Do You Agree With Colson on this One?

Just from what I've seen on the net most who claim they are Christians don't know as much about their professed beliefs than Muslims. They either are willingly ignorant, pick and choose, or blatantly go against scripture.

Muslims put their beliefs before their government so should Christians.

 

Willingly ignorant!!!

And if muslims had to choose between staying here in the US and renouncing their religion or to leave and keep their religion----they'd not let the door hit their backside on their way out

Us American Christians---we're so stupid, aren't we??

 

All three, Scribe, are indeed indicative of a culture that will not teach it's children the fundamentals of their faith.
They're ignorant because they have not been taught. They pick and choose because we have a supermarket mentality toward religion here. We are a free people and the Christian faith has to contend with too many sects within it's own boundaries. Too many variations to it's foundational document, the Bible. They blatantly go against scripture because they are taught that science has all the answers to the origins of all that there is. Which takes us back to education.
Muslims faithfully teach their children the Koran in their public schools. We do not teach the Christian Bible in our public schools. Only the most dedicated of Christians teach their children their Bible in their homes and/or make the sacrifice to have them home schooled or placed in a Private Christian School.
Churches have gotten away from Christian training. Islamic training is daily if not hourly, instilling a call to prayer 5 times a day. We have become lazy toward our faith and more concerned about the American dream.

 

This is absolutely on the mark. One of the greatest failures of evangelicalism in the past 100 years is the supreme lack of education of its people on the essentials of our faith. Mormons put us to shame, Jehovah's Witnesses put us to shame, even atheists put us to shame.

While Christianity is the most intellectually robust belief system, most Christians can't get beyond ankle deep. That's been the story of the Church since its inception.

I will disagree with Brother Colson, secular humanism and Islam are the greatest threats to Christianity today. Personal apathy and anti-intellectualism are the greatest threats. When we fail to get out of our comfort zones and share our story with others, when we stay away from learning how to swim in the intellectual deep end, when we get refuse to live as we are called we do more harm to Christ's Bride than legions of Muslims or humanists.

great link btw, thank! :thumbs:

 

That's a big problem. If parents would say no to their employer more and yes to their God and family more maybe this country would actually be the Christian nation it claims to be.

If they have been in church they should and do know what's right and wrong.
Most pick out what they like and choose to follow what they like.
Science will never have the answers. The rules change too much in science.

Muslims teach the Koran in their public schools because they put their faith before their government. The same thing Christians need to start doing.
Home schooling is the best idea for Christians.

Most people in America have become lazy in their faith because they put their work before their God.
God should always come first. First those people will have to forget about serving mammon and serve their God. You can't serve both.

Matthew 6:24 (KJV)
No man 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. Ye cannot serve God and mammon

The American dream is a joke. People work so much to buy more material goods that they have no time to enjoy because they are always working to buy more and more.

You know why they call the American dream a dream? Because you have to be asleep to believe it.

 

We're not a Christian Nation, we are a freedom of religion nation. We'd have to teach every other religion as well if we taught the Christian Bible in our public shcools. However, it is permissable to teach your childredn at home if anyone so chooses.

 

Why does the government say we are and have "In God we trust on the currency?"

America could teach Christianity and not other religions if they wanted to. They just don't want to.

 

The only problem I have with Colston's comment is the phrase "better theologians." If by "better theologians" he means "they have a more accurate knowledge of their holy writings and theological tenets," then I agree. If by "better theologians" he means "has a more accurate understanding of who God really is," then I must disagree. Colston probably had the former and not the latter in mind though...

 

yeah, this just needed to be said again

 

How can the next generation be reached if the last few generations-( to a good amount) are a group of baby Christians at best.


The founding fathers of this country knew the bible was important and had to be taught.
Now that idea has been turned on its head and kicked out the door. The blame for that lays at the feet of Christians.

We wonder why the church is so much like the world??? The church doesn't know the bible and way to many professing faith in Christ don't know Him either.

You can get on me about that if you want to but that is the truth. You can look around and see it.

We have to be on task in teaching the Bible-discipling. Living are faith outloud- not just quietly in a corner- or at a church service.

We have to be in the Word -studying it- applying it to our lives.

 

Which nation has religious freedom, the US or Iran? You could substitute Indonesia, India, Saudi Arabia, etc. for Iran.

 

It doesn't. In fact, the Treaty of Tripoli explicity states that the U.S. is in no sense founded on the Christian religion. The Constitution doesn't mention God. Funny they forgot that, huh?

Before the Cold War, it didn't. Paper currency only gained that motto in the 1950s. It was only sporadically on coins prior to that.

 

The Treaty of Tripoli under agreement only lasted a few years and no longer has legal status.

God in the State Constitutions

It doesn't matter what the Constitution says. Every nation will be judged by God.

Psalms 9:17-20 (KJV)
17: The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.
18: For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.
19: Arise, O LORD; let not man prevail: let the heathen be judged in thy sight.
20: Put them in fear, O LORD: that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah.

Psalms 33:12 (KJV)
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD: and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.

 

Why is every President sworn in with their hand on a Bible? To say that the founding Fathers saw no need for God in government is false.

God in the Constitution?

The Constitution should be amended.

 

I don't want to get too far away from the OP b/c I think it is one which needs discussing...but...

The founders saw the need for an appeal to the divine...I agree. Yet many of their conceptions of that power are markedly different from an orthodox Christian expression of the Trinity. Regardless, the point has well been made that it was not the founders' intent to hae some form of religious radicalism at the center of this country.

 

Scribe, your comments are the reason why there is separation. Whenever the church has gotten its mitts on the power of the government, there has been persecution, purges, inquisitions, torture, and burning at the stake of heretics. It doesn't have a benevolent track record with the levers of power. The founders knew this. Remember, it may not always be YOUR religion in power, and YOU could be the next heretic.

 

Would we Christians show our passion for our beliefs if we would blow ourselves and others up for it? Chop a few heads off some infidels? Overreact to someones disparaging remarks about our Savior? It is true that there are many Christians that are that in name only but I believe that can be said about many Muslims also. I would be willing to bet that there are many Baptists on this board that know more about Islam than the average Muslim. For that matter most Baptists (the IFB stripe) know more about Roman Catholicism than most Catholics.

 

Separation is so the government will stay out of the churches. Christ should always come before government and everything else.