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What you should be worrying about more is the condition of your heart. You should be righteous in your thoughts and heart. This is what Jesus said about a defiled heart:-
But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things defile a man.
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. Matthe
Reality is seldom so black and white. Genesis 3 tells us the serpent was the most subtle of all the animals in the Garden. And subtlety is still a primary tactic of the devil. Like anything else, cartoon characters can be used for good or for evil. They can be used to teach good moral and spiritual principles, or bad moral and spiritual principles. It depends on how they are used and how we receive them.
The same is true of just about anything. I saw you had a thread on pharmaceuticals. They can be used; they can be abused. You had a thread on pop idols - again, used or abused. Some diversion is good, especially when it is wholesome. But when it is not wholesome - as is very often the case these days - or when we take our "idol" worship too far for our own good, it has become a bad thing.
Agree with all this.
Paul talks about this in 1Cor:
All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the authority of any. -1Cor 6:12
It's good to try to understand what's going on, but the best answer to many questions about where to draw the line is simply to err on the side of seeking Jesus. Then the questions usually work themselves out automatically. Follow hard after Jesus and you won't go wrong.
I'm convinced some Christians can't be bothered to acknowledge and address the real problems that exist in the world--hunger, poverty, the lack of medicine, war, greed, injustice against the weak and vulnerable--and so in order to distract them from having to engage with the real world, loving their neighbor, they simply invent their fantasy evil.
After all, it's a whole lot easier to attack imaginary evil then to face real evil by doing actual good.
-CryptoLutheran
I'm convinced some Christians can't be bothered to acknowledge and address the real problems that exist in the world--hunger, poverty, the lack of medicine, war, greed, injustice against the weak and vulnerable--and so in order to distract them from having to engage with the real world, loving their neighbor, they simply invent their fantasy evil.
After all, it's a whole lot easier to attack imaginary evil then to face real evil by doing actual good.
-CryptoLutheran
I agree. i am not saying demons do not exist, and there may be soem cartoons which are demonic. But not all and I do feel that some of these testimonies come from countries where the gap between rich and poor is so extreme and i cannot help but wonder why is their focus on cartoons or jewellery or perfume being evil. (not saying this to judge because i live in the UK where the rich-poor gap is worse than it has been for many decades)...i even heard one testimony claiming poeple were in hell for wearing deodorant.....we have to test the spirits.....
oh and i love your avatar! I need to take it to heart as sometimes i worry am not good enough for being saved. remembering my baptism would be a good start for me maybe?
Martin Luther recommended that we should take every opportunity we can to remember our baptism, that we can stand with boldness in our faith saying baptizmatus sum!, "I am baptized!" That even when we take a shower or bath it is an opportunity to remember our baptism.
One of the chief meanings for why Lutherans encourage making the Sign of the Cross is that it is a reminder of our baptism.
To look not to ourselves, to our own feelings, our own ideas, our own works--but to look to the external, objective work and word of God which declares us His own. We belong to Jesus, and no power in all of creation can change that.
-CryptoLutheran
Do you have any idea why they think silly things are evil?I agree. i am not saying demons do not exist, and there may be soem cartoons which are demonic. But not all and I do feel that some of these testimonies come from countries where the gap between rich and poor is so extreme and i cannot help but wonder why is their focus on cartoons or jewellery or perfume being evil. (not saying this to judge because i live in the UK where the rich-poor gap is worse than it has been for many decades)...i even heard one testimony claiming poeple were in hell for wearing deodorant.....we have to test the spirits.....
This is one of the reasons I love Luther. He was like me, He struggled with OCD/Scrupulosity, doubt and fear over his faith journey. i do not agree with his views on the Jewish people (read somewhere he was anti-semitic) but I completely relate to him so much. He is very comforting.
No one should agree with Luther's views about the Jewish people, they were abhorrent. Earlier in his life he had been more philo-semitic, writing to the German princes to treat Jewish subjects justly and with kindness; but in his later years he became increasingly bitter and resentful--just in general really--and it is in this part of his life that he wrote his anti-semitic screed. And that should be, without condition, condemned utterly.
Lutherans don't regard Luther as a prophet or a pope, but as an ordinary fallible sinner, we cherish Luther's bold theology of the Cross, but Luther isn't treated uncritically. Indeed, the only reason we are called "Lutheran" is because that is what others called us, in order to try and charge us with the "heresy" of "Lutheranism". The preferred term was Evangelical. Which is why even today, in German, Lutherans are known as "Evangelicals" (Evangelische in German).
For Lutherans our identity is two fold: Evangelical and Catholic. We are Catholic, because we don't see ourselves as ever having departed from or left the Holy Catholic Church; and thus the 1500 years of history before the Reformation is our history. And Evangelical because the whole point of the Evangelical Reformation was the Evangel--the Gospel itself. That the good news of Jesus Christ is that we have been freely justified by the grace of God alone, through faith, on Christ's account alone; and thus our sins are forgiven, we have peace with God, and life everlasting. God's promises to us are true and irrevocable, the word He speaks to us is Gospel, the very word of our salvation.
-CryptoLutheran
I've drawn my share of cartoon characters, none were demons.I was talking to this guy about cartoons and he told me that cartoon characters are inspired by real demons, he saw that from African Christian testimonies, they had visions of stuff like that. Peniel Ngonde is an example. Should I listen to people like Peniel Ngonde in terms of cartoons, makeup, and Coca Cola being "evil?" Are cartoon characters actually real demons?
Do you have any idea why they think silly things are evil?
Don't get so addicted to Youtube "preachers", it's a place where stuff similar to 4chan or even the deep web would pop up when you're spending too long on YT with the autoplay on. Often these "preachers" are conspiracy theorists, extremists or weird folks with very little formal theological training, and they preach for earning extra income. Why not finding people at your church or talk to people who have real theological training, such as ministers and genuine pastors (not those self-proclaimed priests or pastors online)? These videos and posts are simply sensational clickbaits, or even worse, they're either false teachers preaching wrong messages (and fear) or extremists. Sometimes the explicitly extremist people abuse religious language or symbolism as to appear less bad, manyf ar-right people and even some neonazis often use Christian imagery despite not being Christian at all, as to lure people into their hateful agenda.
Just please don't believe everything on YouTube, it's where many normal, or even intelligent people get radicalised or brainwashed with crazy stuff. Find some reputable Bible reading tools and talk to a legit church authority instead,
I'm convinced some Christians can't be bothered to acknowledge and address the real problems that exist in the world--hunger, poverty, the lack of medicine, war, greed, injustice against the weak and vulnerable--and so in order to distract them from having to engage with the real world, loving their neighbor, they simply invent their fantasy evil.
After all, it's a whole lot easier to attack imaginary evil then to face real evil by doing actual good.
-CryptoLutheran
I was talking to this guy about cartoons and he told me that cartoon characters are inspired by real demons, he saw that from African Christian testimonies, they had visions of stuff like that. Peniel Ngonde is an example. Should I listen to people like Peniel Ngonde in terms of cartoons, makeup, and Coca Cola being "evil?" Are cartoon characters actually real demons?
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