Evangelical Magazine Supports Impeachment and Removal

[Dill]

(12-20-2019, 05:41 PM)Benton Wrote: Baptist, if I remember right. I don't know the guy very well, outside of Facebook friend of a friend.

And I'm guessing this is going to garner the response of "that's not what I meant" but that that's your first response says a lot about my concerns over Christianity today. Of he's a Christian, it shouldnt really matter the denomination. A brother should be a brother. 

And, no, he was saying Trump shouldn't be called a Christian. And I'd agree. Nobody's perfect, but the idea is (basically) to try. Make an effort. Be nice to people. Promote charity (instead of stealing from it). Value peace. Offer love. Trump is as much a Buddhist as he is a Christian.

Just calling yourself something and then acting opposite of it doesn't mean you're the thing you're calling yourself. It's like saying "I'm a vegetarian who loves a good steak or some smoked ribs.... Hey, nobody's perfect, but I'm still a vegetarian."

Well said, especially the bolded.

Also, virtually every church invests in defining what Christians are or are not. If they did not, how could they proselytize or continue generation after generation?

Most Christians of whatever denomination subscribe to the belief that Jesus was son of God and the way back to Him. Someone who says Mohammad was the final prophet of that God is not a Christian.

Most Christians also agree that Jesus was a model for how people should behave; and that behavior is prescribed in teachings and parables.

Most also agree that there is some point in holding people who claim to be Christian accountable for the claim in one way or another. That's had a bad flavor since the Inquisition, but it is difficult to promote and maintain an identity group without doing so to some degree. When I was in high school, a pastor in a nearby city was voted out by his congregation because he had an affair. They did not burn him to death or claim he was not a Christian, but they did find him unfit to lead, because a pastor is supposed to model Christianity. The congregation assumed they could tell what was Christian behavior and what was not.

The editors of CT are (belatedly) doing rather the same thing. They assume they know what Christian behavior is and is not. And they assume they know the consequences of confusing or ignoring what is or is not, the moral risk of Christians believing they already know which evil men can be tolerated as God's instruments without compromising God's teachings.