The essentials of Christianity

[McCulloch]

As far as Christians who believe non-essentials that are wrong thinking (i.e. they are the only saved group, prayers to Mary are beneficial, etc.), it doesn't mean they aren't saved. I believe when they get to heaven they'll find out there were things they were wrong about, just as I will.

Question for debate: Just what are the minimum essential beliefs of Christianity? How do you tell the difference between a wrong teaching that is acceptable or tolerable and a wrong teaching or belief that may affect one's salvation?

[Cathar1950]

I am going with anyone that calls themselves a Christian and maybe even anyone that is called a Christian just to be fair.
Even Christian heretics are Christians.

Today's joke from Comady Cental:

How many Christians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
None. The Bible makes no mention of lightbulbs.

[myth-one.com]

Question for debate: Just what are the minimum essential beliefs of Christianity? How do you tell the difference between a wrong teaching that is acceptable or tolerable and a wrong teaching or belief that may affect one's salvation?

Christian: A person who believes in Jesus Christ as his/her Savior from the wages of sin.

By that definition, the minimum essential belief is believing in Jesus as one's Savior.

==============================================

The reward of Christians is being born again as an everlasting spiritual being into the Kingdom of God residing within the Kingdom of Heaven.

Someone earlier nominated The Apostle's Creed as containing the minimum essentials.

But The Apostle's Creed contains the following lines:

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.

This "resurrection of the body" belief has the bodies of dead Christians rising out of their graves as incorruptible eternal physical bodies and joining with their spiritual bodies which have been waiting in heaven. But if that occurs they cannot remain in the Kingdom of God because flesh and blood cannot inherit that Kingdom:

And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;... (I Corinthians 15:49-50)

So if the resurrection of the body theology is true, then Christians cannot remain in the Kingdom of God after the resurrection.

That is a flaw in the Apostle's Creed.

[MagusYanam]

Question for debate: Just what are the minimum essential beliefs of Christianity? How do you tell the difference between a wrong teaching that is acceptable or tolerable and a wrong teaching or belief that may affect one's salvation?

The denomination of which I am currently a part (the PECUSA, Anglo-Catholic tradition) views the Apostles' Creed is a symbol of baptism, whereas the Nicene Creed (381) is considered a sufficient statement of faith.

I am leery, however, of attempts to put hard-and-fast necessary conditions on what constitutes Christianity, which I think is what you're asking. I prefer the idea of a centred set approach rather than a bounded set, since it reflects a more existentialist idea of what we mean by 'Christian':



The emphasis is on Christ as the centre of the Church. If you move towards his example, being like him in how you live (as he is portrayed in the Gospel), and if your actions reflect that, I would consider you part of the centred set, even though the ideal is difficult to attain fully.

For example, I think Gandhi was a better Christian than many Christians are - he took Christ as his example when practising satyagraha for the emancipation of India, even if he was not formally a member of the Church.

This may or may not be the answer you're looking for...

[justhere]

"The most important thing is "loving God with all you have" (as is fleshed out in the Law) and "loving your neighbor as yourself."

"Love covers a multitude of sins..."

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,b but have not love, I gain nothing. "

[Cathar1950]

"The most important thing is "loving God with all you have" (as is fleshed out in the Law) and "loving your neighbor as yourself."

"Love covers a multitude of sins..."

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,b but have not love, I gain nothing. "

And that is the beauty of using a word like love with many meaning which are often esoteric and subjective. What does love mean? Is it agape which is borrowed from the relationship or contract, sometimes unconditional, between a lord and vassal, mostly the duties of the servant.
Or is it feeling or emotion?
It can and does mean everything and anything to anyone and everyone.
Do you think Muslims and Jews love?

[justhere]

And that is the beauty of using a word like love with many meaning which are often esoteric and subjective. What does love mean? Is it agape which is borrowed from the relationship or contract, sometimes unconditional, between a lord and vassal, mostly the duties of the servant.
Or is it feeling or emotion?
It can and does mean everything and anything to anyone and everyone.
Do you think Muslims and Jews love?

Of course Jews and Muslims love, God doesn't see religion, he sees souls surrendered in love, or not.

1 John 4:12 "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."


Also-
I don't mean to throw around the word 'love", as many in modern, Western culture do- That's the beauty of the word love, is that it IS defined outside of our 'personal' definitions.
"Love is patient, kind, long-suffering, not proud"

..... you've heard all this. So it is rather objective in some sense.... the only part that's subjective is that you and God alone know the SINCERITY of that love.

