Again, I was talking about how Christianity is linear, in terms of the Bible that embodies it. It starts at Genesis/creation, then goes through Revelation and projects to an endpoint. Everything is about projection through that endpoint. And when people get to heaven, they seem to pretty uniformly believe that people stay there forever. Perfection -> Fall -> Struggle -> Perfection --> STOP. End of story. The main bulk of Christians vehemently deny circular paths such as reincarnation.
While I don't believe in reincarnation I don't really believe things stop... that is I don't think people are stuck in heaven for eternity constantly bowing. I think there will be a new earth (probably the same earth just revitalized) and everyone will have a physical body and life will go on as it does today just with no evil.
Other cultures might be far more about cycles, seasons, rise and fall, and good and evil are not necessarily enemies but two sides of the same coin.
I understand this. The two sides of the coin thing does get under my skin, but I believe that because of it's opposition to eastern religions Christianity has really underemphasized the importance of cycles and seasons. Even the circumstances under which evil should be expected and accepted.
Western vs Eastern or even tribal culture also mirrors Levi-Stauss' view of hot/cold cultures. Western culture, with its constant focus on "moving forward" toward better things with an endpoint of perfection, is wrapped up in Christianity. More tribal cultures that are labeled as cold do not having time moving forward inevitably, are not as nearly focused on "progress," and are instead about maintaining a circular balance, a stable balance.
I think you're right to some extent, but I hate the worship of progress. To me the focus on moving things forward is a refusal to respect God's sovereignty and timing. This of course has huge real world such as the christian support of israel based on eschatological views.
I like stability and balance far more than I like progress.
Kirk Cameron as "Neo." I guess we should be glad it was Keanu!
I'm sketch-painting -- but I'm talking mostly about the Christian culture that is fairly affluent (upper-lower to middle through upper class, including the mega churches), that does utilizes more modern worship (since those who strongly confine themselves to hymns probably avoiding interacting and absorbing from the current culture altogether), that tends to vote politically conservative and have conservative takes on public issues, are into Christian media, etc. Does that help?
If those people are liberal you must come from an uber-fundie background.
i was thinking you meant like mainline protestant liberal.
The original writers of the Gospels used particular words and forms when Jesus was speaking in a allegorical fashion, such as in the parables. They used different ones when he was speaking plainly. Everything Jesus said involving wealth and treatment of the poor was written in the literal fashion.
Yes, I didn't say he was speaking allegorically I said he was speaking personally. That is he wasn't preaching to a crowd, but was speaking to an individual and telling that particular person what he needed to hear. Since this is a personal message I think it's more important to extract the general principle rather than the exact statement particularly since he never says anything comparable to this in a sermon or to the disciples.
Jesus wasn't just saying that he needed to give up his possessions because he valued them more than God; he was saying that to have excess wealth was in itself valuing it more than God. If you placed God first, you would willingly give up your wealth to help others, as God had commanded. Remember the two great commandments - "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your mind, and all your soul" and "Love your neighbor as yourself." If you hoard wealth when someone else needs it, you are disobeying the second commandment, and by not keeping His commandments, you are breaking the first.
You're missing the whole point of the conversation.
The rich young ruler (ryr) asks Jesus how to gain eternal life.
Jesus asks him if he has kept the commandments
The Ryr explains that he has
Jesus catches him on the 1st commandment and his unwillingness to part with wealth (and he would catch anyone who claimed to keep the commandments)
The ryr departs saddened
Jesus then says "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
Many people stop right here and ignore the rest of the story presuming this is just about money, but it's not.
The Crowd then asks: “Who then can be saved?â€
Jesus replies: “What is impossible with man is possible with God.â€
So he could have done this same story with almost anyone and with any sin. The point was that without God people cannot achieve eternal life. Everyone has sin that they can't rid themselves of.
On a side note I recently heard an interesting theory that the ryr was actually Luke given that we know he came from a rich family and that it is only in Luke's account that the author knows the emotions of the ryr and that he was made sad.
That also runs counter to the words of Jesus, who specifically spoke of not being of "this world," of a Kingdom where all the assumptions are turned on their head, of rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's... it honestly doesn't sound anything close to what Jesus said.
Yes, well the argument goes that even if we are not of the world we are still in it and so the question is to what extent being "in and not of" creates unity between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of man.