Is there anything that would cause you to leave Christianity?

[Lamb]

Is there anything that would cause you to leave Christianity?

 

[Ammi]

The Lord pierced my heart with John 3:16. I knew it was true. The Father showed me His love. I knew it was true. I died at the hospital, saw Jesus in a city whose streets glowed golden, and as a nurse was recording the time of my death, my Lord brought me back to life. I knew it was true.
He spoke to me once and said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." I knew it was true. I am on the road to my home in the New Jerusalem.
I know that it's true. He has been with me in life and in death. My days are in His hands.
"I am yours, you are mine, we are one...with the Father, in the Spirit, by the Son. And we know that we will always be together. Through all eternity, together." - John Wimber.
Where would I go?

 

[Messy]

No. I almost left God when I backslid for a year, but I couldn't, when they put me on drugs and stole my kids and my ex left and I replaced him instantly like a dead cat and lived in sin and God didn't give me my kids back. Then I reckoned maybe He didn't even exist after all, because apparently He had less power than some judge and my ex, but then I thought: There's so much proof in the world that satan exists. God must exist too and I invited Him back in my heart. And I rather had a God with no power than a nasty one, so it didn't matter. Only later I saw that the reason He couldn't help me was that I lived in sin. Years later again my ex sil set my ex up against me and he wanted to take the kids and move to Germany, but then I didn't live in sin and God used a preacher and said fear not and within a week it was arranged and he wouldn't go there anymore. Also I could show him what his sister did. I think she was jealous that I had someone, cause her husband died, so then she had to have her brother for attention.

 

[Josiah]

I can't think of anything....

.

 

[Albion]

I can't say for myself what would cause me to do such a thing, but when I think of the question in the abstract--which I have done from time to time--the reason that always comes to mind concerns a terrible turn of events occurring in someone's life such that he despairs of there being any god at all.

Exchanging Christ and the Father for some other deity and then adopting the behavioral standards of that religion, whether it be Islam or Hinduism or some other one...Naaaa. That doesn't seem likely at all in my case.

 

[Lees]

Is there anything that would cause you to leave Christianity?

First, I would say this...it is not about leaving 'Christianity'. It is about leaving Jesus Christ. My answer to that is 'of course not'. Nothing would cause me to leave Jesus Christ. Why? Because God won't let anything cause me to leave Him.

Place me under persecution and toruture, who knows? I may say 'I deny Christ'. But that just makes me a lying Christian. And the Lord looks down and says, he is just lying, I know his heart.

The Lord does not give his people the option to leave.

Lees

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

What do you mean by "to leave Christianity"? Do you mean "to lose your faith"/"to stop believing that Christianity is true"?

 

[Lamb]

What do you mean by "to leave Christianity"? Do you mean "to lose your faith"/"to stop believing that Christianity is true"?

Yes, to leave Christianity is to say you no longer have a Savior or forgiveness of sins. That is what faith clings to, so leaving means throwing away that faith.

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

I don't know if I understand your answer. One can leave Christianity without becoming an atheist or agnostic or even a deist. One can leave Christianity and still acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah.

What do you mean by "having a Savior or forgiveness of sins"? Muslims and Jews ask for the forgiveness of their sins everyday and they believe that they have a savior, and that's God/Allah/Hashem etc.

 

[Albion]

I don't know if I understand your answer. One can leave Christianity without becoming an atheist or agnostic or even a deist. One can leave Christianity and still acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah.

But does doing this not amount to leaving Christianity? The religion is more than affirming this one doctrine, and in the form you used here, there's not even an affirmation of who Jesus actually was. So, is believing him to be some other being not critical to this question?

What do you mean by "having a Savior or forgiveness of sins"? Muslims and Jews ask for the forgiveness of their sins everyday and they believe that they have a savior, and that's God/Allah/Hashem etc.

She said "that faith," meaning Christianity. Putting one's trust in a different god or master, such as you have posited here, would necessarily mean giving up "Christianity," that's right.

It also appears that you are using "Savior" in a much looser sense than had been intended by the OP.

 

[Foghorn]

Is there anything that would cause you to leave Christianity?

Good question. Lord knows I tried in my younger years. Anything short of God's command to leave? Nope, nothing I could imagine.

