- Aug 11, 2017
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Noted and thanks.
I believe the covenant and the covenanted terms in the Gospels and supporting texts are the most critical in defining who is a Christian. The covenant is explicit or implied [as you had stated] and a genuine Christian cannot deny a covenant is established between him/her and God.
Another point is, the highlighting of the concept of entering into a covenant with God is critical as a defense for Christians to counter the accusation that Christianity condone "Christians" to be violent as in the crusades, inquisition, Salem and the likes.
The point is the covenanted terms [with emphasis on the Gospels] has an overriding term in the contract that ALL Christians must love everything, everyone [even their enemies], give the other cheek and the likes. As such a Christian is NEVER covenanted [contracted] with God to commit evil and violence against any one.
As such Christians who committed evils and violence did it on their own free will which has nothing to do with Christianity per se. These Christians must be personally accountable for their evil and violent acts within secular laws and for God to judge them on Judgment Day and be forgiven if justified.
Most Christians do not defend the inquisitions. Generally Christians agree they were a terrible mistake and were only sanctioned by the Roman Church. The Roman church does not represent all Christians. The crusades on the other hand was the church trying to take back what was unrightfully taken away from them. It just wasn’t God’s will that this would happen yet. Possibly because of the end times prophecy. As for the Salem witch hunts I really can’t say much about them I’m not really that familiar with the details of that situation.
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