ideologies and Christianity

[phlegm]

Christianity, even taken as an ideology apart from the historicity of Scripture, is indeed very much different from other ideologies.

I think "Christianity taken as ideology" is not true to who Jesus was. My Christianity is rooted in the real person of Jesus as the way to relate to God. I believe that love, peace, and righteousness will prevail because Jesus actually lived toward the Kingdom of God as love, peace, and righteousness. Love, peace, and righteousness are not mere ideals. In faith, they are the real stuff of God that I can live my life toward because and only because Jesus actually lived them.

If you remove historical Jesus from that, then profound love, profound peace, and profound righteousness are just abstract ideals that we connect with mere stories about Jesus, and there would be no reason for Christians to believe that love, peace, and righteousness will actually prevail.

In comparison, one could just as easily connect those ideals with the stories of the Star Trek universe as a secular humanist vision for the future.

Or, perhaps one could create a whole bunch of laws designed to steer us toward those ideals.

Either way, they would only be ideals with no connection to reality. Without historical Jesus, "Christian" faith would be just as empty as faith in the visionary stories of Star Trek or faith in a bunch of human created laws.

[SolaDeoGloria]

I was only agreeing with tkrantilles that the truths that the Bible promotes are very different from what is promoted in most other writings (ancient or modern). But, what you are saying is true. Our faith must be rooted in what actually is rather than merely in an idea. I believe what I believe because Jesus actually came in time and space, took on human flesh, lived a perfectly righteous life on my behalf, and died for my sin. Also, in Him and through His death, I am dead to sin, for He has prevailed against all temptation and prevailed against evil. All of that, of course, is still ideology, but it is based on history--what actually is, rather in something merely hypothetical, speculative, or abstract. Thus, I don't think that saying that Christianity is an ideology denies that it is, in fact, something more than in ideology.

[Fred]

I was only agreeing with tkrantilles that the truths that the Bible promotes are very different from what is promoted in most other writings (ancient or modern). But, what you are saying is true. Our faith must be rooted in what actually is rather than merely in an idea. I believe what I believe because Jesus actually came in time and space, took on human flesh, lived a perfectly righteous life on my behalf, and died for my sin. Also, in Him and through His death, I am dead to sin, for He has prevailed against all temptation and prevailed against evil. All of that, of course, is still ideology, but it is based on history--what actually is, rather in something merely hypothetical, speculative, or abstract. Thus, I don't think that saying that Christianity is an ideology denies that it is, in fact, something more than in ideology.

I think the two of you are using different definitions of ideology. I think I'm with phlegm in my understanding of the word, but I can understand what you meant by it as well.

[iancurtis51880]

I think understanding and knowing about the 'historical Jesus' is very important, but I place a MUCH higher priority on Biblical teachings. I believe in His ministry and teachins, but the only real way to do that, imo, is to know and try to live out it's precepts. If I don't do that, then what point is there in anything else surrouding Christianity? It's not enough to just know who He was and what He said and did, I have to make the Bible a central part of my everyday life because it is the only thing that can give me what I need as a Christian.

[phlegm]

I'm not saying the Bible is unimportant.

Living toward the coming Kingdom of God as perfect love is how Jesus showed us to live. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus revealed God as loving, because it means that we can participate in a profound love that will actually prevail. That's what makes Christianity Christian.

[iancurtis51880]

I'm not saying the Bible is unimportant.

Living toward the coming Kingdom of God as perfect love is how Jesus showed us to live. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus revealed God as loving, because it means that we can participate in a profound love that will actually prevail. That's what makes Christianity Christian.

And, on those points, I agree. I just happen not to agree on your assertion about Biblical inerrancy being irrelevant. We really agree on more than we disagree, but to me, that one point is glaring. Oh well.....