Today, reply is made to a writer who desires Christianity be a peculiar global philosophy, or secular “open” belief system. Also there is more on the inseparable things from GOD. The “Yahoo! Answers” member using ID “Colin” (Level 1 with 159 points, a member since July 04, 2010) posted the following:
Is it possible for Christians to be inclusive?
I find that more and more fellow Christians I meet are open-minded when it comes to those who follow non-Christian religions. But I wonder: when a conservative Christian insists that Jesus is the ONLY WAY, are they accurate? The Bible seems to support such exclusive views (especially the Book of John but certainly other areas of the New Testament as well).
1) Can you be Christian and be inclusive toward those whose faith/lifestyle is different than what is laid out in the Bible? In other words, can you fully love and respect your Jewish neighbor, even though he/she does not believe Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life"?
2) If not, then doesn't this support the atheists' arguments that Christianity, despite its messages of love and forgiveness, creates more division than unity in a world in desperate need of coming together?
3) If yes, then how can this be? How are you able to fully follow Christ while also feeling and exhibiting respect and love toward your Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and atheist neighbors?
Thanks in advance for all thoughtful, respectful answers.
THE BATTLE AXE: Inseparables? (07/15/2014)—
When speaking about the process for baking a cake, sharing the recipe, teaching a class, or demonstrating how it's done, it is correct to describe each of the ingredients. However, a finished cake is more than just a collection of its ingredients. The content must be blended in specific amounts and measures having a peculiar balance and proportion. Thus, the cake may not be all flour, all sugar, or all vanilla extract without its other items. The cake must have eggs, butter, milk, and even a dash of poison commonly found around the house (i.e., table salt). Simply placing all the ingredients in a single container is not enough to make them edible; yet, only together may the ingredients be spoken of as “cake.” The ingredients must first be combined, and then undergo together a process that will transform them, and permanently bind and fuse them to one another: They must be fired, as it were, in an oven or furnace, and endure together over time. In the same way, some seek to analyze and describe a person’s salvation in terms of parts, portions, phases, and stages. However, the whole may not be reduced to a formula, a mere “table of contents,” or a recipe. Salvation embraces baptism, fellowship within a covenant community, obedience to divine law, repentance, resistance to sin, transformation of ones form, nature, and spirit, and more. Their amount, measure and proportion, are known only to GOD; and the process wherein they are fired and fused is of the Holy Spirit. Salvation is far more than simply a matter of attitudes, behavior, conduct, devices, lives, mechanisms, methods, opinions, traditions, or a fixed pattern of peculiar steps. More than this, salvation can not be separated from other divine operations such as atonement, commitment, confession, divine love, judgment, revival, and eternal life.
THE GOLDEN ARROW: Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. (2nd Corinthians 6: 14-18, KJV)
THE DOUBLE DAGGER: Putting GOD First? (06/02/2013); Need for A New Holy Spirit? (06/03/2013); The “Jesus Way”? (05/17/2013); An Earth to Fix A Heaven? (05/18/2013); Jesus Lives! (05/04/2013); Experience Is Not Evidence? (05/05/2013); Illusion? (04/25/2013); Not of Legal Age? (04/26/2013)
“Colin”, here are a few points to consider that have been helpful to many Christian believers:
(1.) While all Christians must be drawn to GOD through Jesus Christ and must be set apart by the sacred knowledge they receive, by sacred practices they maintain (we say, sacraments), and by their endowment of Spirit content from GOD (taken together we say, by their being sanctified), all Christians are self-selected, and established in correct relationship to divinity through self-will and volition (we say, by their own choice). No one is forced to love.
(2.) In baptism (the death of ones inborn spirit, rebirth containing spirit matter from the make-up of GOD) believers begin the transformations needed for mankind to serve as an eternal companion to the Almighty Father. Born again, believers must “grow up” again continuing to meet the same life challenges as all others upon the earth. Realizing that all mankind must enter into a pattern for survival that will establish lasting change, growth, healing, freedom (rather than enslavement), and eternal life (rather than death), most Christian believers endorse the many teachings that counsel that followers of Christ have a duty to assist, minister to, and nourish the salvation of others. Challenged to serve others, believers are not authorized to condemn, dominate, manipulate, and subordinate others. On the one hand, believers are told, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Yet, all are also commanded, “freely you have received, freely give.” In either case it remains, commitment, integrity, self-esteem and respect to others, true reverence, and acceptable worship are only maintained through sound discipline, and one having internalized divine boundaries, sacred law, and godly limits.
There is far more to be said, correctly understood, and spiritually apprehended. (For example, (3.) Until they are perfected (we say, mature), and contain more than an “earnest” of the imparted Spirit, Christian believers can not display flawless balance, completeness, consistency, fullness, and stability. Thus, at first, love that appears among believers is an awkward mix that comes from flesh and intellect, and depends upon such earthly elements as desire, emotion, fantasy, feelings, imagination, and memory. Divine love that appears among believers (to serve ones enemy, to encourage ones ex) is exclusively a product of divinity, and appears through such aspects of ones own divine makeup as faith, forbearance, forgiveness, holiness, humility, joy, longsuffering, truth, wisdom, and wrath against sin.) Even so, I trust this fragment will be useful. Be it unto you according to your faith.
THE BLACK PHOENIX
Washington, DC
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