Discussion of Christianity
Feb. 27th, 2016 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtbcI used to be quite active in online discussion fora. Then, I stopped much of that. Recently I've been again dipping my toes into online presence, hence this journal. I have also been participating in low-traffic systems like GROGGS and Gale which have now moved too far on the side of not being overwhelming.
I had been thinking about how in a high-church Anglican Sunday morning service in Britain I am not surprised to sing
Anyhow at a glance uk.religion.christian seemed like a reasonable group and I am certainly interested in everything from comparative theology to the practical experiences and challenges of life as a Christian so I've been reading and, currently less so, posting.
Perhaps there are too few people participating but, especially of late, whatever it is that I'd hoped of the group, it's really not that. People keep coming back to the same old points again and again, everything from criteria for salvation to what angels are to just how we were created, often using extracts from Scripture as evidence for assertions that I feel are held with more certainty than are justified given how generally mysterious and controversial a lot of these points are.
It may be because I tend to focus more on the canonical gospels but my reading is that the practical advice is clear, a first approximation being something like: love and worship God, forego worldly goods and concerns to instead draw on guidance and power from Jesus, God's son, to compassionately help those in need, whoever they may be, and teach others to do likewise so that you may all be saved. The discussion I read on uk.religion.christian doesn't appear to much concern this mission and I thus wonder if I am missing something or they are.
I may decide to stop following these discussions of what fraction of people might be saved, the differences between Hades and Tartarus, cakes for gay weddings, if the prosperity of Western nations arises from Christian underpinnings, etc. Admittedly, when people ask,
I had been thinking about how in a high-church Anglican Sunday morning service in Britain I am not surprised to sing
Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earthand
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and mightand
Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come againand whatnot to specific tunes and I wondered what these tunes were and where to find the sheet music. I thought that I recalled seeing the answer on the Usenet newsgroup uk.religion.christian many years ago but the increasing cultural vandalism of what Google have done to DejaNews appears to prevent me from finding it.
Anyhow at a glance uk.religion.christian seemed like a reasonable group and I am certainly interested in everything from comparative theology to the practical experiences and challenges of life as a Christian so I've been reading and, currently less so, posting.
Perhaps there are too few people participating but, especially of late, whatever it is that I'd hoped of the group, it's really not that. People keep coming back to the same old points again and again, everything from criteria for salvation to what angels are to just how we were created, often using extracts from Scripture as evidence for assertions that I feel are held with more certainty than are justified given how generally mysterious and controversial a lot of these points are.
It may be because I tend to focus more on the canonical gospels but my reading is that the practical advice is clear, a first approximation being something like: love and worship God, forego worldly goods and concerns to instead draw on guidance and power from Jesus, God's son, to compassionately help those in need, whoever they may be, and teach others to do likewise so that you may all be saved. The discussion I read on uk.religion.christian doesn't appear to much concern this mission and I thus wonder if I am missing something or they are.
I may decide to stop following these discussions of what fraction of people might be saved, the differences between Hades and Tartarus, cakes for gay weddings, if the prosperity of Western nations arises from Christian underpinnings, etc. Admittedly, when people ask,
What Would Jesus Do?, I'm not sure that the answer is that He'd be chatting on Usenet.
