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When the word "Christianity" and the Bible are used to promote a specific candidate or political plan you can count me out because it is a distorted and toxic version of something sacred. It is a sacrilege.
Yes. And not only hyperoptimistic, I'll suggest, but humanist. Human logic, no matter how careful, complex, detailed, or meticulous, is mere human logic, it is not the Word of God.
One can follow a very few of the teachings of Jesus without ever having saving faith in Him. Nearly all of them, one cannot follow, unless one does have saving faith in Him, which is to say, the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit of God.
It's that typical sinful human situation. It's that which was worded to 'the "inalienable" right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'. Ponder that word "inalienable" with the rest, it rides against the sovereignty of God. It's the mob behind Barabbas and Bar Kochba and the dozens or perhaps hundreds of be-alikes, many being described by Josephus. And many, many more mobs. Quasichristian crosses are just the convenient self-justification of the ignorant and the deceived of this particular age.
That sounds much like a distinction without a difference to be honest. Someone encounters Jesus and they're impressed, as they should be, and so seek to follow Him. That's not the same as legalism- or being under the law.
Yes, following Jesus and putting a Jesus figurine on your dashboard are two different things.
With the theology I'm familiar with and that makes sense to me, alienation from God is the problem, the injustice, that which keeps us out of His family. It's the essence of the state of "orignal sin" that all humans are born into due to Adam's act of disobedience of God which was tantamount to rejecting God as his God. That's why reconciliation with God is the answer: being grafted into the Vine, and faith is the means to acheive that union which itself is the essence of man's justice/righteousness. Faith is to acknowledge God as our God again.
Ok, it's crucial IMO that we understand that belief in Jesus is more than believing in and accepting a handfull of truths as a sort of divine litmus test, but rather to believe in Jesus is to believe in God, which is for man to come full circle back from the state of alienation from Him which was a matter of unbelief in God, at its core. Adam heard and heeded everyone but God, heeding the devil, Eve, himself: all created things over the Creator. Faith is to hear and begin to obey God again, after seeing Him in every word spoken and deed performed by His Son.
It's more than a specific belief; it's the fact of believing in God, Himself. To believe in Christ has meaning; it implies a knowledge and belief in who God is and what He desires for man, as revealed in and by His Son. To the extent that we see Jesus, we see God. To the extent that we know Jesus, we know God. To the extent that we believe in, hope in, and love Jesus, we believe in, hope in, and love God. That's what John and others are getting at with faith. It's a huge, critical, game-changer for man that itself places him into a state of justice and out of the injustice which is the hallmark of unbelief in God.
It's a matter first of knowing what God's plan is, and the role of faith in that plan. I think satan would be most happy to know that man’s managed to change the gospel from the means for man to finally become righteous, free from the slavery of sin, to an excuse or reprieve from that obligation. Or in thinking that man has absolute assurance of salvation without regard to how he lives his life. Or that he will, once a believer, automatically live his life in accordance with God’s will, overcoming sin (sufficiently?) without having to strive or make effort, without obligation on his part to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in this work of His, and without the possibility of failing.
The free gift is righteousness, that’s why a believer now has eternal life.
