<p>Quite right. Either Jesus didn’t mean what he said (what he supposedly said is pretty transparent), the Bible isn’t inerrant, or maybe he was wrong (or only wanted disciples from among those who DO hate their fathers and mothers.)</p>
<p>That’s probably another thread.</p>
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<p>I’m sure all the Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. are grateful to you for your pity.</p>
<p>mini, as I said, Catholics DO allow for errors in the Bible we do not believe that it is inerrant. It is the inspired word of God, which has been translated and changed over time. Most Catholics don’t have a lot of trouble understanding what Jesus meant – it is the essence of our faith.</p>
<p>But what about Exodus 20:12, “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you”?</p>
<p>I think the point Luke was trying to make is that God comes first (granted, he used an extreme statement to make his point).</p>
<p>Well, we can “think” what we like. But what he “said” (according to inerrant Luke) really isn’t in question.</p>
<p>We have no way of knowing whether the direct disciples “hated” their families. But most of the evidence seems to point to the fact that they “forsook” them. Doesn’t seem like they had difficulty understanding their teacher.</p>
<p>(My own personal “think” is that Jesus meant precisely and literally what he said. He saw himself as an “end-time” prophet, with no use for marriage, family, or other general rules of behavior. I have serious doubts as to whether he was any sort of Rabbi - an unmarried rabbi, in the Jewish tradition of the period, would be an oxymoron. To me, his knowledge of Jewish law seems highly suspect. Or the text is “errant”. But what we “think” isn’t part of the inerrant equation.)</p>
<p>Though I myself didn’t join Campus Crusade, I have many friends who had in college. It’s supposed to be a fun ‘youth group’ type of atmosphere, not a cult by any stretch of the imagination. If you have heard of Young Life, it’s very similar to that with the same type of doctrine and worship. </p>
<p>I was a member of Young Life and had lots of fun, nobody was turned away, regardless of your beliefs. Now, if you are hesitant about your child learning about fundamentalist ideals, I think you should rethink and let him know you accept his decision if he accepts yours that you are Catholic (and also a Christian). </p>
<p>This is a big reason why I’m against baptizing infants and small children. Children become adults and as adults they develop minds of their own to decide in their hearts what they believe to be true. Only then can the accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and should be baptized. Dedicating children to be raised in the church is a great idea, forcing them to become baptized, not so good…</p>
<p>Edit:</p>
<p>It took me a long time to accept that Catholics were Christians as well, being raised in the sterotypical non-denomination setting. My parents still don’t fully accept that I may make the Episcopalian church my church ‘home’, but they have come to accept that deep within my heart, I still believe Jesus died for my sins. Give him time, acceptance sometimes takes some time and some battles.</p>
<p>“I know…it doesn’t mean what it clearly says.”</p>
<p>I really don’t know myself. Of the brief time I spent in organized religion (almost married a penecostal minister’s daugther) I found them to be pretty scarey people. Everyone but them were to burn in the fires of hell. To me, it was sorta “hate with a smile”. I didn’t see all the “love” they had for others when they expressed so often that if you didn’t believe what they did, you’d burn. Kinda killed my relationship after a while with this gal. She wasn’t like that but, I couldn’t see myself surrounded by that general attitude being married to her. I had friends of different religions and they were good people. I could not support a system that stated these good people were going to burn, because they felt a bit different about god than someone else. Why would god do that? I could see where man could, but why would god?</p>
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I can only speak for Catholicism, in which Confirmation has been moving to older age norms. Confirming kids at First Communion no longer happens, and the age has continued to rise. My Church has Confirmation for tenth grade students; the youngest I’ve heard about lately for Catholics is the eighth grade. I’m a little rusty on the beliefs, but if I remember correctly Baptism is the cleansing of the Original Sin from babies. If the unthinkable happens and the child dies, he or she will already be clean of the Original Sin. For babies, is not meant to be an activity of the free will but an act of protection and cleansing. Confirmation, in which one chooses to become an adult member of the Church, is much later. Feel free to correct me.</p>
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Well, when I looked into this aspect of the belief system I saw it made sense, given its assumptions.</p>
<p>Within Evangelical belief, the whole world was initially [perfect</a> and Good]( <a href=“Genesis 1:31]perfect - - Bible Gateway”>Genesis 1:31 - God saw all that he had made, and it - Bible Gateway), and therefore compatible with God.</p>
<p>With the Fall of Man, sin entered the world like an infection, corrupting the perfect order. It spread into all things-- into trees, into animals, and into man, specifically into the one man, Adam. That is why all things die, for the wages, or penalty, of having a sin nature [is</a> death](<a href=“Romans 6:23; NIV;is - For the wages of sin is death, but the - Bible Gateway”>http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%206:23;&version=31;).</p>
