I grew up without religion or ever attending church as a kid. I've always believed in God and I'm far from an agnostic or atheist. For the past couple years I've been looking for a church. I've visited (with my wife) about 7 churches or so. Some Pentecostal, Baptist, ect. There seems to be a common theme with all these churches/ pastors that I've noticed. It's once your saved, you can do no wrong and it really doesn't matter how you act in life....your going to heaven and EVERYONE else (Jew's, Mormans, Hindus...) are going to hell. I just cant get into this kind of thinking and It's frustrating. I also believe many born agains do believe this, as I know some really crappy ones who are not good people at all but sit in that church every sunday and give a lot of money to the church. I know there are many good born agains doing a lot of good in this world... I'm not stupid. I just seem to know of a lot of crappy ones. If it was one or two churches that preached this I wouldn't be writing this. I just can't believe that someone who is a Jew  that lives a good life, treats everyone well, is going to hell just because he is a Jew. I think we are judged on our actions more than our faith...I think above all God wants us to be good to one another and thats why I can't attend these churches.

Thoughts?

Catholics go to confession and repent regularly.

They also serve beer at the church picnic

ETA:  'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me ' (John 14:6)

It's just a recruiting gimmick.  I wouldn't get worked up about it.






















 

Be Lutheran, we've got Lefse and coffee.

You missed the point of the OT and the NT. It is not works that will get you into Heaven.

Finding a right church is key, as you need to agree with the manner of their teachings and beliefs. But, looking at my first line above, you have some areas you also need to brush up on.

Even as a saved person, you can still do wrongs.

Protestants are supposed to live their life in a Christ like fashion.

I hear you saying, "I can't go to any Christian Churches, because I see imperfect people in attendance."

Tisn't well people who need a doctor, my man.

The gist is ALL humans suck and will never be good enough to reach heaven on their own. Our acts will never be enough to "atone" for our wickedness.
It's only through God's sacrifice that all our sins can be erased.
So, once you accept this, your good to go.

But the Bible further states that we should sin no more, and live decently...aka, Don't be an @$$hole

The big thing is you don't have eternal damnation weighing over our heads once you're good....kinda nice because otherwise, you could live like Mother Teresa your whole life, then get really pissed off by something at the end of your life or so something bad...and go straight to hell.

Read Romans 3:1 if you really want to know

Beer is awesome..I drink like a fish.

You can do plenty wrong, but if saved you are washed by the blood of Jesus Christ.  This means if you have a personal relationship with him and believe he died for your sins, you will have eternal salvation.  But faith without works is dead.  If you are saved by Jesus Christ, you will have a conscience and you will wake up in morning with a heart tuned for love of your fellow man and Christ.  It does not mean you will never sin again.  It means when you do sin and recognize it you will have a desire to confess your sin through prayer.  




 

Christianity as a license to sin.



Agreed. When confronted my Christian friends have cute little sayings like "you only find sick people in hopsitals" or "All sin is equal in Gods eyes."

ETA:
That irrational and counterproductive thinking is why I dont buy what they are selling. Sorry but noticing my neighbors wife has a nice ass is not the same as buggering the alterboys. All sin is not equal. Even if God see's it all as equal that doent mean we have to or should.

The most honest upstanding groups I have ever met are Mormons first and Catholics 2nd.

I have met lots of 2 faced backstabbing Pentecostals.

That's sort of a general tenet of Protestantism, that faith alone gets you into heaven:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_fide

Now if it's the idea that only those of your religion get into heaven that upsets you, then you're pretty much not going to like most monotheistic Western religions.

First and second posts nailed it.

You might be more comfortable in a Catholic church. At least check it out.

But only a relationship with Jesus Christ will get you to the promised land.  No judgements on either group.  Only each person will know if they have a relationship with Jesus Christ.  It is only up to me to recognize false prophets.

 

What do "churches" have to do with it?  The Bible does not preach once saved always saved.

See John 15, specifically 15:2

Maybe because it was his son he sacrificed.  He has got some skin in the game so to speak.  Its readily available to read about.

 

You all are going to hell!

By their fruits ye shall know them.



“No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day”

I've always thought this quote was a load of BS.

