There are
a bunch of my fork kin in other countries right now, acting as missionaries.
A powerful lot of them are babtists and Pentecostals, but we try not to hold it against them. I remember Dad having to take one uncle aside and explain to him that if he and his wife ever told my sister that all Catholics go to hell and made her cry again, Dad was going to arrange for a personal audience between my uncle and Jesus Christ himself.
They were always at our house, it seemed, because when they had finished their travels through the US, thrashing the locals for donations to help support their missions, they ended up in Hoosieropolis, broke, car a wreck, kids half starved, and exhausted. Dad and I would patch their car together, Mom and Sis would cook for them until you could no longer easily see their ribs and mend their clothes, and we would get them an audience with the local Baptist church whose congregation often contributed more for their mission than the hundreds of churches they had visited in their US tour.
Ordinarily a goodbye consisted of them offering to pray that we came to our senses before we all died and went to hell, but there was never any thanks for anything we’d done for them. I wondered why Dad kept it up all those years.
They would drive off to the coast where they would sell their car and use the money to buy steerage passage on a freighter and get back to their mission in Germany, or Poland, or wherever they were converting the wogs this year.
I am constantly astounded by the pick and choose nature of most Christians, and this last Sunday, when the Gospel focused on the Good Samaritan, it comes into focus more than at any other time in the cycle. Dad did what he did because it was the right thing to do, even though his own family thought he was insane and there was never any thanks.
I hope someday to be half the man he was.
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Yes, unrewarded generosity is the best. Gets harder as you get old as there are presumptions about old fat white guys that we must overcome.
But once you get past that, it can be surprising what you can learn by doing a little good.
I don’t know that we can make much change half way around the world, but if we do good in our own part, maybe it can be like ripples in a pond.
I’ve been married almost 14 years, and I found out recently (within the last year) that my wife’s brother disapproved of our marriage because he doesn’t consider me Christian (I’m Anglican, he’s from the Pentecostal tradition. Christians speak in tongues you know.)
My attitude was “If you didn’t approve, you shouldn’t have attended the wedding, shouldn’t have let your son be ring-bearer, and probably shouldn’t come to our house on Thanksgiving.” I’d NEVER hurt my wife by saying such out loud, but I’ve reached the point in my life where the number of people whose opinion of me matters to me can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Tell me about it. I’m boggled by people like that, I really am. Can you miss the point of “Christianity” more?
The speaking in tongues thing amuses me, of course. it is clear that the Apostles who- you know- actually spoke in tongues, were clearly understood by ALL the people around them, each In their own language. Not yammering like a monkey and pretending to have received the baptism of fire and the holy spirit. Can you say “Cargo cult”? I knew you could.
My own (Episcopal) priest commented that he always cringes at the passage, because the first man to pass the injured man by is…a priest.
Indeed!
Watch out for the Baptists, they’ll drink all your beer if you go fishing. The only tongues I otherwise occasionally speak is German, and some mix of very bad words in Tamil/Telegu/Hindi…
NotClauswitz —
The trick is bring TWO Baptists from the same congregation fishing. If you bring ONE Baptist fishing, he drinks all your beer — bring TWO and neither one touches a drop. . .
Jews don’t recognize the divinity of Christ,
Lutherans don’t recognize papal supremacy,
Catholics don’t recognize solo fide,
And Baptists don’t recognize each other in Hooters.
“Catholics don’t recognize solo fide,”
Because it doesn’t exist. Luther injected that into the scripture where it doesn’t belong so he could gather people to his stupidity. Worked, too.
Never argue politics or religion,
That being said, I need to revisit some of the writings of the apostles as my understanding is that faith with out works (good Samaritan) is empty faith.
As to whether faith alone will get you entry into the afterlife via the pearly gates, which, may or may not be pearly or gates, cannot be answered by any earthly authority as none in power has ever had a face to face with God or his son.
Course since I follow the teachings of Wesley who came long after Paul, the founder of the Catholic faith, I could be much farther down the road to perdition than I think.
lol.
You have to pay attention to that word “believe” as In “We protestants ‘believe’ x”. Who taught you to “believe” that? if the answer is “A man” or “men” it is suspect.
me, I speak tase. mr b is the most interesting man in the world, because he speaks tase- in Dog.
http://neanderpundit.com/?p=4595#comments
It’s possible to have faith without works but I can only think of one example ( Luke 23:42-43 ).
My Dad only did church on Easter (to shut my Mom up) or when a kid was getting dunked or hitched. When he died there were 4 former preachers (one flew from Germany to be there)and the current one to make sure everyone knew he was one of the most Christian of men because of his actions, not his attendance.
As I looked over the crowd delivering his Eulogy I saw wife beaters, pedophiles and adulterers all in the amen pews.
I strive to live by my Dad’s example.
Roger
Oohrah, Roger.
+1 on Roger…
Amen to that. Even the lurking Jew can agree :)
roflmao. Nathan, you should get a license plate that says that.
When I was a young man (right after the world went from black and white into color), I was full of myself…sat at front or near to the front of the local Catholic Church…heck, even lead the congregation in song on a number of Sundays. Many years have past…now I consider myself lucky to be even allowed inside, and am able to have a seat in the pew in the very last row. Not so much full of myself any more…as I am full of a long laundry list of “tactical errors”. Short of murder, I can’t think of a single commandment I haven’t bent or broken/let alone most of the seven deadly sins.
The good Lord hopefully has a very large sense of humor, and forgiveness…otherwise it’s the fiddlers green for me.
My Son in Law, whom I love as much as if he was my own child is an Observant Jew and one of the most Christian men I have ever had the good fortune to meet.
What is the saying? “By their actions you shall know them,”
Gerry N.
I learn something on here all the time and I’m grateful. Lookit: “Since the notion that works do not contribute to salvation in any way does in fact flatly contradict Scripture, Luther had to actually change Scripture to support it, adding the word “alone†after “faith†in Romans 3:28! The reference to “faith” in Romans 3:28 had never before been translated as “faith alone” before Luther – nobody had ever contended that that was an accurate translation of the Greek. (And that’s why mainstream Protestant translations such as the King James and NIV do not include “alone” in the verse.) (As astounding as such audacity is, it was far from his most egregious damage to Scripture – he removed six books from the Bible that had been in the Christian canon since the canon was formed, and were in Christ’s Old Testament (the Septuagint) as well. And that was not all – he also, of course, derided James, calling it “an epistle of straw” (because of how clearly it refutes his teaching) and relegating it to a different place in the back of his Bible. His justification for these things: “Luther will have it so!â€)”
This one hit a nerve.
“Dad did what he did because it was the right thing to do, even though his own family thought he was insane and there was never any thanks.”
Pretty sure the whole world thinks I’m friggin’ nuts right now but I’m also quickly approaching that point where, as Mark D says: “the number of people whose opinion of me matters to me can be counted on the fingers of one hand.”