Controversial Sermon

[JELIEL]

Hi, I Agree,there Is No Compromise To The Oneness Of God.the Word Of God Tells Us Of There Will Be False Teachings In The Last Days And Unluckily Many Will Follow This Sinful Way

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.Matthew 5:9

 

[sjdean]

It takes more than that for me to be offended. I am not even offended of you accusing me of being universalism.

Sorry, I must have got confused when you seemed to back up what the sermon said about perhaps all religions are going up different sides of the same mountain when you said things like:

• We are all the sons of God. We all are children of the Most High. He created all of us according to the verse below.
• Everything in Nature is telling me that God is a God of creativity and diversity, not a God of clones.
• He wanted us to live in peace together, with tolerance and with love for each other, as we are all a manifestation of His Divine Love.
• I have never said that Christian and Islam are the same religion; they do have the same God as far I am aware of.
• Are we really so different? or are we all created in His images? (leading onto similarities between Islam and Christianity - to prove what, I don't know)

I come from a position that we are all yes the sons of God, and yes, we all need to live in peace together and love our neighbour as ourselves. I haven't said anything contrary to that. But just because we all have the same God, doesn't mean we worship the same God. There is only one God, but it doesn't stop people from worshipping a different God. I believe I have found the right God through Jesus Christ and Im happy with that.

It's good to see you don't imply, insinuate or accuse others...

My faith is immutable; therefore I do not feel uncomfortable to discuss any religion.

What are you suggesting here? That I feel uncomfortable and don't want to discuss? You've made quite a few of these random comments. Who you are talking to, Im not sure. Maybe you're addressing the general public. Maybe you're not addressing me. That's fine. I thought this forum was designed so that you respond directly to the OP and not confuse the issue with general points of your own choosing.

You've made other comments including:

• It was not my intent to cloud your faith; I thought it would be helpful rather than just have a blind faith;
• If you need to protect your faith by not lessening, seeing similarities or discussing other points
• I will leave you with a quote from Mother Teresa (If you consider her a Christian or not is up to you)
• I refuse to let people put me or Christianity in a box with a label, I believe is a kind of attack on other Christian people who didn’t believe or interpreted the Bible the same way they do, that behaviour to me is fundamentalist
• if we look at what we have similar instead of what separate us, we may be able to be more tolerant

I don't understand the need to make such comments. I don't believe I've given any indication that my faith is blind, that Im not listening, that I don't consider Mother Teresa to be Christian, that Im attacking people for asking their denomination, that Im fundamentalist, that Im not looking at other religions or that Im intolerant.

I also don't know who your audience is.

“Universalistic Thoughts” I am flatted to be compared with Jesus thougths, after all I am trying to copy his “Universalistic Thoughts” –

“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations…” (Matt. 28:19-20) –

That to me means teach all nations about Jesus and the real God, not just accept other religions thinking we have the same God and we all end up at the same point.

Unless we have the wrong ideas about universalism. Im going off the WIKI entries and other entries which has the idea that we all basically worship the same God and are trying to achieve the same goal. ie, the view that we are all going up different sides of the same mountain.

Teaching all nations the truth about Jesus Christ and God is fundamentally different to suggesting we have the same God.

“Love your neighbour as yourself” (I consider this also an universalistic thought, unless of course Jesus was meaning next door neighbour literally)

I have never said we shouldn't love our neighbour, but loving our neighbour doesn't mean we should accept everything they do. Our neighbour may be a sinner. To love them IMHO means we are there for them and support them.

Yes to me it does. What I call God, becomes God to me, what you call God, becomes God to you, regardless of what you called or I called, the “Principle Substance” is One. Williams may be Bill to you Will to me and Wills to others, still the same person, just different people call him different derivatives of his name, he does not change because of that.

Ahh, but that's not necessarily the right way of looking at it. You're looking at it as two people being known by different names. Whereas it could just as easily be the two different people of the same name. They're not the same person whichever way you look at it.

Are we going up different sides of the same mountain, or different mountains?

As this is completely off topic now, I might ask you to take this to private message if you would like to discuss further.

You could answer the question if you can explain in direct terms how we have the same God if you are of the belief that Jesus Christ is the literal son of God who came for our salvation and Islam believes something different. (note once again, im not suggesting dialogue should be cut off for anyone and im not promoting intolerance)

Cheers
Simon

 

[ChildOfGod97]

I am sorry if I offended you for asking your faith. As someone who likes to quote rules from the site, may I point you to the sites rules which discusses being anti-universalism and being pro-Nicene Creed.

It wasn't clear to me from your postings whether you are or are not a Christian in one denomination or another.

Frankly I don't really mind what faith you are.

I agree about keeping dialogue open between other faiths, being tolerant of other religions, finding out what other faiths do, working together for the greater good. And I'd love to see a lot more of it.