So you are saying heavens full of ex wives? Bummer.

If Protestantism is your preference try more churches.  They most certainly do not all believe that everyone but them is going to hell.

I'm a Catholic.  It is no longer believed (officially but I'm sure some still do) that only Catholics go to Heaven.  However, that doesn't mean you'll find the rest of the church to be to your liking.  Keep searching until you feel like you've found a good home.  Maybe your personal belief in Jesus Christ as your Savior is all you need.  That and a good heart is good enough in my personal opinion.  Yeah I'm not a particularly good Catholic!

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Many born again Christians project this attitude, whether they mean to or not. I've had people tell me, with tears in their eyes, the hour and minute they were "saved". From that point on, they figured that they were good to go to heaven. I have a significant problem with this concept.

 
 
 
 

Your heart is moved to be righteous, but the highlighted text is absolutely erroneous.  You are either saved by grace through faith or you are not.  Abraham was faithful and it was judged righteous.

Don't be fooled, you will be condemned by your deeds but you will be saved by your faith.

A faithful man is righteous and a righteous man will not do evil.

You will know a vine by its fruits.  Those of wicked deeds are unrighteous and the unrighteous have no faith.

I assure you that your deeds should be righteous, but without faith even righteous deeds will mean nothing.  Of those that have nothing, even what they have will be taken.

By grace, through faith.  Your works will identify you, but they will not save you.  Only faith can do what you are seeking.

When you get older you will come to realize that people are still people, no matter their belief system.

Quit worrying about it and live your life as you see fit.

If you accept the notion of a Creator, it makes sense that there would be one true religion. It's far more likely that the Creator would seek to enlighten humanity as to his nature than just say "Eh, whatever you think is best."

I'm with you, I don't think being "saved" is a one time ordeal that grants you never ending golden tickets.

that thinking in part is what aligns me with the Mormon faith. By the way, Mormons are Christians, it's a common misbeliefe that we're not.

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe."
- Thomas Paine

Question.

If two people do equally great things in their lives and commit the same sins, where one is a (insert Jew, Muslim, whatever) and the other is a born-again Christian according to what you've said only the born again will get into heaven?
Just seeing if I am understanding correctly. Not trolling.

So he creates a planet where people speak different languages and during most of their history lacked much communication with other cultures. But created the one true faith and everyone who doesnt say the majic words of that faith goes to hell.

Thats a raw deal for people who lived in remote places cut off from other cultures. Seems place of birth and parental influence has a huge influence on who goes to hell with that model.

Most Evangelical Protestanism in the US has Calvinist roots, which include the "everybody but us right here are going to Hell" shtick.

It's about as mature as a "no grlz alowd" sign on a grade school tree fort, but it's great for whipping up the old "us versus them" mentality that gets people frothing at the mouth and following the leader.

Yet another historical touchstone of how much of a douchebag John Calvin was.

just re-read Lug-1's comment. He is steering you straight on this one.

Just to stir the pot:

1.  A mormon kid from a nice middleclass family with good parents dam near burnt my car down on purpose.

2.  I can show you heaps of Catholic bad men.  Without even resorting to Himmler.


There are good and bad people everywhere.

You'll have to throw me a lifeline on Pentecostals.  I don't personally know very many.

Lets not forget our current wonderful Baptist President, Obama.  Chills me every time I remember he's in my denomination.

I like Mormans because they tend to live a lifestyle that is a positive example to others. But my Christian friends wouldnt vote for Romeny because he is Morman and do not consider Mormans to be Christian.

The problem with Protestantism is they focus on only the "accepting Christ" part and totally ignore the "being a decent person part."  As the Bible says, faith without works is dead.  You can't go on about believing and accepting Christ as your personal lord and savior while still being  a dick. Faith and works go hand in hand. As Animal Mother in Full Metal Jacket said, "You talk the talk, but do you walk the walk?"

Wait until you have to deal with Ex-Smokers.

God Bless you, OP.

Lutheran -- WELS Lutheran is what you seek.

Let's not go down this road tonight....

If you believe there is a God and you want to know more about him, you need to go to a reliable source just like with anything else.  None of this "I think God should be like this or like that" stuff.  

