Senate Understanding Christianity

My understanding of who is a Christian comes from Romans 10:9. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

 

Yes this is a TikTok video, but it's worth listening to, and I think offers a good way to distinguish between a deeper understanding of Christianity (and many religions, this video is actually from a rabbi) and the capitalized evangelical megachurch model or the antiquated formal ritual model. (And obviously, you can disagree, especially if you're not Christian or not spiritual, but I think this shows that deeper lever understanding of Christianity that's been lacking in recent decades, that I think more atheists/agnostics could more easily sympathize with if not agree with and just be more appealing to people, especially young people, in general.)

https://www.tiktok.com/@therealrabbimanis/video/7224165425817488686?lang=en

I don't think people are losing faith in God.
I think every day more and more people are turning to God
but not to religion.
People are losing faith in their religions.
Oh, that's true,
and it's justified.
If a religion fails, then drop it. It's not a sacred cow.
Religion has to serve people and God, and make the world better.
If it's not doing that, then it's a false religion. Drop it, you're not stuck.
As people are more disappointed with religion, they're becoming more and more dependent on God. Because there's got to be some truth to this mess.
If it's not religion, what's left?
So people are turning to God more, as they're turning away from religion.
Here's the difference: God wants earth to become holy, Religion wants to get people to heaven.
That's very different.
If you want the earth to become holy, don't climb to heaven.
And if you're climbing to heaven, earth will never get fixed.
So one of the 2 has got to go.
If religion says the goal is to get to heaven,
and God says "but I want to be on earth,"
who you going to go with? A religion, or God?
We're going with God more and more.
And we're recognizing that the desire to get to heaven
is just a spiritual selfishness, gluttony, self serving.
But being on earth and making the earth better is true, it's generous, it's kind, it's godly.
But if you're headed for heaven, you're going to miss God, because he's coming down to earth.​

 

A worthy thread, for there are so many denominations of Christianity, and some have vastly different beliefs about soteriology: how one is saved> faith alone saves vs faith & works saves, duo-covenant theology vs fulfillment/replacement theology (Supersessionism), christology: Jesus is the God-Man (Orthodox belief of many denoms including my own) compared to the claims he’s is the Archangel Michael (Seventh Day Adventists, Gnostics, Hebrews Chapter 1, Philippians 2:8-11 say He is not an angel), Prophet, Moral Teacher, and etc.

I hold to Christian Orthodoxy as found in God Breathed (2 Timothy 3:16) Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. That the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way to eternal life (John 3:16-18, John 6:40, John 14:6), That God is The Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, One God in Three Persons (Matthew 28:19, John 20:21-22, John 14:16, Genesis 1:26, 1 Peter 1:1-2, Luke 3:21-22). The Holy Bible is innerant/infallible and to be taken literally until it cannot; I believe its clear when its allegorical or symbolism.

 

Counterpoint to that rabbi, in the US the number of people that believe in god is dropping:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/393737/belief-god-dips-new-low.aspx

So yeah, I think people (at a minimum, as a collective group) are losing faith in god.

 

In America yes, worldwide Christianity is growing at an exponential rate:

“With a 1.17% growth rate, almost 2.56 billion people will identify as a Christian by the middle of 2022. By 2050, that number is expected to top 3.33 billion.Jan 31, 2022.”

 

The claim was about more and more people turning to god, and my point was that within demographic groups, the number of people that believe in god is dropping in the US. The areas associated with a projected growth in the number of Christians, being areas like Africa, are reflecting reproduction rates that are high in very religious countries and where there's already a high belief in god such that changing flavors isn't resulting in people who are turning to god in some 'new' way. It's all changes in the flavor of gods and those having a belief in god installed in them early on. That's not a persuasive argument against a claim that people are losing faith in gods or that more people are 'turning to' god rather than having already started there.

 

I said you are right about the US, but globally its tricky. In Germany many won’t say they are Christian or they pay a tax, so those demographics aren’t honest.

Other nations may have lots of Christians, but the State will persecute them for their beliefs, so they do not do polls.

So honestly, The US is really the only demographic I feel is accurate to a degree because there is not fear of persecution or a tax if you admit to being a certain faith.

 

If that's true, well a lot of American Christians claim to be a persecuted minority. Does that mean our poll results aren't reliable either?

 

Well claiming persecution is one thing, documentation in countries that crack down and hurt, imprison, and even execute Christians is another.

 

You're being inaccurate about Germany, especially as it relates to the topic at hand. Germans that are considered members of specific churches pay a tax. There is no tax on Germans saying that they believe in a god (either in a poll or as a public statement), nor is there any organization that money would go to. So it doesn't make any sense to claim that it's that tax skewing those numbers when it's a tax on church membership and we are specifically discussing the separate matter of belief in god.

