Why Do Christians Frequent This Site When Fraternizing With Apostates Is Expressly Forbidden In The Bybul?

[blackpudd1n]

No worries. I just want to have my perspective challenged, and I feel that talking to people who have left Christianity is one way I can do that. And sorry about the multiple posts. I'm trying to figure out the whole "MultiQuote" thing, and I'm not sure how to do it yet.

 

lol I still haven't worked out multi-quote, so don't worry about that

 

You know Ben, part of my problem with Christianity was a result of being able to see the other side's point of view. It made me think, 'how do I know that I'm right and they're wrong?' Do you ever wonder the same thing?

[owen652]

this is by far the most genial Lion's Den thread i've seen so far; there's a doozy of a shitfight going on elsewhere as we speak, quite funny to witness actually. I applaud you for your polite manner. That doesn't mean, of course, that I necessarily believe you when you say you're not here to reconvert anybody. I'm not saying you're being dishonest, I'm just saying there is undoubtedly a part of you that is naturally gonna do that if you're a 'real' christian. Come on. We've all been christians, we know how the game works. Personally, I don't mind admitting that I hope you are deconverted. Only because I've been on both sides of the fence and looking back, I can see quite clearly how destructive christian beliefs can be. And you seem like a nice guy who doesn't deserve it. Anyway..

 

 

Good point. By "sin," I think Jesus meant any willful act of disobedience in which the person stubbornly persists and of which the person refuses to repent. But he doesn't elaborate much from there, and I think I see your point.

 

It's definitely fair to say that everyone "sins" anyway (and it's certainly fair to wonder why Jesus would just leave it to interpretation). It's also fair to point out that there are several examples of abuse of this passage by various church leaders. (You might have heard of the recent fiasco with Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill Church "discipline" cases in Seattle, for instance. From what I've been reading on it, those are definite cases of abuse.)

 

That's why those in church leadership need to lend themselves to accountability. No church community is perfect, of course, and some church leaders are worse (or better) than others at handling these things, but I think from the language that Jesus uses here, he seems to be suggesting that the whole community should be involved if two or three witnesses doesn't do the trick. If it turns out that the whole community finds him innocent, though, it would seem that the two or three witnesses were false witnesses, which the Bible also doesn't favor very well.

 

Those are my thoughts, anyway. Thanks for your thoughtful reply!

 

Doesn't accountability just move the problem on? Church leaders should be accountable? To whom? District leaders? What if their definition of sin is screwed up too? Should they be accountable to the head of the denomination? What if he is wrong about it, which is possible if he is a fallible human being. Of course, Christians would say that ultimately we are accountable only to God. Okay; how do we do that in practice? By looking at the Bible, which says that we should be accountable to church leaders... and round and round we go. The question is, if accontability is fundamentally flawed in this way, and christians cannot define what is 'sinful' and what isn't, or even the definition of the word 'sin', maybe we should stop thinking about it in terms of 'good' or 'evil' and start thinking about it in terms of human actions that can either help or harm people. And for that, we don't need any book to tell us the difference.

[Ben]

Why do Christians come here and debate their faith with us apostates when such behaviour is expressly forbidden in the New Testament? The Bybul clearly states that Christians are commanded to spread the gospel to every creature, but there are also clear commands to avoid, shun and keep away from apostates, them being “wayward stars” etc, teachers of false doctrine etc.

Straight answers please, God botherers, I’m not interested in playing games.

I’ll try to dig out the references in the next day or so, but I get skin lesions whenever I touch that book nowadays so I avoid it.

 

I’m not sure what passage you mean to evoke by the phrase “wayward stars,” but the passage below may be the passage you’re thinking of. If not, then I’m glad to be corrected. (Especially relevant passages are highlighted in bold.)

 

^“And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them. Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work” (2 John 1:5-11 NIV).

 

You ask, “Why do Christians come here and debate their faith with us apostates when such behaviour is expressly forbidden in the New Testament?” I don’t think the passage I quoted above forbids talking with those who used to identify themselves as Christians.

 

Instead, the passage seems to be forbidding the act of aiding the purposes of those who are spreading false teaching about Jesus (which, in the days of the early church, included welcoming traveling teachers into one’s home).

 

Traveling teachers in the time of John would often use other people’s homes as bases for their operations. John seems to be saying that Christians should not allow false teachers to use their homes as bases of operations, lest they be guilty of sharing “in their wicked work.” In my mind, this is different from simply interacting with former Christians.

 

In 1 Corinthians 5:9-13, Paul tells the Corinthian Christians not to associate with those who claim to be Christians but lead wicked lives. And he explicitly says that he does not mean not to associate with those outside the church, as then one would have to be outside the world.

 

But if you find (or have in mind) any passages that do expressly forbid Christians from talking with or hanging around those who used to be Christians, please bring it to my attention. I am always happy to be corrected.