That reliable source is how God himself chose to tell us about himself, about our problem (sin), and about his solution to it (forgiveness for Christ's sake).  That source is the Bible.

What you are looking for is a church body which has a great deal of respect for the scriptures and which trains its pastors to know the Bible and read it in it's original languages.

I strongly recommend the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  Even there, you have to be careful to find a good one.  I highly recommend you go to issuesetc.org and go to the "find a church" option to find a good church congregation and pastor near you.   There, you will find the answers you're looking for.

Lutherans?

A "Reliable Source?"

I have never met a Christian that thought they could do no wrong.
Are you sure you are not making that up ?

This is hard to explain, because a system of religion is not really what you think it is.

You probably think that religion is a collection of stories and beliefs about what people wish were true. And for some people that is what religion is I guess. But for the actual religious leaders it is something different entirely.

Hopefully you took geometry in high school and hopefully you remember at least some of it. Religion is a lot like geometry. You start with some axioms and then use logic and reason to prove or disprove certain theorems. These theorems are then used to prove other theorems.

Now I want to stress something here. Logical proofs do not equal reality for several reasons. One of the big reason is that your starting axioms may well be flawed or just outright false. Another reason, particularly when dealing with religion is that the laws of human logic don’t necessarily apply to the Creator of all Existence.

As an example of what I mean…

“There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.” This is an axiom of Islam. If you accept this you can reason out all kinds of religious theorems, if you don’t accept that axiom then you will almost certainly consider those theorems to be false.

As it relates to Christianity, there are many axiomatic beliefs many Christians hold. As a body of thought Christianity has gone on to create a massively complex system of theorems about the nature of God and the way to Heaven. But not all Christians believe all of those theorems and many don’t even accept the same axioms.

Now, the real point to all of this is that you are being told a religious theorem which makes no logical sense to you. But there’s no way it can make sense to you because you haven’t had any real religious training. You can’t understand it any more than a first day plane geometry student can understand some complex proof.

Some of those beliefs may seem dumb to you, but they aren’t just randomly chosen beliefs. They are the result of much rational thought and debate conducted by countless people over the course of centuries. There is a logical basis for them. Maybe you will decide that their logic is flawed and that they are wrong. Fair enough. But don’t dismiss those beliefs until you understand WHY they believe what they do.

this....he is full of shit.

The Bible is the reliable source.  Lutherans are only right if and when they stick to the Bible.  Same with anybody else.  I have given directions to find a congregation that is known for adherence to the Bible and with a strong background in Biblical scholarship, doctrine, and apologetics.

"Salvation is through grace, not by works".  

At the same time, you can't disingenuously sin 6.5 days out of the week without concern for the consequences, and expect God to believe you when you pray to him for forgiveness.  

You have to try.  You have to make a sincere effort to live by Christ's word.  Christ dying on the cross wasn't a "get out of jail free" card without commitment on your part.

Only you and God knows what's in your heart.

There are a lot of fake people out there, going to church on Sunday to pray for the sins they commit on Saturday night, with plans do it all over again the next weekend; attending church services for the wrong reasons

Church?  I've learned more about my faith from respected people I've interacted with personally, and even from strangers-like Old_Painless here in GD-than I have from attending services at a church.

At the same time, church can VERY GOOD for reaffirming your faith, and putting your faith in perspective.  You just have to find the right one.

Good luck.

or in PA at least Spaghetti or Chicken Pot Pie dinners

You think he's an..... Atheist troll!?!!

Well, if you have faith and are saved, you HAVE TO STOP SINNING, you can't just keep on doing what you're doing.

We are Methodists, and yeah I don't agree with all of the Methodist operations, but we do help our community, we do help each other, we do learn the Bible and seek His Wisdom.

+1 on the Church shopping, do a lot of research with respect to Church beliefs and operations.

And if you go fishing be sure and take 2 ! Baptists, cause if you just take 1 he'll drink all your beer!  
I love that one.
And some people have no sense of humor.

What gets you to Heaven is following Christ,  knowing Him, believing He died for your sins and rose again, and turn from sin.





















 

Obama was United Church of Christ and his former pastor was Jeremiah "God &@$" America" Wright.


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