<p>From Adam, sin spread into all men, and because sin infected all men, [all</a> men today are forced to act imperfectly (i.e. sinfully)]( <a href=“Romans 5:12; NIV;all - Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ - Bible Gateway”>Romans 5:12; NIV - Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ - Bible Gateway). Sin is not what we do, but what we are. Put another way, man is not a sinner because he sins. He sins because he is a sinner.</p>
<p>Unlike man, God is Perfect, and yet He calls man to be as [Perfect</a> as He](<a href=“Matthew 5:48; NIV;Perfect - Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly - Bible Gateway”>Matthew 5:48; NIV - Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly - Bible Gateway).</p>
<p>To make us as Perfect as Himself, God sent Himself in His Son, to pay the wages of sin in our stead. Though Christ had no sin, [He</a> was made sin for us, so that sin is no longer attributed to those who are in Christ](<a href=“2 Corinthians 5:21 ; NIV;He - God made him who had no sin to be sin - Bible Gateway”>2 Corinthians 5:21 ; NIV - God made him who had no sin to be sin - Bible Gateway). Such people are as righteous as God.</p>
<p>Two questions arose for me concerning obvious problems with this system. 1. How to account for the obvious imperfection of the physical body, since such a grossly incomplete and needy thing is also incompatible with God, 2. How to deal with people who have never heard of Christ.</p>
<p>Though Christians may be as righteous as God, their physical bodies clearly are not. After all, those bodies continue to lust for water, for food, for comforts. They get angry, they respond to external pressures that sometimes cause them to lie and cheat just like everyone else. This proves that the body is not complete and perfect. Most, perhaps all Evangelicals believe, I think, that the body continues in imperfection despite that Christians are deemed by God to be Perfect in spirit. Because the body is imperfect, it cannot reach heaven. That is why even Christian bodies die. For them, the body is a corrupt trap from which death releases one to heaven. It is clear this is why St. Paul said that Christians “groan and are burdened” by their physical dwelling, and it is clear he speaks of the human body, saying further that Christians long to be “clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be [swallowed</a> up by life.”](<a href=“2 Corinthians 5:4-5 ; NIV;swallowed - For while we are in this tent, we groan - Bible Gateway”>2 Corinthians 5:4-5 ; NIV - For while we are in this tent, we groan - Bible Gateway) By “heavenly dwelling” he speaks of a new, perfect and [immortal</a> body](<a href=“1 Cor. 15:51-53; NIV;immortal - Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will - Bible Gateway”>1 Cor. 15:51-53; NIV - Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will - Bible Gateway) that Christians will receive after leaving their mortal bodies. That effectively takes care of this problem.</p>
<p>The final problem, concerning people who have never heard of Christ, was solved very simply. When we consider the system described above, we see a perfect world that became imperfect and therefore condemned by nature. The whole world, all humans, are now born in a state of sin and are therefore incompatible with God. The question is, did the Fall of man somehow morally obligate God to save all humans? No. All humans were initially perfect. There was moral equilibrium. If we assume free will, then the moral imbalance resulting of the Fall cannot be ascribed to God and He therefore has no obligation to save everyone. They are already condemned. Does Love obligate Him? Certainly not! Love by definition cannot allow ultimate coercion, even when it comes to salvation. Such a thing would eliminate free will. Love would allow encouragement toward salvation – such as sending one’s only begotton Son to pay for sin and waiting until all who will accept Him choose to do so. Once all of those have made their choice, then Love would require God to cut bait and fish.</p>
<p>If we reject the idea of free will, then the question of moral obligations becomes entirely irrelevant.</p>
<p>One of the roommates that I lived with for a year was heavily involved with the Cru group on campus. I knew she was really religious, but I didn’t realize when we moved into the apartment that apparently the people on the bottom floor were all part of it, and the people that had lived in our apartment the previous year were a part of it, and since they’d previously held their weekly meetings in that apartment, she decided it’d be a good idea to continue to holding them there. The end result of this is that I’d always come home at night from my longest day of classes to find 20 strangers sitting in my living room discussing why some particular Bible passage illustrated how awesome God was. </p>
<p>They didn’t seem to be particularly cult-like in the sense of trying to cut people off from their families, but then I got the impression that most of them came from the stereotypical good Christian upper-middle class family anyway (my roommate certainly did). They did try to get me to join, but having finally escaped my “you live in our house and you will do as we say and you will go to church and not stay in bed and be lazy if we have to physically drag you down the hall” parents, I told them I wasn’t religious at all and they left me alone. I know that aside from the weekly meetings in my apartment, they also met as a group on Sunday mornings to go to church, and invited anyone that wanted to go to a church but didn’t know where to go/have people to go with, to go with them. A lot of times they’d also come back to my apartment for a large group Sunday lunch. I can’t imagine someone who’s already not super religious wanting to join.</p>
