Conservative Christians still praying for Obama's death

C'mon man we're talking about Jesus. I'm pretty sure he can multitask..

 

Do Muslims love God or just fear him?

Also in Christianity there is an acknowledgement that God is all powerful and can and has visited his wrath upon those who didn't obey him so wouldn't that mean there is some coercion / submission in regard to one's relationship to God even in a Christian perspective?

 

There is much confusion...

 

Title should read Radical Christians still praying for Obama's death. My pastor has repeatedly said pray for our leaders (even well before Obama was elected) but he always says pray for guidance and understanding. I would be completely surprised if anyone at my church supports anything like that.


I pray for Obama, but not for his death.

 

Submission is definitely conveyed in the Bible, but it is not a popular concept among today's Christians.

This is Old Testament, conveyed to the Jewish people as one of the last warnings of Moses.

Deuteronomy 6:13-15

New Testament

Romans 1:18-19

 

Agreed. My pastor always prays for our leaders to seek and find wisdom in the difficult situations and challenges they face on a daily basis. I would get up and walk out of my church if a prayer was ever lifted up to God for harm to come to ANYONE in particular.

My pastor also makes a point to chastise those in the church who foolishly fall into the "God is a Republican or God is a Democrat" mindset.

 

I'm guessing they would say they love him. Like I said, I'm no expert. I don't think their understanding of love is as developed as it is in Christian thought (complete self-giving, from God with the desire we completely love back).

As to your second point, I'm not even going to try and pull out an old Testament exegesis to go into the different forms of God's anger. I don't think though, it necessarily equates with a coercion/submission mentality. There was a breaking of the covenant, that called for a new covenant in Christ.

 

I don't think many people have a mindset where they are the ones damning others to hell. Do good "Christians" really need to respond to every crazy that brings something like this up? Oh someone posted a crazy t-shirt on cafepress, let's get a statement from the Pope. I don't think that's necessary at all. Most established churches already have dogma that denounces this sort of thing.

If pressed though, yes, the shirt is completely ridiculous and Christians should not pray for Obama's death. Happy?

 

We're calling him "Buddy Christ." It's just a working title, but doesn't it...pop!?!?

 

Gah. I guess I suck at conveying my point. I don't really care about the shirt, my point was that whether or not one acts upon the belief that those who believe differently are going to hell is moot. An ideology that encourages judgement from those who proclaim to follow it usurps the authority they simultaneously claim only belongs to god.

Ergo, any belief of such a nature is "radical".

 

It is probably radical, but Christians don't believe that they are judging whether you go to hell or not.

 

hope that didn't hurt too much to say

 

It was tough, but I someone how overcame my intense religiosity to be able to make the statement.

 

How can that possibly be true? Either you believe in Jesus as your savior and are saved or you don't. How can one believe that non-believers are doomed to hell and not "judge" them accordingly? That makes no sense.

 

What's the alternative? I can't judge whether an act is good or not? Whether a person is exhibiting good moral qualities such that I'd want my family to emulate? I think you can make judgments without necessarily judging. Else, everything becomes relative, which really isn't in the tradition of most Christians and for good reason. Maybe that's radical?

On the flip side, if you don't care about the quality of your decisions or actions, why do you care if some Christian "might" think you were going to hell?

 

Well I don't judge anyone personally.

Hypothetically, if a man stands trial and is sentenced to death by a jury of his peers, and I then say "That man is going to be executed by lethal injection for his crime" am I judging him or just acknowledging the judgment that has been made by someone (the jury) with the power to do so?

 

So, you must also believe that Muslim leaders should also simply roll their eyes in silence rather than come out and publicly denounce the idiotic statements of the radicals.

 

Now you are getting into semantics. I've had this discussion with many people on the board before. It's not necessarily true that one believe in Jesus in the exact terms of Jesus savior. I'm Catholic so I've got a little bit different view on it then maybe many here. A good place to look would be the church's teaching on baptism. The church teaches baptism is necessary for salvation. It also recognizes baptism in three forms, fire, water, desire. I have to check on the order of the first two, but one essentially says full Catholic baptism, you're getting the fullness of the faith. The 2nd recognizes other Christian traditions and says their baptism is valid, but they don't quite have the fullness of the faith. The 3rd baptism by desire says those who earnestly seek truth, have a desire for God and thus salvation can come to them as well.

For those who seek truth, i.e. charitable active love, they are still able to obtain salvation.

The problem comes when you see truth and reject it. I think this is hard to do. Love is so ridiculously overpowering that it's hard to deny it. But who knows. A lot of people fall for perversions of love, and take themselves away from truth. I'll spare you the sermon on that though.

 

Eh, God tells us whats going down, and it doesnt change for each individual. But I think you are saying that Christians are ok to believe a person who does not accept christ will be going to hell unless they change, but to come out and comdemn said person as a judge is wrong. If thats your stance then I agree wholeheartedly. If you are saying a Christian believeing that a non-Christian will go to hell is wrong, then you are missing something. There is a difference in believing someone will go to hell, and bashing them over the head with that belief.

The reason that Christ gave the great commission to his disciples is to save the folks who dont believe from going to hell. Followers of Christ dont save people, Jesus saves people. Followers can only provide information or plant the seed so to speak. Anymore than that and you begin to attempt to make yourself larger than Christ. Which is not called upon in the great commission.

 

I don't think it's a direct correlation. The basic argument is the same, but there are major gaps in the Muslim religion that make these actions more pervasive. You don't have 50,000 offshoots denominations, instead you have terrorists coming from distinct mosques that are in the mainstream. It's not quite the same.

So to answer your question, there's not always the need for higher ups to answer every terrorist action done by a Muslim. But when it comes from their branch or their mosque, they should probably say and possibly do something (preventative) to try and stop the problem.