Defining a Christian
In his March 11 column, "Who gets to define 'Christian'?" John Railey concluded that "God's the ultimate judge." I agree.
Religious affiliation does not determine who is a Christian. Based on what the Bible says, many people who belong to churches that are generally regarded as Christian are not Christians themselves. The Bible states what a person must do to be a Christian.
Ephesians 2:8-9 asserts: "[I]t is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast" (NIV). In other words, no amount of so-called "good deeds" is sufficient to enable a person to attain eternal salvation.
Romans 10:9-10 declares: "[I]f you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved" (NIV). However, Matthew 7:21-23 makes it clear that if a person insincerely says Jesus is Lord, his confession is inadequate.
Nevertheless, many people who have genuinely trusted in Jesus Christ as their savior and lord (i.e., are Christians) don't conduct themselves in a manner consistent with biblical teaching. Although they are Christians, they have not yet matured sufficiently in their faith and commitment to consistently live the holy life to which all Christians should aspire.
HARVEY ARMOUR
Winston-Salem
Obama joins the ranks
In the March 9 letter "No apology needed," the letter writer misrepresented statements by President Obama and made it seem as if he had disparaged the Bible and is un-Christian. The actual quote he refers to is from a speech given on June 28, 2006, and is worth reading if for no other reason than it reflects the thinking of the devout Christian and author of the First Amendment, James Madison.
In part it says: "... even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount — a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our Bibles. Folks haven't been reading their Bibles."
Obama joins the ranks of other presidents — Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, James K. Polk, Abraham Lincoln — who were great students of faith whose religion was questioned.
NEAL GROSE
Harmony
Health director is concerned
I find it very interesting that in your March 6 editorial "Health Disparities: We must address inequalities," you quote from a conference held by the Urban League, but you do not indicate that you talked with the Forsyth County health director, Marlon Hunter.
As chairman of the Board of Health, I have been very concerned with the rate of infant mortality and the HIV/STD rates in our entire community. To insinuate, as you did in your editorial, that the health department and its leadership are not actively working in the minority communities is outrageous, unfair and simply inaccurate. When a young woman becomes pregnant and is referred to the health department for assistance, we can make a difference. But the health department cannot force her to take care of herself, to eat right, to not smoke or to abstain from any other unhealthy activities. To solve this problem will require the leadership of the health department and the involvement of the entire community.
Hunter, who was appointed health director a little over six months ago, is also very concerned about the health of the entire community, and he is working to share the message that education and prevention are key, and that community involvement is needed to move the education efforts to action. I believe you would have benefitted from contacting Hunter and discussing with him what is being done in our health department today.
LINDA PETROU
CHAIRWOMAN, FORSYTH COUNTY
BOARD OF HEALTH
Winston Salem
His disciples
John Railey's question in his March 11 column, "Who gets to define 'Christian'?" isn't hard to correctly answer. The word "Christian" comes from the Greek word for Christ and is used in the Bible (Acts 11:26) to refer to those who were his disciples — those who believed in him and his teachings. The only one who can define who is a "real" Christian is Jesus himself.
The writings of those who knew Christ personally and documented his life and teaching — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — contain many statements by Jesus that define who he is and what one must believe to be his disciple. "I and the Father are one"; "I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me"; "I will ask the Father and he will give you [his disciples] another helper [the Holy Spirit], that he may be with you forever," clearly establish who Jesus is, his divinity and the reality of the Trinity. He also foretold his death, resurrection and ascension to be with the Father, and his eventual role in judging us all, with those who do not believe in him as their savior doomed to an eternal separation from God.
While anyone can call himself a "Christian," Christ makes it clear that only those who believe in and accept him for who he is are his disciples. Believing in only some of his teachings or just leading a "good life" doesn't cut it.
RICHARD CHASE
Pfafftown
Sum It Up
Should illegal immigrants brought here as children by their parents be deported?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteShould illegal immigrants brought here as children by their parents be deported?
ReplyDeleteSure they should. You don't get to benefit from someone else's illegal act. It's like asking if a bank robber's child should be able to keep the one million dollars that his or her parent stole.
Somehow, people have got to get into their little pea-picking brains that U.S. is not the only place on earth to live. There are some wonderful countries throughout the world from which some the illegal immigrants come (including Mexico). Sending them back to their home countries is not some type of death sentence as most liberals would have us believe.
Liberals are determined to corrupt our country to the extent that they continually maintain power. One day when we look around and our children ask us, 'what happened to the great country that I read about'? We'll just have to say, 'one political party got too greedy for absolute power, and we lost it all'
Budget: Our out-of-control federal debt is a lot like a bad disease: Just because you ignore it doesn't mean it will go away. Even as pundits and economists tout a U.S. recovery, our fiscal picture just keeps getting worse.
ReplyDeleteWeird, isn't it, that politicians have almost stopped talking about the worsening fiscal picture and are instead talking up the economy, the stock market, female contraception, Rush Limbaugh — anything but our budget.
That's why it was good to hear former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels make a case this week in rather stark terms that our budget deficits and growing debt have to be tackled right away, or we'll lose control of our future.