 

[prism]

I left Christianity about 10 years ago but cling to Jesus, the Faith and the Scriptures.

 

[Lees]

What do you mean by "having a Savior or forgiveness of sins"? Muslims and Jews ask for the forgiveness of their sins everyday and they believe that they have a savior, and that's God/Allah/Hashem etc.

Muslims and Jews can ask for forgivness of sins but they don't have it.

Allah is a false god. Jesus is not their advocate. The Jews reject God as they reject Jesus Christ. (John 5:46-47)

In other words, Jesus is the 'only' way. And Muslims and Jews reject that way.

Lees

 

[prism]

I don't know if I understand your answer. One can leave Christianity without becoming an atheist or agnostic or even a deist. One can leave Christianity and still acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah.

Acknowledging Jesus is one thing, being born again is another, a born again person has received God's nature/Spirit creating newness of life where they could never go back to atheism/agnosticism thus denying the One they intimately knew.

 

[Albion]

It's not possible to leave Christianity and still be faithful to the Scriptures.

What remains, in that situation, is an admiration for Jesus, or even a belief in him as God and Savior, but without a commitment to the Faith, since that is dependent upon being a functioning member of the Church that Our Lord founded.

That is the case with lone wolf "Christians," by which we mean persons who absent themselves from the sacraments, the fellowship of the Christian community, and much more that the Church does in response to the directives given by Christ himself.

This does not mean that such persons are forever outcast from God and denied salvation or anything like that, but it does mean that any description of them as people who continue to embrace the Faith in its entirety or adhere to God's word would be inaccurate.

 

[prism]

Is there anything that would cause you to leave Christianity?

Ok, definitions may be needed. How are we defining 'Christianity'?

 

[Lamb]

Ok, definitions may be needed. How are we defining 'Christianity'?

In simplest terms, Christianity consists of Christians who trust in the saving work of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for the forgiveness of their sins.

 

[Albion]

In simplest terms, Christianity consists of Christians who trust in the saving work of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for the forgiveness of their sins.

Well, if that were indeed a sufficient definition, everything that we find said about the institutional Church in the New Testament wouldn't mean much. At the least, all of that would be optional.

So, that in turn would mean Christ commissioning the first bishops, the Apostles, instructing them to evangelize and baptize, plus his directive to observe the Lord's Supper and about its importance, etc. etc. would not, in fact, be particularly important. Or maybe we'd say in that case that all of this applied ONLY to the Twelve Apostles. This certainly would not be something every believer SHOULD do.

While Christianity has had its share of hermits, etc. over the centuries, I cannot quite buy into a "take it or leave it as you wish" posture regarding this matter, and neither has the Church throughout the ages done so. Incidentally, that's why the early hermits were gradually gathered into monastic communities.

Therefore, if we say that "Christianity consists of Christians who trust in the saving work of Jesus Christ...." we are actually describing Christians rather than Christianity.

 

[prism]

In simplest terms, Christianity consists of Christians who trust in the saving work of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for the forgiveness of their sins.

In that case I have not left 'Christianity'.

 

[Lees]

Well, if that were indeed a sufficient definition, everything that we find said about the institutional Church in the New Testament wouldn't mean much. At the least, all of that would be optional.

So, that in turn would mean Christ commissioning the first bishops, the Apostles, instructing them to evangelize and baptize, plus his directive to observe the Lord's Supper and about its importance, etc. etc. would not, in fact, be particularly important. Or maybe we'd say in that case that all of this applied ONLY to the Twelve Apostles. This certainly would not be something every believer SHOULD do.

While Christianity has had its share of hermits, etc. over the centuries, I cannot quite buy into a "take it or leave it as you wish" posture regarding this matter, and neither has the Church throughout the ages done so. Incidentally, that's why the early hermits were gradually gathered into monastic communities.

Therefore, if we say that "Christianity consists of Christians who trust in the saving work of Jesus Christ...." we are actually describing Christians rather than Christianity.

It is much the same with Israel as with Christianity. (Rom. 9:6-7) Not all are Israel who are part of Israel. Not all are Christian who are part of 'Christianity'.

Europe is Christian in form and history and culture. But, percentage wise, few are now Christian.

But Europe and the West does represent Christianity.

Lees