You are very conveniently and very deliberately ignoring the very wide number of countries where people are pressured to proclaim a belief in god that they do not have. And not accidentally.

This has nothing to do with 'certain faith', the discussion is belief in gods, not membership in a particular faith. Specifically the bits about if people are losing faith in god and if people are now 'turning to' god (implying they were not before). Particular flavors are not relevant to those statements.

 

I wonder if such bickering would happen in a different religion’s thread? Sigh..

 

The criticisms obviously would still be made (and I thought it was fairly obvious that my comments have been referencing Islam as well as Christianity about areas that have high levels of 'faith in god' because a lack of faith is punishable).

There's a big distinction between looking at what goes on within a religion and bad claims about what is going on with how those religions relate to the full demographics. Understanding doesn't come from faulty premises, like trying to argue that the decline in religion is explained by people being more concerned about god. If the issue was a particular religion, or a particular sect, then one would expect people to try to find something else that works (and that rabbi quote specifically talks about individual instances of false religion, which suggest that he feels there exists a non-false religion, so it's not a criticism of the concept of religion). Instead, there's a lot of people abandoning the whole thing, or putting it to such a low level as to not matter. If one wanted to change that trend, one would need to directly acknowledge that's what's going on, not just argue that what is happening isn't.

I think there's quite a few people for whom losing their original religion is the sort of thing that means they are very militant about not going down any sort of religious or faith-based path because so much of why they believed was tied to that religion that it is not easily replaced. Particularly because a great many people have that belief in a god because of that specific religion, not simply incidental to it. It's a side-effect of being raised within a religion (or a key function, depending on how one wants to frame it) and that's a big enough deal that I also think the religious elements, or at least some of the trappings, can easily outlast the faith in god because of which is leading to the other. I think it's why the US can have something like 1 in 5 Reform Jews not believe in any god, for example, but still consider themselves religious. I think that's something that would be far more likely in the future of Christianity.

 

That’s what I meant about Germany, did I phrase it perfectly no. But the point about some states tax you if you identify as a religion does curb people wanting to say they are, Lutheranism is main denom in Germany, but will many people admit to being Lutherans, or even be seen in churches for fear of audits? I’d be afraid to attend services lest the govt decide to tax me if I lived in Germany.

Very deliberately? So you know what I think or intend? Its a fair point to bring up coercive religon, in Iran the Ayatollah despaired at how many were becoming Christians, but the demographics still say Muslim.

My US point was the polls are more accurate because there isn’t fear like in some countries to share your faith. Yes corruption could happen to polls.

 

There's Christian that just want to practice their faith... and then there's 'persecuted' Christians who are showing up to tell the inhabitants that their belief system is wrong. The whole concept of 'missionaries' is an ugly remnant of old-fashioned colonialism.
The most extreme case is the island whose primitive inhabitants kill any outsiders, and the authorities tell people to not go there, and missionaries continue to sneak there, and are killed.

 

Martyr mentalities still exist in some missionaries, the idea of dying for the faith is appealing and erroneously was believed to ensure heaven in 200-313 A.D.

To quote Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall, “I have always wondered at the difference between sacrifice and self slaughter.”

It is one thing to be rounded up for lions after attempting to stay alive, its another to throw yourself in harms way under consulate warnings.

 

Yeah Jesus didn’t tolerate hypocrites (Matthew, Chapter 23), nor do I.

 

you mean like in the Israel/Palestine thread?

 

Well we already have The Thunderdome for major debating of theism & atheism & etc.

 

Firstly, what audits specifically are you talking about? And if that was really the key factor it also doesn't explain why it is religious attendance is down in Germany far more than paying taxes for being part of a religion. That doesn't make sense with your explanation of Germany of a religious people where some are just afraid to admit it, because if that was a driving factor, everyone that is still paying those taxes should still be active religious participants.

I'm saying that you very carefully have tried to ignore the coercive impact of religion (and the rest of your comment does highlight it as something you're familiar with as a concept), though if the demographics still say Muslim then that is immaterial to the question at hand, because that's still belief in god (the same god even) and this was about if there's a loss of faith in god or not. A hypothetical Muslim becoming Christian doesn't reflect anyone newly turning to god, and it doesn't refute people losing faith in god, because that is just a flavor change as far as what the rabbit was initially discussing.

But you trust the polls and surveys as it relates to Christian growth, it seems, without considering that 'corruption' may be artificially increasing those numbers in many areas.

 

You telling me I carefully or deliberately ignore is your assumption, the truth is I hadn’t considered it; my mind was on replying to your poll on religion..

Oh but you trust the polls about the decline of religion in America, but call me out on trusting polls on Christian growth which actually have a fair projection of growth? Ironic.

 

Well according to him, turning to God is turning to wanting to heal this world and make it better for everyone.. that that is God. The desire to do good, in the here and now.