Posts Tagged ‘salvation’

As far back as Irenaeus of Lyon (AD 120-202) and probably earlier, Christians have drawn parallels between the sin of man having come by means of eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and salvation being accomplished on the cross of Christ.[1]  Our two American Christmas poets tie in the tree of Genesis and the cross of Christ with the crib of the baby Jesus. Read the rest of this entry »

The initial response of Fox News to the murder of nine people attending a Bible study in a Charleston, South Carolina church was to question that the attack was racially motivated and instead claimed that it was an attack on Christianity. http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/06/18/foxs-steve-doocy-its-extraordinary-that-charles/204043 The friends who forwarded the video link countered correctly that it was a racist attack.  While Dylan Roof, the attacker, has not yet explicitly mentioned any religious motives, he appears to have been influenced by “Christian” white supremacists.  Thus, the reality is that it was both a racist attack and an attack on Christianity because racism is a heresy that opposes and perverts orthodox Christianity. Read the rest of this entry »

The ancient Greeks tragedies saw all of man’s efforts overruled by cruel and blind fate.  Karl Marx said man was subject to economic determinism.  B.F. Skinner contended that human behavior was determined by genetics and environment.  For atheistic existentialists, like Sartre, the human condition is to be trapped in a meaningless universe from which there is no escape.   Both fairy tales and the Bible disagree. Read the rest of this entry »

            One of the unfortunate characteristics of contemporary Christianity is the division between conservative and liberal Christians concerning the role of the church in society.  In general, conservatives emphasize changing the individual and liberals the structures of society.  Both tend to see their position as excluding the other.  The Bible will have none of this false dichotomy, and Psalms 1 and 2 hold the two perspectives together. Read the rest of this entry »