PLEASE UNDERSTAN

In many ways you are both right. But don't throw ALL of us out with the bathwater.
And remember if they are vocal but you don't "see" anything there, you may even question how sincere they are.
I know a minister that I would have no problem saying "he's not a Christian" that's not judging. The Bible talks about being able to see fruit. Well, all his fruit is rotten. Yet he's very vocal and loves to talk about the love of Jesus. Just don't make the mistake of turning your back while he's talking.

 

Fair enough.

Christians are judged by different standards by those who aren't. We certainly don't turn the other cheek as often as we should. At least I don't. Honestly I am a quiet person so I rarely confront anyone on sin.

A Christian can do the right thing nine out of ten times, screw up once and people say, "Yep Christian hipocrite." Its not easy.

 

i like the way tony earley put it in his book titled - Somehow Form a Family.

he captures the doubt and ambiguity that many feel toward "organized" religion. yet he maintains his own belief in god as well ...

"Friends have asked me to be the godfather to their daughter, Jessie. While I am touched by her parents' faith in me, I feel particularly unqualified for the job. I was an angry, resentful, unforgiving Baptist. I attended an Espiscopal church the first time only to impress a girl, and went back because i loved the forbidden papal theatricality of the service. I loved the smell of incense as much as I loved the smell of beer, and probably for the same reason. The sad truth is that I do not like Christians much, particularly when they congregate. I think that whenever two or three people gather in God's name, it's only a matter of time until they start trouble. The sight of half a million Christians praying together in Washington, D.C., filled me with dread. I've found the churches I've attended to be filled with people who are as ill-tempered, hypocritical, judgmental and divisive as I am, and I'm invariably as dissappointed in them as I am in myself.

And now I am about to be a godfather, charged with leading a child into the faith, which proves, if nothing else, that God has a sense of humor. Jessie is a beautiful child, five months old, who beams at the world as it passes; a dog trotting by or a stranger leaning in fills her face with brightest joy. She knows nothing but good in the world, and I spend a lot of time wondering about what I should tell her. I suppose I should tell her first that I believe. I still doubt most everything, including the motives of all organized religions and the journalistic integrity of the gospels, but I do believe that I am watched over by a God who loves me, who kept me alive, for reasons know only to him, all the years I wanted to die. I will tell her I have no idea what God wants me to do, only that every time I arrive at a desperate place, usually of my own devising, a path opens up in front of me, whether I have prayed for a path or not. I will tell Jessie that I have come to have faith in the path opening up, that I keep going because I believe. I will tell her that when I remember I say thank you. So I suppose I will tell my goddaughter she should always say thank you and please.

When Jessie is old enough I will tell her about the dark places I have been, the ways I hurt myself and other people because I was angry. I will tell her of the years I tried to convince myself that I was an atheist, how I made fun of Christians with the single-minded zeal of a preconversion Saul. I will tell her about the night God pulled me out of the ice and into his house. I will tell her to drink beer only in moderation and never around boys. Jessie lives in the mountains in Tennessee, and I like to think we'll walk along the ridges near her house until we come to a place where we can see a long way, maybe even all the way to the blue mountains of North Carolina. I will tell her that there are people out there who will love her and people who will hurt her, that sometimes they will be the same person. I will tell her how Granny Earley loved me and tried to turn me against my mother at the same time. I will also tell her that I rarely find the strength to forgive the people who hurt me, that I nurse and enjoy a multitude of small hatreds, and that I am ashamed for it. On the way home I will show her poison oak, and tell her how in our part of the world the leaves of all the poisonous plants grow in groups of three; I will tell her that in our part of the world all the poisonous snakes have triangular-shaped heads. (The lone exception, the coral snake, is also unmistakably marked.) I will tell her that these things are miracles, at once reminders that we live in a fallen world, and proof of God's great love. I will tell Jessie that as we walk through the world, even along the dangerous paths we have chosen for ourselves, God worries about where we put our feet.

 

I agree with this, but I also think it's due to the stereotypes that unfortunately are deserved in far too many cases.

And I feel that's a natural consequence of Jesus' ministry.

"...Jesus said, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice. 'For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'" --Matthew 9:12-13

You combine that with His plan to make His followers "The light of the world" (Matthew 5:14-16), and that's a recipe for a lot of messed up people being highly visible. The catch is that we're supposed to keep in mind how messed up we are, and too many of us have either forgotten, or gone into denial about it.

Turning the other cheek may be one of the hardest teachings to follow in this country. As Americans, we are so enamored with vigilance and justice and 'making things right'. It seems against the grain of what this country about in some ways to trust someone else to 'balance the accounts', so to speak. We want a piece of that pie when we've been wronged, and it takes a lot of discipline and trust to let someone off our hook and place him or her on God's hook.

"Everywhere you leak, the world hangs a bucket." --Gallagher

 

Society dishing out punishment for what it has determined as "wrong" or against the law is perfectly justified. Same thing for a person to do on a personal level, IMO.

The soul is God's responsibility.

 

How does that sentiment fall in line with 'turning the other cheek'? Or does it?

 

Depends on if Jesus meant it literally or figuratively

 

Literally, I get. But how would that look figuratively?

 

We it could mean that if someone sins give them another chance instead of if someone punches you let them punch you again.

 

Okay, I'd agree with that. In fact (and I'm probably stating the obvious here), I'd even go so far as to say that's probably what He meant by it. That interpretation dovetails nicely with His instruction to Peter to forgive someone 'seventy times seven' times.

But again, how does that idea of giving someone another chance reconcile with VP's idea of the individual "dishing out punishment" for wrongdoing?