"love from the center of who you are, don't fake it..." (forgot the verse)

[Cathar1950]

And that is the beauty of using a word like love with many meaning which are often esoteric and subjective. What does love mean? Is it agape which is borrowed from the relationship or contract, sometimes unconditional, between a lord and vassal, mostly the duties of the servant.
Or is it feeling or emotion?
It can and does mean everything and anything to anyone and everyone.
Do you think Muslims and Jews love?

Of course Jews and Muslims love, God doesn't see religion, he sees souls surrendered in love, or not.

1 John 4:12 "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."


Also-
I don't mean to throw around the word 'love", as many in modern, Western culture do- That's the beauty of the word love, is that it IS defined outside of our 'personal' definitions.
"Love is patient, kind, long-suffering, not proud"

..... you've heard all this. So it is rather objective in some sense.... the only part that's subjective is that you and God alone know the SINCERITY of that love.

"love from the center of who you are, don't fake it..." (forgot the verse)

We can substitute love for obedience giving us a better sense of the use in the Bible where Obedience is patient, kind, long-suffering, not proud.
Or service where "service" is patient, kind, long-suffering, not proud.

From Edmond Cohn in :The Mind of the Bible Believer":

The last term I wish to discuss is love'. Again we see
inflation of this term, when we consider some biblical definitions of
it:

. . .[L]ove is the fulfilling of the law.[Rom. 13:10]

And this is love, that we walk after his commandments.[2 John
6]

Could it be that this new kind of love, said to be so much
superior to our own inclinations, is nothing but a very strict and
obsessive type of self discipline? It seems so. We can harmonize all
the Bible has to say about love' by saying that love' is "Holy
Spirit-aided self-discipline in internalizing Christian doctrine and
performing the devotional program." Too bad for the new believer;
he's getting love' when he expected love.

There are also indications that the believer's love' for God
consists not of love, but of the outpouring of energy:
And Jesus answered him, the first of all commandments is,
Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this
is the first commandment.[Mark 12:29-30]

In psychodynamic terms, God is a complex, siphoning libido
from ego-personality, disrupting the balance between progressive and
regressive flow of libido. This harmonizes with the biblically
mandated alienation from the world and other people.
Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil;
cleave to that which is good.[Rom. 12:9]

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in
him.[1 John 2:15]

Also consider how we are exhorted to obey god and secular authorities
simultaneously:

. . .[W]e have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us,
and we gave them reverence: shall we not rather be in
subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they
verily chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our
profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.[Heb.
12:9-10]

No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the
one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and
despise the other.[Luke 16:13]

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything. . .[Col.
3:22]

Since "the whole world lieth in wickedness," then submitting
oneself to unsaved earthly authorities makes one a partaker in that
wickedness. But that is just what is being commanded. One is
required to serve two masters, and to serve each totally and
exclusively--a logical impossibility.
Consider also an antiapologetic triad on love:

As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye
in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my
love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide
in his love. . . This is my commandment, That ye love one
another, as I have loved you.[John 15:9-10,12]

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of
me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not
worthy of me.[Matt. 10:37]

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother,
and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and
his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.[Luke 14:26]

The ambiguity here serves a purpose; to make affections for
others equal, (so that they lose their distinctiveness) and
unimportant compared to the God-complex. Coupled with instructions
stressing obedience, discipline and prohibition of emotional
spontaneity, libido is siphoned away from people and concerns of this
world and cathected towards the God-complex.
We see here a consistent pattern of words that have
significant connotations for us being devalued, becoming code words
for an obsessive program that, if it were expressed in plain terms,
would lose all power to enthrall.
This also reinforces Device 1, as
the newcomer naturally uses these terms with their ordinary
connotations. Deeply indoctrinated believers use the biblical
connotations, though they usually have trouble articulating these new
connotations. Believers and unbelievers are not just speaking about
different concepts, but in different languages.

http://www.skepticfiles.org/atheist/mind-bib.htm

[justhere]

I think love defined as 'the outpouring of energy' is a valid.

[McCulloch]

I think love defined as 'the outpouring of energy' is a valid.

It might be a valid metaphor. But it certainly is not a good definition. Stick your finger into an electrical socket and feel the love.

[justhere]

I think love defined as 'the outpouring of energy' is a valid.

It might be a valid metaphor. But it certainly is not a good definition. Stick your finger into an electrical socket and feel the love.

If Edmond Cohn was talking about humans as conductors for electricity, than I disagree with love as an outpouring of energy.

So, scratch that last comment.

Is that what he meant?