kurtzman@uscvax.UUCP (Stephen Kurtzman) (08/17/85)
A recent article on this news group ended with: > Praise be to Christ Jesus, who sets us free from this world of death, and > raises us up alive with Him to be His servants and ambassadors back to > this world. > > Peter Homeier > ARPANET: homeier@aerospace I have always had the feeling that many people choose to believe in the claims of Christianity because it gives an alternative to an eternal death. The excerpt above is a classic example of why I get this feeling - Christ "sets us free from this world of death". Is my feeling justified? Many of the ministers, priests, and tv evangelists/preachers I have heard play upon the inherent fear man has of death. Does anyone know of any Christian sect that does not try to exploit fear of death? A lot of the Christian sects actually go one step further and tell people it is not just death you will experience but eternal damnation. It makes me uneasy and suspicious when someone tries to scare me into doing or believing something. How does it make the Christians and non-Christians on the net feel? What do you think the consequences would be to the Christian churches if they did not play on fear? I believe many would fall apart because it would rapidly become apparent that without fear all they would have left is meaningless dogma. Those Christian communities that have some basis other than fear might indeed find themselves bursting over with true believers. What do the Christians and non-Christians that read this news column think about this possibility? Note that I have not tried to pass judgement on whether or not Christ is (the son of) God. That is irrelevant to my questions.
hedrick@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Charles Hedrick) (08/20/85)
I don't know what churches you go to, but I have been going to church (mostly Methodist and Presbyterian) all of my life, and have never run into a preacher who used the fear of death as a motivation. Indeed within the more liberal denominations, it is fairly unusual for much emphasis to be placed on life after death. (I can't speak for more conservative churches.) Christians believe that Christ brings us into the Kingdom of God now, in the present. Of course we expect a more visible Kingdom in the future, and we expect to see God more directly after we die. But anyone who is motivated primarily by a fear of death is not likely to make a very good Christian. The comment you objected to, about Christ freeing us from a world of death, was quite likely talking about more than physical death. And the freedom it was referring to was not primarily life after death. Death is often used metaphoically to refer to the whole range of evil. Who is the Twentieth Century can fail to understand someone believing that the world is full of death, as well as lesser forms of evil? The Christian faith cannot, of course, get rid of this evil. However Christians do see God at work in this world. These comments are very quickly going to lead into theodicy, an issue which we have discussed before and which I do not want to reopen. So I will stop here. But the point I am trying to make is that we see God as active in the world against the power of sin and death, and do not confine this to pie in the sky bye and bye. And of course we also expect Christians to be active in this struggle now. It is perhaps ill-advised to use metaphorical language in a newsgroup such as this. I generally try to confine myself to language that will be understood by non-Christians. However this is net.religion.christian, so perhaps we can forgive someone for assuming that readers will have a general familiarity with Biblical language.
adb1@mtuxo.UUCP (a.benson) (08/28/85)
The article that I am commenting on concluded that some churches and some people use fear in an attempt to get people to walk in the truth of God. Though certainly this could be true in isolated cases, it does not negate the truth of the scriptures. Here are my comments: I would not say that anyone is capitalizing on the death issue. Basically, I it is an attempt to portray the complete picture of God. Sure God loves each of us and desires that we have fellowship with Him . But God is also a God of standards and His standards will not be comprimised and a part of that is that the result of sin(falling short of God's standard) is death and eternal damnation. The eternal damnation and death part of it do no negate the love of God neither do they contradict it. To me it makes the love of God perfect because we we get a glimpse of a love that is without condition that expects an uncodnditional love in return. The scriptures say that "While we were yet siners, Christ died for us"/ It goes further to say that "God demonstrated His love to us by sending His Son Jesus to die for our sins' When the scripture talks of our love for God things like the following come up: "If you love me, keep my commandments" "I want obedience and not sacrifice" The scripture is also clear on man's status before God "For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life" I wrote all this to say that God's love for mankind is evident. The scriptures even say that "His goodness is to bring us to repentnce". Sure God love people. But as people God gives us the will to make decisions. We either choose to follow Him or we choose to follow Satan. We make that choice. To choose God is to choose life. To choose SAtan is to choose death. This is no threat and no fear tactic just a statement of truth. What do you think? Angela
