny the truth of this and that allows you to excoriate me and anyone else who appreciates the reality of the danger.Jesus came to forgive sin by paying our debt to God's Law, He did not come to teach us to violate God's Law which is what sin is and why He had to die for us. It would be extreme ingratitude to intentionally trash God's ordinance of marriage. Of course but see above, it isn't what you think love is.Supposedly I "hate" liberal Christianity and Jesuits too, simply because I strongly object to their theology. A liberal Christian twists the scripture much as you do to make it mean something it doesn't mean. Scripture says no women elders or pastors, for instance, while many liberal churches have women pastors. Scripture defines homosexual sex as a sin, but many liberal churches not only deny that, accepting cohabiting gays as members, but also have gay pastors; scripture defines marriage as a God-ordained unbreakable bond between a man and a woman, but many liberal churches have no problem with divorce or gay marriage etc. They also often accept abortion, though it is obviously the murder of the unborn child.The Jesuits teach many anti-Christian things, also some pretty politically subversive things. That's why I object to their point of view, which you reduce to "hating" them in typical meaningless PC style. I have lots of references on one of my blogs but I'd have to take quite a bit of time extracting quotes to make my point.For all these things you call me a hater and worse. I certainly don't claim not to be a sinner, quite the opposite, but I do claim to understand the theology I've laid out above as biblical, for which you are treating me like the worst sinner who ever lived. If I am, it certainly isn't for those views,k which represent traditional Christianity to the best of my understanding. It is Christianity itself you are denouncing out of your ignorance.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Sigh. You are so confused but nevertheless think you know it all. Jesus came to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies of a Savior to the world, which is not a new religion but the whole point of the Old Testament, and His Great Commission in which He told them to take it to all the world certainly shows His intent that it reach everybody. His followers were to take the gospel of the fulfilled promise of His messiahship to the whole world. That is what eventually got called "Christianity," referring to the followers of Jesus Christ this promised Messiah. Jesus Himself chose Paul to carry the gospel to the Gentiles. Any idea that Paul invented any of it contradicts scripture. He was appointed by Christ Himself and identifies himself that way. This has to be willful ignorance on your part. There is certainly enough information out there to show you the truth about all this but you persist in vilifying the messengers of the truth. This is bizarre. First the point is that the vetting hasn't been what it should be, Obama brought in many without bothering to do much vetting. But the main problem here is this weasel talk that pretends there are no different ideas in the world that have different consequences in the world. PEOPLE are not the point. PEOPLE are all the same, but what they have been taught conditions many different kinds of cultures and attitudes, ISLAM teaches killing infidels, Why don't you know this? Read Jihad Watch. Watch Brigitte Gabriel and Bill Warner on You Tube, read the book "Philistine." There is no excuse for your ignorance that heaps opproprium on the people who know the truth. No, love is obeying the commandments. How did you miss that? That is in fact simply not true. It is SO tiresome to have to keep explaining to arrogant self-righteous unbelievers that we are not a theocracy like Israel and Christians don't punish anyone, governments do that.But you missed the point anyway, which is that liberals don't just pick and choose, they actively contradict the scripture, do exactly what it says not to do. As I explained clearly enough.

The point, which I'm sure you know but have an interest in denying, is that ideas that contradict the EvC leftist evolutionist party lines come from single voices of people who get trashed by the party liners, who pile on us and defend each other against us but I can't remember the last time anyone ever defended me against the kind of trashing you've been doing of me. That's not exactly freedom of opinion except in the most irrelevant way. Bernard's wife is called a pastor, which is a strong clue to basic liberal theology. Any affiliation with the World Council of Churches is enough to show he's not one of us however. The statement of such a creed or the claim to be born again can be just a smokescreen behind which all kinds of false doctrines and political activism can lurk, of which we have quite a few hints already. I haven't figured out how it is possible but it seems that there are "Christians" who affirm such basic principles and yet manage to be enemies of Christianity, something I've been finding out at EvC. I haven't had the stomach to listen to any of his sermons yet but I suspect they'll be a rich source of evidence if I can ever stand to do it. Since liberal theology denies the clear commands of scripture, I do tend to believe you have to be a conservative to be a Christian though it depends on how much disobedience God is willing to overlook for people who claim to believe the main doctrines of the faith and yet hold to other false doctrines, and I can't judge that in many cases. However, my impression is that Trump is too new a Christian to realize he's surrounded himself with some bad Christian leaders, most of the Prosperity Gospel heresies, so no, Trump is not the standard. I wish more orthodox Christians would take him under their wing. You have simply succumbed to the leftist media censorship. Depends on how far they go into disobeying scripture and following worldly leftist politics.I say lots of nice things about the people I agree with Percy, we just happen to be discussing people who hold false doctrine. I can say lots of nice things about Brigitte Gabriel and Bill Warner and David Horowitz and Steve Bannon and Franklin Graham and Robert Spencer and so on and so forth. Sure they are. Few of them show up in Google searches for political topics except way down the list (and that's very rare too), or on Yahoo's front page or any of the other headline pages the internet surfer encounters on first entry. You have to specifically search for them. If I didn't have them on my favorites list it is possible I'd never ever see any of them.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

And another strenuous effort to get the truth across bites the dust, alas.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But I think I'll end this futility for now with a cheerier statement of the truth:

I meant temporarily, "for now," sorry I wasn't clear, but as usual it's hard to have such a frustrating conversation when nothing I say is acceptable and your views are from some other planet from my point of view. But nevertheless I DID mean only "for now." I thought for longer than this though. Only to you, to me they are, and I don't think your opinion gets to trump mine in this situation. Which is always presented as historical fact, not something addressed to the reader to be carried out, as the Koran does, which has been explained a million times at EvC, but I guess you just refuse to believe it. If so I'll apologize but I'll have to find out first. As I said, how you could possibly think this is hard to explain, considering all the information out there about how it does. It must be some kind of self-induced blindness. Did you miss where I said it is a condensation of the second tablet of the Ten Commandments, which Jesus himself explained in Matthew 22:39Jesus is condensing the Ten Commandments as a whole down to two: That's the first tablet of the Ten Commandments. And here's the second: In other words the second half of the Ten Commandments He boils down to loving your neighbor as yourself, those commandments that are against such things as lying, stealing, murdering, coveting, adultery and so on?I explained that in Message 1411. That really is how "love your neighbor" is first presented in the Bible, as obeying that set of commandments, and I wanted to make a point of it because it is not anything like what you and others take it to mean. Jesus also illustrates it of course with the story of the good Samaritan, which broadens it, and I can assure you that if I found a Muslim refugee or a gay person beaten up and lying at the side of the road I would do my utmost to be sure he/she was taken to a hospital and treated for his injuries. I don't think I said anything about how WELL any of us follows it but it's certainly true that because conservastive Christians are the ones who believe in Bible inerrancy, we do intend to follow exactly what it says. While it's almost the definition of a "liberal Christian" that they often disobey it, as I explained back there somewhere (Message 1411): Women elders and pastors, abortion, divorce, gay pastors, gay marriage etc. Yes I do. Knowing your odd ideas about faith I hesitate to agree but I'll leave it for now. Of course, but they are under an obligation in a debate to recognize that I believe it, but I find you imposing your view of it on me instead, insisting aggressively that "[my] beliefs are not facts." If that truly describes anything I've done, I'm truly sorry.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.