 

The passages you boldes above are referring to how In early Christianity there were rival sects, one whose members thought Jesus was a real flesh and blood person that traveled around Judea, and another group that thought he was only a spiritual/heavenly being that never actually came to earth (but was going to make his first visit soon). John didn't actually write any of the "John" books- if he really existed at all. It says on acts they were uneducated and illiterate - and obviously Jewish- so they wouldn't have written it, being unable to write, much less IN GREEK.

 

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I grant that it's possible that John could have never existed, but here's what I think: One text suggests that there could have been a "Johannine community" that perhaps reworked the material that the "disciple whom Jesus loved" (in later church tradition identified as "John") wrote down: "This is the disciple who testifies concerning these things and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true" (John 21:24).

 

Whether we accept church tradition as identifying this beloved disciple as "John" or not is actually irrelevant (but interesting to pursue at another time). That is, the disciple is unnamed, but that doesn't matter because he is identified as a disciple of Jesus nonetheless. This is a pretty bold claim, especially if it is untrue. The "we know" used here suggests to some scholars that the disciple was already surrounded by a community that at least claimed to know him well, and that perhaps they are the "we."

 

But as for your point that in Acts 4:13 Peter and John are called ἄνθρωποι ἀγράμματοι…καὶ ἰδιῶται (anthrōpoi agrammatoi...kai idiōtai, "men unlettered...and laypersons), I think that this is well worth pointing out. The relevant Greek words here are ἀγράμματοι and ἰδιῶται, the plural forms of the singular adjective ἀγράμματος (agrammatos, meaning literally, "unlettered") and singular noun ἰδιῶτης (meaning "layperson").

 

Certainly I think that makes things problematic for assuming that John himself was responsible (at least exclusively) for the books attributed to him (it also makes this problematic for Peter being responsible for 1 and 2 Peter). But as I noted earlier, the "we" in John 21:24 suggests that there was a larger Christian community around John, so it is not unreasonable to think that perhaps he used a scribe. The Greek in the Gospel of John (as well as in his letters and Revelation) is simpler and has a "Semitic" ring to it, suggesting an author or authors who perhaps did not have Greek as their first language. For instance, Jesus uses the Hebrew idiom "what to me and to you" in John 2:4 (cf., for instance, 1 Kings 17:18).

 

The reason the John books are in the bible is because the "Jesus was a historical dude" sect won out politically and excluded the other groups' writings. Why would there be any argument over whether someone existed "in the flesh" if he obviously traveled judea and was very famous as the gospels say? It's because he didn't exist, but people took the gospels literally When they weren't meant to be. At least mark, IMO, wasnt meant to be. Then the others just copied and pasted mark and added stuff for their own political reasons. John is in a class by himself. That Jesus is TOTALLY different than the synoptical Jesus.

 

In his recent book Did Jesus Exist?, NT scholar Bart Ehrman (who, as you may know, is certainly not a Christian), writing about the letters to Ignatius and his opponents who similarly denied Jesus "coming in the flesh," has the following to say (I've added bold font for emphasis):

 

The letters of Ignatius are nothing if not interesting. The ones he wrote to the various churches are filled with exhortations to strive for unity and to follow the leadership of the bishop. Moreover, they attack the views of Christians who in the opinion of Ignatius represent "false opinions," that is, heresies... The [letters] I am most interested in here, however, are those that oppose Christians who insisted that Jesus was not a real flesh-and-blood human. These opponents of Ignatius were not ancient equivalents of our modern-day mythicists. They certainly did not believe that Jesus had been made up or invented based on the dying and rising gods supposedly worshipped by pagans. For them, Jesus had a real, historical existence. He lived in this world and delivered inspired teachings. But he was God on earth, not made of the same flesh as the rest of us.

 

For the source, see Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), p. 102.

 

As for your statements about John and the synoptics, clearly there are big differences, and I don't dispute that. But on what basis do you say that Mark was not meant to be taken literally? And when you say that the Gospels (or at least Mark) were not meant to be taken literally, do you mean that they were not meant to be taken as history?

 

Thanks again for your thoughtful response. I look forward to hearing more from you.

[★ Citsonga ★]

I've been watching "The Atheist Experience," and if I remember correctly or not, one of the hosts, Matt Dillahunty, says that he de-converted because he genuinely believed he could no longer see his faith as logically coherent. (He may not have put it exactly that way, but from what I understand, that's what I think he said.)

 

Matt was studying for the ministry when he began to realize that it's all a sham.

 

I can identify with Matt. Although I wasn't training to be a minister and I don't claim to be as smart as Matt, it was also studying the Bible that did it for me. It took me a long time of studying the Bible to realize the truth, since my Christian indoctrination ran deep, but eventually reality set in.