"Whether one believes in a large, very active government or something more limited, mathematically the amount of debt we already have and the terrifying rate at which it is accumulating will lead to national ruin," he said. "There is no other outcome arithmetically possible."
Unfortunately, the debate over our soaring deficits and debts too often is posed simply as a political fight.
Sorry, but wherever you are on the political spectrum on spending, taxes, deficits and debts, the reality is unless we change course soon, we'll soon be bust. Period.
Not all the blame goes to politicians, though. The root cause lies in Americans' ever-growing dependency on Big Government.
"Too many people are dependent on the compulsory charity of others through the government," Daniels said. "Too many people are simply selfish and short-sighted. They don't want to hear ... they will make life much less promising for their children in the future."
More troubling, he said, "they can easily be appealed to by demagogues who just say to keep doing nothing."
That's where we are today. A Democratic Congress and a president seemingly intent on doing nothing.
As Daniels spoke, the Congressional Budget Office was preparing its new budget outlook — including long-term projections that confirm the Indiana governor's gloomy outlook. Like Daniels, it's likely to be ignored.
It's bad enough that the deficit this year will be $93 billion larger than estimated just two months ago, hitting $1.2 trillion for all of 2012.
What's worse, the nonpartisan CBO says, is if nothing changes, spending will hit 25% of GDP in 2022, a record, pushing federal debt to "unsupportable" levels.
Recall during his 2008 campaign, Barack Obama pledged a "net spending cut" during his first term. That has now become something of a joke.
The CBO estimates government spending will exceed 23% of GDP for the next decade, well above the long-term postwar average, pushing up U.S. debt and deficits for decades to come — the greatest spending surge ever.
As the Heritage Foundation observes, "deficits never fall below $883 billion and would reach $1.45 trillion in 2022. (Public debt) also continues rising, from 73.3% of GDP today to an alarming 93.2% in 2022."
That's just 10 years away, folks. Yet, Congress hasn't passed an actual budget in nearly three years now, and the president's own budget is openly treated by both parties as a joke. But as Mitch Daniels suggests, if we let it happen, maybe the joke's on us
The above is from Investors Business Daily and is why we are talking about Christianity etc.
DeleteHello, WW et al,
DeleteIt is notable that the real problems seem to have dropped off the radar screens of our pols and the watchdog press. The pols are either lying low or are in full campaign mode, the latter case being exemplified by the President, who jets from fundraiser to fundraiser. there is no deficit in his campaign warchest. ordinarily, i'd say it's just as well he's out of the WH, but Trumka is really in charge, so the mischief continues.
Hey Stab. When we do finally have to confront our troubles, I suspect there will be massive retirements from Congress. How is everything?
DeleteHey. Yes, maybe a wave of retirements, for the wrong reasons. A right reason would be for pols to make tough unpopular decisions and accept that they will not be reelected.
DeleteAll as well as it can be. Susan's mom slowly improves, still in hospital, which is where I abide for the time being. i hope the level of health in ypur realm is higher.
That's why liberals want to legalize 12 million illegals. They think the illegals will get us out of the financial hole that they've dug for the country.
DeleteIs it a coincidence that 3 of the 4 LTE'S amount to nothing more than proselytizing on a SUNDAY?
ReplyDeleteI guess they figured that most of the readership will be attending the sports pages.
DeleteFollow-on to the exchange yesterday re hostages v. airliner casualties. By itself, the comparison between the killed airliners and the abused hostages would indeed be unbalanced. However, the shooting down of the airliner was brought on by tensions heightened by the ayatollahs' regime. Iran's hands were just as bloody, indirectly, as those of the folks on the Vincennes.
ReplyDeleteNonsense. The Navy warned the White House that it would be a mistake to confine our ships. They could have been just as effective, in fact, more effective, outside the Gulf. The reason that they were sent there was typical presidential bluster. Some sort of disaster was almost certain to happen.
ReplyDeleteSome of the guys on the Vincennes have never gotten over what happened.
Yeah, I know what SAVAK was. What they did was bad, but no worse than what goes on now in Iran every day w/ the Basij and Revolutionary Guards. Matter of fact, some people blame the Shah for not cracking down hard enough in 1978...whatever their faults, Mohammed Reza Shah and his father were modernizers. Under the Shah's rule, Iran was relatively prosperous compared to today, and had decent relations with most of the world.
DeleteIt doesn't matter...the monarchy is irrelevant to contemporary Iranian politics. I'm a big fan of constitutional monarchy and would be thrilled if the Shah's son could return in that capacity, but it's just not going to happen. The most we can do is encourage the democratic movement with Iran. War would kill it, and weaken our hand immeasurably.
The Shah's toughest crackdown was his undoing. When troops killed dozens of demonstrators on what became known as Black Friday, the revolutionaries were able to exploit what they called a massacre of thousands.
DeleteBy the end of the year, millions of demonstrators were in the streets and the Shah had no choice but to leave.
It might be pointed out that the Shah took power in the early 1950s when the CIA and the Brits overthrew a democratically elected government because they wanted their own toady in office.
US foreign policy since WW II has been a total failure. Remember that we once loved Saddam and the Taliban.