29-Mar-14 World View -- Christians versus Muslims in CAR

[solomani]

Hi Augustine, yes, Christianity is unique in many ways vs other belief systems. Not the least of which are what Jesus calls lukewarm Christians - those who identify as Christians yet do not live Gospel driven lives. These people, despite what they say or believe, are not Bibilical Christians.

I am not saying that's the case in the CAR. It maybe or it just maybe they are, essentially, sinning. Here is a nice explanation on the idea posted just today: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/opini ... .html?_r=0

[John]

I thought that the whole point of the St Augustine story was that you
do anything you want your whole life -- drink, have unbridled sex,
commit genocide -- as long as you repent in the moments before death,
which erases all your sins. Maybe Hitler and Eva Braun, in that
bunker, followed the St. Augustine model.

[solomani]

I thought that the whole point of the St Augustine story was that you
do anything you want your whole life -- drink, have unbridled sex,
commit genocide -- as long as you repent in the moments before death,
which erases all your sins. Maybe Hitler and Eva Braun, in that
bunker, followed the St. Augustine model.

Its possible, yes, because salvation is a gift - its ill-deserved grace - no one deserves to be saved. But I am no more deserving of salvation than anyone else - Hitler or otherwise. But I would say that the way they lived and died would indicate otherwise. Having said that, I can't know, only Jesus knows for sure.

[Anon]

There is a disconnect here, and that disconnect is again, in definitions. While I can dissolve down to tiny differences between Christian sects and say "this is" and "this isn't", really, as John has mentioned before, wars have ostensibly been fought over the correct number of fingers to use while making the sign of the cross. It's a bit much for me to accept that this makes one side "Christian" and the other side "not Christian".

Fighting based on religious differences never completely dies down, this is utterly correct. However, there are times when it is common and brutal, and times when it is much more limited and restrained. This is the essence of what the GD model tries to explain.