swc@cbscc.UUCP (Scott W. Collins) (08/30/85)
~ Stephen Kurtzman writes: > > I have always had the feeling that many people choose to believe in the > claims of Christianity because it gives an alternative to an eternal > death. The excerpt above is a classic example of why I get this feeling - > Christ "sets us free from this world of death". Is my feeling justified? > As a Christian, I am not so concerned with my physically being dead (although I concede the usual fear of the unknown and loss of life). More importantly, I am concerned with the quality of life that I experience. Rather than live a lifestyle that gives a lot of short-term satisfaction and very little or no long-term benefits, I prefer to risk the short-term "return on investment" and look for the long-term prosperity. This sounds rather monetary, so let me give an example. I have to decide upon buying a fruit tree for my yard so that I might have pleasing foliage and also have a source of nourishment. I see a splendid looking tree that has huge, appealing pieces of fruit hanging off of it. I can buy it and possibly later find out that the fruit is either inedible or not nutritious, or I can investigate it further to see if the tree is healthy inside and will bear good fruit. The former gives immediate gratification of having a seemingly attractive and bountiful tree with a risk of problems. The latter makes me wait to buy until I decide that the tree is really what I want. If it isn't I must wait even longer while looking at the next tree. The point here is that I am naturally concerned that I might be poisoned by bad fruit (common sense). But I am most concerned with the fact that I make the proper decision on the investment. Short-term gain is not always what it appears to be. Taking the time to find out the truth about life situations is not easy and is usually time-consuming as we are barraged with a variety of misinformation. > play upon the inherent fear man has of death. Does anyone know of any > Christian sect that does not try to exploit fear of death? A lot of the > Christian sects actually go one step further and tell people it is not > just death you will experience but eternal damnation. It makes me uneasy > and suspicious when someone tries to scare me into doing or believing > something. How does it make the Christians and non-Christians on the net > feel? I had trouble with this for a long time. It was not until I found that I could not comprehend the vastness of God's greatness and goodness that I realized that despite how relatively good and great I could be compared to a murderer or even a mild conman, I am still miles away from God (not to make a finite measurement, though). Therefore, I am still a "wretched soul" and hence no better than ANYONE else. Once you see your own depravity (not in a consuming, "oh-wretched-me" sense, but in a global sense), you can see that you are unacceptable to God as-is. He loves me, as he is a loving God, but he sees me unacceptable. [Insert here the Gospel, or "Good News", which tells of how we CAN be acceptable, free of charge] Now, I don't know what "eternal damnation" specifically entails, whether it means burning bodily for eternity, burned once and for all, left on this earth until it is destroyed, or simply separation from God; the Bible references a variety of descriptions. I believe that whatever it ultimately means is in accordance with God's will (what I consider perfect and therefore what I will accept), instead of a ghastly sentence that is imposed out of someone's unrighteous wrath. The latter belief would scare me into believing in Him just to save my skin; an ingenuine motive that would be known by Him anyway. This kind of "fear" of God is what a lot of people seem to think the Bible talks about. The former belief would make me want to be with Him on this earth and afterwards - still really out of selfishness, but with a genuine heart. It is said that none of us can turn to Him of our own accord. This means to me that we do not turn to Him because it is the natural thing to do; we must have ulterior motives for the choice (self-gain: prosperity, truth, eternal life, etc.). SSSSSooooo, in short, the fear of God is a reverence for Him as a response to his love and grace and not a trembling response to his potential wrath. > What do you think the consequences would be to the Christian churches if > they did not play on fear? I believe many would fall apart because it > would rapidly become apparent that without fear all they would have left > is meaningless dogma. Those Christian communities that have some basis > other than fear might indeed find themselves bursting over with true > believers. What do the Christians and non-Christians that read this > news column think about this possibility? I know that the fellowship I attend here in Columbus is about 2100 strong and the message is not "death unless we uphold the law" (Old Testament), but salvation due to the loving grace of God and the works of Jesus (New). The laws apply and are to be upheld as much as we humanly can, but we are to realize that we cannot come to God by our "works", only by the perfect works of Christ. Thank you for taking the time to read this! Scott W. Collins