Skip to main content

Christianity as a Religion

Religion.

3 interesting ideas on it from an interesting article:

  1. Each of the world religions "depends upon what it takes to be actual events faithfully documented by reliable accounts." For every believer from these faiths their religious belief is seen to have everything to do with facts.The death and resurrection of Jesus are based on facts, capable of being defended in court (as often claimed by apologist).
  2. "Religion is a way of life, not just a collection of beliefs." It cannot be contained and practiced only within its community or worship area. We are living testimonies and we live out and manifest our faith in Jesus every where, all the time (salt and light of the world).
  3. "“Religion most often involves a deep commitment to telling other people how to live their lives.” Well, yes, for many religions it does. It certainly does for the great missionary religions of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam." Maybe we don't tell people how they should live (well, actually, many times we do) but it is because we are thoroughly convinced of our accepted guide for life as the best (if not why subscribe to it) and out of love and desire to see others benefit from it, we share, tell and sometimes push others to embrace the Christian way of life.
I am beginning to see why there is a need for Christianity as a religion and not only as a personal intimate relationship with God the Father via Jesus Christ with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. 
I am also slowly formulating an understanding that the religion of Christianity is man-made, using divinely inspired and transferred truths from Scripture, the example of Jesus as well as the prophets and apostles. 
And there lies (a possible) problem - any man-made belief structure is imperfect and depending on its maker, very different and opposing to another religious man-made order or structure (though they use the same Book). Welcome to denominations (?).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Understanding Church Trauma

Christian  communities are expected to be our safest emotional and physical spaces. Even so, there are times this sacred space become toxic, abusive, and traumatizing to a church member when leaders and members of a congregation exhibit actions that fail to reflect the love of God. In the infographic below, four common ways church trauma is caused is identified and explained. I hope the information will help you understand what has happened to you or someone you know in church (or now no longer in the Christian community). The purpose of this post is to promote healing among those traumatized and to highlight practices that need to stop so that a Christian community is restored once again as the safest  emotional and physical space for any child of God. As you continue educating yourself on church trauma and abuse, it’s important to remember that you are not alone. If you need to, seek a mental health professional to help you better understand your condition its impact on your...
Post a Comment
Read more

Overcoming Setbacks with Seligman's 3P's

How do you successfully process negative events that hit you in life ? Psychologist Martin Seligman discovered 3P's that STUNT recovery from such events: Personalization - what happened is my fault; realize that bad events aren't entirely your fault. Not everything that happens to you happens because of you. When you blame yourself, you delay recovery. Pervasiveness - this will affect ALL areas of my life; realize bad events don't affect every area of your life Permanence - the aftershocks of this event will last forever; realize hardships won't follow you everywhere forever even though you feel that the debilitating anguish will always be there. When we are suffering, we tend to project it out indefinitely and overestimate how long negative events will affect us. One way to overcome this is to replace "never" and "always" with "sometimes" and "lately". So next time, when the next 'bad'comes, remind yourself ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Am I A Beggar, Begging?

I believe there are people out there who want to help and are able to help, so I share needs, both personal and church/ministry related. I also believe what James said in his letter, "You do not have because you do not ASK." So it was a surprise to me to be (recently) labelled a beggar and to have my sharing of needs and requesting for assistance and donations described as begging. My initial response was, "What? Me a beggar, begging? I began to wonder when did asking become begging and is there a difference between asking and begging. So I turned to Google and typed in 'difference between asking and begging', and lo, to my surprise, it was an often asked question! The articles, forums and comments listed were helpful and most importantly, eye opening, especially the dictionary definitions. It says that if I ask someone or ask for something earnestly and/or humbly, thats begging. Then I have been begging (oh no!). It also says that if I ask especially f...
Post a Comment
Read more