Posted on 09/15/2009 10:22:10 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Evangelicals believe in many things: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, church attendance, homeschooling, Fox News, abstinence, personal holiness, toupees, leisure suits, mission work, Dockers, golf, spanking, and dinner, early and often. But the natural starting point for identifying evangelicals by their beliefs is with their best-known doctrine: hell.
...IN A HANDBASKET
Evangelicals believe certain people are going to hell -- you, for example, unless you already happen to be an evangelical. But behind the hellfire and brimstone talk are core beliefs that have deep meaning for evangelicals. Here are the three most important ones:
CORE BELIEF #1 -- Every person has an obligation to accept Jesus as his or her personal savior. The phrase "personal savior" is important, as it seperates evangelicals from Catholics and Orthodox Christians who simply run their offspring through the gamut of religious rituals and call it square. To receive Christ "personally" means you have an epiphany about your personal sinfulness and Jesus' unique ability to rescue you from it. This is called "being saved." If you have not had this experience, you are considered "unsaved."You may read as much evangelical theology as you like, but the essence is contained in these three beliefs. Clearly, these convictions give the evangelical worldview an amazing urgency. Through their lenses, every non-evangelical around them is dancing blindly on a plank overhanging the lake of fire. Evangelicals respond to this urgency with several reasonable behaviors:CORE BELIEF #2 -- Jesus is coming back soon, probably tomorrow.
CORE BELIEF #3 -- If you have neglected Core Belief #1, and Jesus does indeed come back tomorrow, you are going to hell.
They buy television time for televangelists can parade the latest in evangelical fashions and hairstyles before receptive American audiences.They hit the streets and hand out frightening cartoon pamphlets, hoping these
CORE BELIEF #2 -- Jesus is coming back soon, probably tomorrow.
CORE BELIEF #3 -- If you have neglected Core Belief #1, and Jesus does indeed come back tomorrow, you are going to hell.
Joel Kilpatrick is author of the book A Field Guide to Evangelicals and Their Habitat; he is also the editor of LarkNews.com, a Christian satire website.
This Chapter One excerpt was hand-copied from the original. Any transcription mistakes are mine, and will probably send me to hell.
Inaccurate childish drivel.
maybe a little bit bigoted, do you think.
maybe sheer rank bigotry.
Author doesn’t seem to KNOW any evangelicals. Satire, or not, it isn’t funny.
The Bible tells us that we will not know of the hour of His coming;and all Christians should agree on the basics else they are some similar but different religion.There is plenty of room for different rituals while still believing in Jesus Christ.
Ye shall know them by their response to your post. LOL!
I’m a Catholic, and I have no idea how this post can possibly help those of us here who politically conservative advance our cause. I also do not find it edifying in itself.
Well, I realize this is satire, but unfortunately he didn’t research his subject very well. I can’t imagine why anyone would think this was funny, but I can imagine that many non
Evangelicals will take it as truth. Kind of sad for both Mr.Kilpatrick and his readers.
If any evangelical I know wears a toupee, it’s a good one, because I can’t tell.
The men tend to go bald with indifference in my circles.
I believe that the first advice given to any author is
“Know your subject”. As an Evangelical Christian I think
I can say that the author certainly avoided this advice.
The whole fact of the book just proves the point that
Christians are the last remaining religious group who are
eligible for ridicule. If he wrote something like this about Islam would you think that it would even be published?
Seem more like mockery than satire to me, but maybe I missed it.
What is your motivation?
LarkNews.com
Ahhhh. OK. Sit back and enjoy.
Purposeful propaganda, I’m thinking, to deter maybe youngsters(those still on milk), looking for answers???
I believe:
1...with the modification that I think there are more than a few Catholics and Orthodox who have had said epiphany as well, and would be deeply offended at the suggestion that they’re just going through the motions.
2. Jesus is coming back soon...and man, is He ticked off.
3. Entirely too many people are not only dancing on that plank, but breading themselves first.
CORE BELIEF #2 -- Jesus is coming back soon, probably maybe tomorrow.
CORE BELIEF #3 -- If you have neglected Core Belief #1, and Jesus does indeed come back tomorrow, you are going to hell.
After fixing a couple of mistakes, this is essentially correct.
I’m a Catholic too.
Maybe it’s funny to Evangelicals. I’ll have to ask the Evangelicals in my family.
Maybe it’s like Nunsense. I’ve never seen it but I’ve heard many a Catholic say it’s funny.
Cute. I hope the author has at least some inkling that what he’s written is inaccurate, but it’s hard to tell sometimes.
another correction
“seperate” should be spelled “separate”
sep A RAT e
I agree that it is purposeful, but I think that it is part of the broadly targeted continuing campaign by the secular left to smear Christianity.
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