<p>so a billion chinese are going “eewww” right now? </p>
<p>Are you also saying you can do horrible things shout “ollie ollie oxen free” (convert) and you’ll enter “heaven” while another person grows up, never knows about the same god as you, yet never ever commits any vile acts and leads a good life is doomed? Or an infant dies before he can “accept” christ as his personal savior? that child is doomed?</p>
<p>Boy South Park makes more and more sense all the time.</p>
<p>I view Campus Crusade as a cult masquerading as a fundamentalist Christian organization. As a liberal Episcopalian with a daughter probably heading for the Episcopal priesthood, I find the basic Cru beliefs wrong and limiting. It is not an “inclusive” organization, and I suspect they have plenty to say about gay bishops and women priests. I hope your D outgrows this phase. I would support almost any well thought out religious choice my kids make, with the exception of the fundamentalist Christian groups. I believe heaven includes Jews, Hindus and any other folks that love thy neighbor and adhere to the moral code represented to Christians by Jesus and to them by some other prophet or God.</p>
<p>“Two questions arose for me concerning obvious problems with this system. 1. How to account for the obvious imperfection of the physical body, since such a grossly incomplete and needy thing is also incompatible with God, 2. How to deal with people who have never heard of Christ.”</p>
<p>I don’t see any “obvious imperfection of the physical body”, in fact, quite the opposite. I see a body excellently put together (as a result of evolution - which may have had a designer behind it) for the continuation of the species in its particular ecological niche. Wholly compatible with God, perfectly designed for the purpose for which it was intended. “Imperfect bodies” are not the result of sin, but of natural evolutionary processes for which the Great Creator designed us. </p>
<p>And I reject the second question as well. I believe we are all “saved” at birth. The Inward Teacher, the Inner Light, the Christ Within, the Seed, inhabits us all, and our responsibility/opportunity is to be attuned to its leadings, and to act accordingly. We don’t need a release from the body to experience Heaven, for heaven is of our own making. And I know experientially that heaven is populated by Jews, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, pagans, atheists, (and even a few Quakers) 'cause I’ve met 'em there (here.)</p>
<p>(As for Jesus calling on his disciples to hate their mothers and fathers, wives and children, brothers and sisters, and being unmarried himself at a time when an unmarried rabbi was an oxymoron, I would have thought he could be gay, and had an unpleasant family experience. Seems to me to be as good an explanation as any. But who knows?)</p>
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It would appear based on your post that your definition of an “inclusive” organization is one that adheres to your beliefs. If they do not, then they are to be shunned. Does your shunning also include the Catholic church and associated organizations as well? Certainly they also “have plenty to say about gay bishops and women priests.”</p>
<p>MoWC:</p>
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<p>I think you have a misconception about the fundamentalist beliefs. I was raised a as a multitude of protestant faiths and chose fundamentalism during my teen years, but am swinging towards being (a rather conservative) Episcopalian now. Even with my current beliefs, I do not believe homosexuals should be clergy. I believe this does NOT make me a bigot or restrains me from ‘loving thy neighbor’. </p>
<p>I believe in equal rights in secular culture, however, the Bible states that homosexuality is wrong. I personally do not want someone who disobeys Christian doctrine to preach to me about the Bible. This does not mean that I believe they are not good people nor that they have the capacity to be good Christians, they most certainly do. It is just the same way I would not want an adulturer or polygamist preaching to my congregation.</p>
<p>Now as a question, what makes it right to say someone is right or wrong when you go ahead and say that you believe that everyone who adheres to a good moral code (which Cru does) has their place in heaven? That seems contradictory to me, please correct me if I misread.</p>
<p>“I believe in equal rights in secular culture, however, the Bible states that homosexuality is wrong.”</p>
<p>The Bible also says - JESUS says - you are to hate your mother and father, wife and children, brothers and sisters if you wish to be his disciple. (But he never said a thing about homosexuality.)</p>
<p>Aside from all the Biblical discussion: does anyone else think “Crusades” is a poor choice of name for a Christian organization, given what the Crusades were, historically speaking?</p>
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<p>I’ll get back to you when I have a Bible around (i.e. at home). You may be correct, but I need to do a little bit of reading when I get a spare moment.</p>
<p>Luke 14:26.</p>
<p>Here tis in the NIV:</p>
<p>“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.”</p>
<p>Now mind you, this is not a doctrine of non-attachment; the word “hate” is very clear.</p>
<p>(But you are welcome to “construe away”!)</p>
<p>Just because Jesus did not address homosexuality doesn’t mean that “the Bible” does not. If we were restrict our beliefs to nothing more than what Jesus explicitly said, then the Bible wouldn’t need all those books after John or before Matthew.</p>