What should be a christians mentality towards unbeliever friends in and arround his\\her enviornment?

what should be the intimacy level of a christian and his or her worldy friends?

KrispyKrittr wrote:
Chandras?? Is that you??

Krispy

I saw the question, and the fact that it was a first post, and I thought, chandras.

Won't say anymore.

I don't know if this is Chandras or not...

...but I've noticed lately there is an increase in people using multiple aliases or membership monikers. If you don't want to use your real name that is quite understandable...but how many aliases do you need? I'm starting to wonder if SI really has only about a half dozen actual members, all using two dozen screen names each. ;-)

I could very well be two or three people on this forum. 8-)

MC

In answer to the original question, how about this one: "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." -Matthew 9:36

Compassion, mercy, love...

Now about the multiple alias thing... what a great idea! You could have an entire theological discussion with yourself on line! It wold be like having multiple personalities. I can imagine, say, two or three of the personalities having a heated discussion with each other, and have several other actual people trying to calm them down, etc. What fun! You could develop a Calvinist personality, an Arminian, a Charismatic... the list goes on, and we could even throw in an atheist or a heathen just to make it interesting. I would lose track, though, of the personalities for each one and which one thinks what. Oh wait, I could devlelop character cards for each one... starting to sound like an RP game!

;-)

I'm also Dorcas

So you're Dorcas? I suspected there were Brits who secretly followed Nascar! So to save face while in public, do you have to keep your Dale Jr. cap hidden under your bowlerhat?

You could have an entire theological discussion with yourself on line! It wold be like having multiple personalities. I can imagine, say, two or three of the personalities having a heated discussion with each other, and have several other actual people trying to calm them down, etc. What fun! You could develop a Calvinist personality, an Arminian, a Charismatic...

Kingsson, I already do that without the internet! :-? ;-)

MC

Good one! :-P

Compton, I do too, sometimes... but doing it on-line adds this whole other dimension because the others here don't REALIZE it's you talking to yourself... ;-)

Krispy - Brits following NASCAR? Is that like a Yank who thinks he understands cricket?
:-?

ANd what happened to the point of this thread? :-(

No i am not Chandras.

Thanks for your post. But let me make the the question more clear to you. The attitude of a christian in his intimacy level with the unbelievers? Say for example; Jesus was called as a friend of the sinners which means that he had spoken and interact a lot with helpless sinners. But their are also places in the bible which says about staying away from people defiled in sin. so what should be the balance of these things?

Nah, I think us Brits realise that Nascar is rubbish!

But how else will them F1 chaps learn how to race if they can't see how big boys drive? ;-)

Actually when Ron B was in Canton, we had a good chuckle at another fine racing invention from the US of A; Demolition derby at the county fair. Spraypainting and smashing up perfectly good automobiles---now there is some American fun.

We just like breakin' stuff. :knockedout:

MC

Welcome ajforjesus,

Sorry for asking if you were Chandras. There's been some reincarnation around here recently. Still, we shouldn't have presumed to even raise the issue. Forgive us for not giving you a warmer wlecome.

----------------------------------------------------

I also appreciate that kingsson addressed your question. Actually I think your question is an important and timely one. With so much talk about being 'culturally relevant' and 'socially engaged', I feel your question is an urgent consideration for us today. Broadly stated, " how does one love and embrace the world like God does (John 3:16) without becoming a worldly person (1 John 2:15–17)?"

Well, whatever options we consider open to us, I've personally come to the conclusion that true fellowship with unbelieving people is ultimately not possible. We can be loving, compassionate, respectful, understanding, and friendly...but we can't expect the kind of reciprocal mutual respect and understanding in return that true friendship and intimacy is based upon.

I would like to recommend an interesting book if you are inclined to look into it: Robert Gundry's " Jesus the Word According to John the Sectarian". The author struck a cord with me because he believes that the early church could be, in many ways, downright anti-social in it's relation to the world! I admit I find this a refreshing breeze of clarity compared to the seeker-sensitive fog that the evangelical church is currently lost in.

Let me quote a few paragraphs from a reviewer that sums up Gundry's point of view well. Bare with me here...I am seeking to address your question by first adressing the broader issue I feel your question is rooted in.

Is North American evangelicalism sick? New Testament scholar Robert Gundry thinks so, and in his most recent book, Jesus the Word According to John the Sectarian,1 Gundry offers some stern advice and strong medicine to rehabilitate the patient. The deterioration he laments is most severe among those whom he calls “the elites,” that is, “the well-educated, the cultured, the economically and socially upscale” (xiv), as opposed to our fundamentalist forebears at the turn of the century who were marginalized from and perhaps by mainstream culture.... The antidote that we need, says Gundry, is a strong dose of the Gospel of John, which as he understands it has a strongly sectarian character to it."

