Me too. Though I actually think a lot of this is about pointing to what Jesus said and did, how the early church responded, etc. But I definitely wind up saying it's not mostly about theology or praying a prayer once, and I definitely say that I just don't get some of the gospels people are regularly exposed to.Josh wrote:Our witness got tainted a long time before Charlottesville. I don't even try to represent "all Christians", but instead just try to represent and speak on behalf of "kingdom Christianity" or "following Jesus", and if pressured will say I'm Anabaptist & Mennonite. Then I will say that I believe you can't follow Jesus if you believe it's okay to kill people.Bootstrap wrote:No, I do not. I don't have any particular insight into what plain churches need to do. I say that Christians need to make this clear. Our witness is being tainted. When I post on this forum, I think of it as talking with other like-minded Christians. I do like to raise questions about how we, as Christians, live our lives. In my faith, asking that kind of question is important.
A kingdom response to the societal war has to include a kingdom response to societal religion. That's why Jesus kept confronting Pharisees and Sadducees, and why Paul kept confronting legalism, Gnosticism, immorality, and various false religions and practices.
Some of this is happening where I live now, and I may have spent more time in Charlottesville than you have. It is a place I know and care about. But I have a hard time believing that the societal war is just some abstract far-away thing for most people.Josh wrote:In the context of that, Charlottesville is rather small potatoes (along with a lot of other things), and the question of what following Jesus is comes down to something quite personal and a lot less abstract than some news event in some faraway place.