Christians: Why did you stay in the faith?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I thought about posting this in the memoirs thread sometime, but I put that on hold because of the election stuff I was doing, time to revive it.

Yes, please do!

I'll have an answer here within the next few days (I hope), but I'm busy writing something else for most of this morning.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You need to understand that the view of human nature involved is rather negative and certainly not at all 'humanist'.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You need to understand that the view of human nature involved is rather negative and certainly not at all 'humanist'.

...And such an interesting understanding of fundamentalist Islam too.

I was actually talking to Hawkeye but, true, I think Harry may well be giving some types of Islam too much credit for the soteriology of other types.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If you believe in Jehovah, you're better off being a Christian, since Muslims and Jews believe Christians can go to Heaven, but (super-devout and conservative, anyway) Christians believe that Muslims and Jews go to Hell.

Super devout and conservative? Umm, that's a pretty standard position of most of the churches.

...Not...really? Theology around 'righteous pagans' can get a little weird but I've yet to hear of any mainline or, these days, a huge number of Catholic churches that will claim they're indisputably hellbound the lot of them.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If you believe in Jehovah, you're better off being a Christian, since Muslims and Jews believe Christians can go to Heaven, but (super-devout and conservative, anyway) Christians believe that Muslims and Jews go to Hell.

Super devout and conservative? Umm, that's a pretty standard position of most of the churches.

...Not...really? Theology around 'righteous pagans' can get a little weird but I've yet to hear of any mainline or, these days, a huge number of Catholic churches that will claim they're indisputably hellbound the lot of them.

The Catholic Church teaches that non-Christians may be saved if the reason why they don't believe in Christ isn't their fault ("invincible ignorance"). It's hard to tell exactly what that means but then again, it's God job to sort it all out not mine.

That's about what I thought. Official teachings in mainline churches tend to be vaguely similar, but err on the side of indulgence (except possibly for the Presbyterians, whose present theology I'm not terribly familiar with). Of course mainline churches enforce and promulgate their 'official' teachings a lot less strenuously, for better or for worse.