(Time out for my own sidebar here: Sectarian is a word I've grown to appreciate in the past few years. I think, for all the talk coming out of emergent and seeker-sensitive church's about returning to 'ancient authentic Christianity", history shows that the actual ancient church was in fact a society set apart from society...something post-modern Christianity is unwilling to be. Back to the book review...)

Gundry thinks that the sectarian character of John has a timely message for today's evangelical elites of North America.

When you read the Gospel of John, says Gundry, what you discover is a very sectarian message about Jesus the Word... In postmodern terms, Jesus's message about Himself is an unapologetic, full scale, metanarrative. He makes absolute, unconditional and uncompromising claims upon those who hear Him, both then and now.

Why does Gundry construe John's Jesus as a sectarian message? What does he mean? Jesus's words about Himself are simple and clear; they are also extraordinary. In John's Gospel, those who believe “get it” and understand the message, while unbelievers do not. John creates a sharp divide between those in the light and those in the dark, believers and unbelievers, children of the Father and children of Satan. “John,” writes Gundry, “is using the antilanguage characteristic of sectarians. They define themselves over against the world, unbelievers, the nonelect. They form themselves into an antisociety that uses an antilanguage” In other words, John, and John's Jesus, is a separatist, a sort of proto-fundamentalist who because of His message necessarily lives at the margins of culture and society.

In John, for example, the “world” is almost always used in a negative sense (cf. 1:10, 29), Jesus never eats with “sinners” as He does in the three synoptics, He reveals Himself to his (sectarian) followers but not to the world (14:22), and—how can it be?!—He even says that He prays for His followers but He does not pray for the world (17:6, 9). This sectarian anti-worldliness points His followers and hearers to some sort of otherworldliness: “The one who loves his life will lose it, while the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (12:25). Thus, the Jesus of John, says Gundry, “is unalterably counter cultural and sectarian” (p. 63).

Evangelical elites in North America, on the other hand, have become worldly. We have done the opposite of what John describes. We have cuddled up to the world, accommodated ourselves to it, embraced it, soft pedaled the hard sayings of John, and smoothed over its sharp edges. Whereas John the sectarian shouted the Word without apology, we whisper it ever so politely from the centers of society (74).

Gundry argues that this evangelical erosion has taken place in both key theological tenets, but also in our lifestyles. We de-emphasize or avoid altogether John's doctrine of eternal punishment and divine judgment, we allow social and political engagement to usurp evangelism, while our interest in being seeker-sensitive is really a dumbing down of the Gospel message into a psychological massage (78). In our lifestyles he points not to former fundamentalist taboos like drinking and dancing, but to larger issues like “materialism, pleasure-seeking, indiscriminate enjoyment of salacious and violent entertainment, immodesty of dress, voyeurism (cf. internet pornography), sexual laxity, and divorce” (77–78). We have moved from “vibrant sectarianism to torpid institutionalism” (91).3

In Gundry's mind, what we need is a return to John's sectarian emphasis on separation from the world (cf. 1 John 2:15–17). This return to a sort of fundamentalism, he argues (93–94)
would be culturally engaged with the world enough to be critical rather than so culturally secluded as to be mute, morally separate from the world but not spatially cloistered from it, and unashamedly expressive of historic Christian essentials but not quarrelsome over nonessentials. "

Again I apologize if this seemed a bit tedius, but I feel it adresses the issue your important question is rooted in.

Thank you so much for waiting on us to catch up to your question.

Blessings,

MC

Sorry to have to ask this. You have said you are not chandras, but you have not said who you are, which country you live in, if you are married or not, have children or not.

Are you a pastor, preacher, evangelist, layperson?

Do you have secular employment, do you work for yourself?

See, your first post was just a question, as was your third post.

Second post said you were not chandras, but then chandras changed his name to ruthies, so if you say you are not chandras, I have to question that.

Sorry I have to ask, but the cynic in me just won't die.

God bless.

My bad! Sorry, Krispy... Just realize that to a Brit, we are all Yanks. Not my fault and not much I can do about it! I spent over 7 years over there (in England) and had many southern friends who chafed just as you are! So just consider that perhaps it's just us northerners who don't understand cricket, then you don't have to be included in that remark! :-)

Reply to Enid and the rest of the guys.

Hi i am Ajith from India. Sorry to be late to give my intro but ths is the first time i am discussing in the forum and i thought people just discuss and dont introduce themselves in this process. I am not married. I am just a simple man or lets say in Our lords terms (son of man); and by Gods grace would be like to continue the same even if he entrust me any of such roles in the future. I work for a bpo company. Thats aout me.