Back to the original post I made though, and to address your comments how we (or is that I?) should be more tolerant and look for the similarities....

I feel uncomfortable hearing suggestions about how we should be doing things that other faiths do, like fasting during ramadan in the local mosque to show togetherness. I cannot say 100% that Islam and Christianity do have the same God, when they have (or at least the main Orthodox Christian denominations) a different idea of Jesus.

The reason I have to doubt the relationship between Islam and Christianity and whether they have the same God is that I know what faith in Jesus has brought to my life.

Jesus because we call it the same thing, doesn't make it so. A laptop has a screen, but it doesn't make it a TV. Just because you call it God, does not make it so. There is only one God. The Baals weren't God. What if Allah is like a Baal?

Im quite amazed how much Christians are prepared to change their values, their understanding, even their faith to accomodate other religions. I guess that makes me fundamentalist, but I think it is just a set of unshakable core beliefs. Fundamental is such a dirty word.

Im not quite sure where we go from here, apart from your almost universalistic thoughts, it seems we agree.

I also admit before I joined the Church, I was thinking about the Quakers. I like many of their attitudes, they too have a many paths to God approach. Maybe it is true. It would certainly account for the many different religions if we each need our own thing, like Mormons need to beleive not to drink.

But I cannot hold that thought now. It doesn't make sense to me in the context of the Bible, especially in the context of Galatians.

Ta
Simon

You should be tolerant, but you should also look at reality. Are there Muslims led by God? There surely are. You will usually find them as less religious then the others. Is this a puzzle difficult to understand? Absolutely not, because the ultra-orthodox Muslims are extremely like the Pharisees of old. Surely, this is plain to see.

Like them, they have a "zeal for God, but lacking knowledge". Of the Pharisees, few of them turned, whereas the less religious Jews - the common people - found it easier to accept Jesus.

You can't really understand any of this from a distance. You have to study peoples and cultures and get to know them. Some have experience with less religious Muslims, some have experience with more religious Muslims. We are tasked to 'love our enemies'. Anyone who is an unbeliever is effectively an enemy.

It is about leading and following, about faith and doubt. In the heart a war rages between light and darkness. Those who follow the light and believe it, make their way to Jesus so their deeds may be seen. Those who follow the darkness run from Jesus. Now, many who call themselves "Christian" surely are not. So, this is where it can be confusing if one judges by what their ears of flesh hear and what their eyes of flesh see.

The flesh wants an outward religion. It wants a religion of flesh. Of material things. Things to do. Things to say.

The Spirit wants a faith. A true religion of the heart.

The true faith is hidden. The weeds are in with the crops, and as one poster well said, they must be hard to see otherwise they could be removed right away. But, as the Gospels say, 'they are left in there as pulling them out now would destroy the good crop'.

Ultimately, it is always you and God. You have to go by what you know is right.

Do be merciful in judgment. But this does not mean to follow the people who live by darkness into the darkness. Seek to shine a light on their deeds of darkness so they may see them for what they are and repent.

This does often mean dimming down one's own light so as not to scare those who live in darkness. The gospels say this clearly, 'do not throw your diamonds to dogs or they will first trample them then come and rend you'. And 'those who love deeds of darkness hate and fear the light and go from it'.

Yet, it is also said, 'they never would have crucified him had they known him'. And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do'.

Zeal for God. Lack of knowledge. They are actually following Satan down into Hell, and yet they believe they are following God. They are deceived.

 

[oi_antz]

There's a lot of huddled prayers going on here! Jesus said "noone comes to the father but through me" and the Muslim view of God being outside the Universe and not having contact with us is the pivotal point of difference - that they cannot claim to have a personal relationship with God The Father, therefore their knowledge of God is mere knowledge - understandings based on theory and gathered data (using the brain for memory and computing). Christians on the other hand have personal experience with the spirits and come to know God as Christ and The Father as personalities in the mind - the origin of thoughts which we know to be good and evil.

Therefore according to my faith and experience, any path to God which is not through Jesus is misrepresenting God The Father and is probably representing a spirit of the enemy which disguises itself as God. I've seen this recently in a person who claims to know God and Satan and claimed that Satan was Christian and our real enemies are the Spartans - that's pretty disillusioned and God said don't believe it.

So according to my experience I would have to say that all religions have some truth to consider, but if you really want a personal relationship with God The Father and His son Jesus Christ, you definitely do have to believe every word of the Bible is true and not argue that it "could be wrong". This doesn't mean to say you have to disagree with every other creed on Earth, but my personal hurdle is the theory of Karma - it seems inconsistent with the evidential nature of Justice and forgiveness I have observed...

 

[oi_antz]

Whoa! Don't actually mean to offend anyone with my opinionated conclusion from life experience but I see how it might seem to hurt if I had a different faith and stronger opinions but really wanted to know Jesus. I like the thought of having friends in enemies and it gets me through