Who Is the 'Real' Christian?

Inside Catholic ^ | October 5, 2010 | Mark P. Shea

[NYer]

Ping!

[evad]

"For myself, I'm happy to accept his or anyone else's profession of faith"

I'm perfectly happy to judge a man by his deeds in addition to his words. If we do that with Obama, we can arrive at but one conclusion.....

[Westbrook]

> “Is he really a Christian?”

“By their fruits, ye shal know them.”

* Supports abortion-murder, not only WHILE the baby is being born, but even AFTER it is born.

* Favors one ancestry above all others.

* Favors the proselytes of the virulently anti-Jew, anti-Christian pedophile pirate Mohammed over the children of Israel.

* Favors robbery in the name of “fairness”.

* Favors “Works” over “Grace”.

* Allows criminals that share his ancestry to freely terrorize the public, while vigorously pursuing those of other ancestries.

* Favors breaking the law to implement his agenda.

Does NOT sound like a Christian to me.

[Alex Murphy]

American politicians, unlike European ones, not only can but must play the Jesus card when they are faltering. Accordingly, Obama has done so, and just as accordingly, earnest Christians are now mulling over the "Is he really a Christian?" question that always arises whenever any polarizing public figure says he or she believes in Jesus.

Related threads:
A Troubling Question About Obama's Religion: Is He a Covert Catholic?
Obama's Devotion to the Virgin Mary: Who Knew?
Is Obama Thinking Like a Catholic?
Obama's Catholic backers
Kmiec defends Obama support in lecture at Catholic seminary

[presently no screen name]

Who Is the 'Real' Christian?

Those that follow Christ. Since Jesus IS The Living Word a Christian ONLY follows Him/His Word. In doing so, they cannot be seduced by man made teachings.

HIS Word, His Church, His Kingdom.

[HungarianGypsy]

A friend of my has posted on his Facebook under religion: “Don’t tell me about your religion. Show me.” That is my favorite quote on the matter.

[presently no screen name]

The Catholic vote helped get him elected, so he needs to keep them on his side. And “Mary” is a sure ringer.

One thing about Christians - they KNOW their own!

[marron]

Actually, its not that complicated. You know them by their fruit.

A lot of people were prepared to take Obama at his word until they met Reverend Wright. At that point the answers became pretty clear.

[Alex Murphy]

Related thread authored by Mark Shea:
Big Laws and Small Laws [Mark Shea on "Nanny Staters" vs the "Right Wing Noise Machine"]

[StonyBurk]

Many of my Catholic friends have habit of suggesting non-Catholics are almost saved. I agree with the author of this piece that debating if one is real Christian or not is an exercise in the futile. But I will continue to say I find very
very little in Obama policy I can reconcile to Biblical doctrine.In that I think Beck is closer to Scripture than the
big O. Those who love God are obedient. The rebellious love
themselves more. And such is as true for me as thee.

[jobim]

Mark Shea does not debate honestly, as I have learned from exchanges on his website that relate to Glenn Beck.

He makes his claims, but he, from my experience, attaches more importance to asserting his rightness than to getting to the truth. On a political site, this is more or less the norm, but on an orthodox Catholic site, I found it unacceptable. Even here, he drives his sword home on Beck, if in an offhand way. I steer clear of him.

[ansel12]

As a Christian and a Catholic, he is obligated to speak out on Beck’s Mormonism, you can’t fault him for that.

[TheStickman]

Sadly, I’m inclined to agree with you regarding Shea. I had similar experiences during W’s presidency with him.

[wbarmy]

The day I saw the first clip of Rev Wright “preaching” I really thought that Obama would lose all of the Christian vote. How could someone sit under that for twenty years and NOT know what was going on.

[I still care]

No one knows what another person is in their heart.

But if they prefer to play basketball rather than go to church, every single Sunday, there’s a good chance they have only a passing aquaintance with Jesus Christ, if one at all.

[jobim]

We Catholics of course cannot accept the teachings of Mormonism. But that was not the issue. It was Shea’s ad hominem on Beck, his admitting that he watched him just a couple of times, and his utter dismissal of any valuable contribution that Beck has made, warning Catholics to find their information elsewhere. He shoots from the hip upside down facing backwards on a galloping horse, and he misses the target but thinks he hit it.

[ansel12]

I thought that his comments on Beck were appropriate to the subject of the article.

I guess we have a different read of it.

[jobim]

So I can, to give a very public and obvious example, credit apostate Catholic and Mormon Glenn Beck's claim to be (in some sense or other) seeking to follow Jesus.

But being kind does not, in the slightest, mean that I have to accept Beck's claims about the truth of the Mormon faith, nor about any of the many other crazy or silly things he alleges.

He wishes me to believe that Woodrow Wilson is the source of all evil in the American Experiment? Show me the evidence.

I am under no obligation to order my life according to your historical quackery.

Why does he drag out Beck's cadaver to dissect for this essay? I believe it indicates his animus towards him. Examples that might have fit his thesis abound. Why the gratuitous slapping of the cadaver about all those other falsehoods? Why does he specifically mention Wilson, when on the other threads I referred to on Shea's website, Shea acknowledges hardly having watched him, and stood fast when it was pointed out to him that historians appear on the show, yes even Wilsonian historians? Why the inflammatory word choice? Shea scowls and walks away to his next manifesto. And I walked away too.

[TradicalRC]

In short, then, I think the question, "Is so and so a real Christian?" is largely a waste of time. In common parlance, it means, "Can we determine from somebody's words and actions whether they are worthy in our eyes of being regarded as a disciple of Jesus Christ and an inheritor of salvation?"

Basically. he's saying that the word Christian either has no meaning or that the only meaning is an interior disposition.