Thanks.

Thank you Compton. No problem in asking my identity. I am going thru your post and will reply soon. Thanks.

k thats ok krispy. you have done nothing too much that you need to appologize. thats ok. i will not be able to be online all the time cos i browse from my office. so one or two posts a day is what is do.

I pretty much agree with what compton posted. We lost the marking line (dividing line) between the church and the world. In the days of the John and Peter and all; it was distinctively known what the church is like and how the world is different from it. But today majority of churches solved in world that they dont have any power over the world or sin or anything but at the same time the number of meetings and preachers and messages have increased all the more.

What do you guys think have factored this result?

Quote:
What do you guys think have factored this result?

People get weary fighting. Happens all the time. So, the oppressor witnesses this and his methods of aggression change because he no longer feels threatened. Since the static is not apparent, the aggressor, i.e. the worldly person, works to get an agreement from his former challenger. The sinner wants to be approved by the more conservative Christian because he feels like this is essential for his own peace. The Christian, on the other hand, would misunderstand this friendliness as a consession on the part of the worldy person and then relaxes. This is a ploy the enemy uses to wear down the godly. And it works. It is in the best interest of those who desire godliness to be aware of the tactics of the enemy and be prepared to flee from any serious interaction.

Compton, the piece you shared has a lot of food for thought. Thanks for sharing it.

My thoughts....and would love to hear others'.

ginnyrose

What do you guys think have factored this result?

I have a personal grievance against a common mentality in evangelical churches that says we should focus more on the world's market feedback from church then on the Christian's real needs. There is almost an unwritten understanding that once the sinner becomes a Christian it's time for him or her to stop looking after their own spiritual life and to begin ministering or laboring.

Perhaps in some way this worrying about what the world thinks all the time is understandable. I think it is a marketing sensibility we unconsciously pick up from living in a free-market consumer society. Rick Warren's courting of intellectuals, celebrities, politicians, and other notables from the secular world is perhaps a clear example of this modern preoccupation with brand-building and public image. The Emergent and Seeker Sensitive church's agnostic commisseration and commraderie with the world, often against the conservative church, is another example.

Yet this catoring dynamic is not limited to those movements. The seeds of slavishness to public acceptance is closer then we think.

More then once in my Christian walk I have seen the following life cycle of a church: A young energetic fellowship begins in a house and then moves into a high school or some other rented location for a few years. During this time they are a community, even a communion of the saints, because they have no public building or image to tend to. Then eventually they do save enough money for their own building and for a whole year there is a high level of excitement as the congregation is joined together in a common mission by their building project. Morale is so high at this point that they are sure God is going to do wonderful things in their midst.

Then they move into the building. It has new carpet and fresh painted walls, a large stage with a state of the art sound system, a visitor center in the lobby with brochures, and a lighted marquee sign out by the street to let the world know they are open for business. Almost instantly this close-knit family of believers becomes more concerned about visitors then one another. More resources are put into promotional 'outreach' such as barbeque dinners or paintball tournaments to get visitors in. The pastor advises the musicians to play songs that vistitors would know.

Eventually the ethos of the church changes from a communion of saints into a co-op of the saints.

I used to think this common scenareo took place only in America, but now I see it takes place anywhere Christians are free to worship in public. Vigilance must ever be the price of freedom. Otherwise there is pressure from ambitious congregations, trendy methods, and personal insecurity, and eventually the pastor becomes the pastorprenuer and his people become his 'overhead' and a big headache. At that point all that keeps his morale high is numeric growth because all the other metrics for a healthy church were lost.

Recognizing this dynamic is key to walking away from it. This is not a call to bitterness or to express bruised feelings because no one person is at fault for this whole school of thought. However, even a school of dumb fish know when to wake up and swim against the current when they want to get back to where they were first born.;-)

Blessings,

MC

Responding to earier discussion:

having multiple personalities.

Really, there is a risk in disclosing identities. It frames certain preconceptions in people’s minds about you. And it DOES affect how they respond to you. It happens here on SI too. I’ve been convicted of my own pre-judgments more than once, and I’ve been on the receiving end from time to time. Hey, we can’t avoid it. But thankfully, there is a way out: admitting our struggle with this. Ex:

Sorry I have to ask, but the cynic in me just won't die

I have often considered turning into a wizard - and coming on in various identities - just to see how people might react. Thankfully I don’t have time for that, and my conscience won’t let me. But, might God not possibly frame the odd set-up???????

”… some have entertained angels unawares. Hebrews 13:2

(Let God be God... and in the meantime, I'll be careful to wear my burkah in public.)

Diane