Who’s church is closer to following “true” Christianity: BRTD’s, or ER’s?

[TheReckoning]

What do you think?

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

ER

[John Dule]

Say what you will about ER, but his brand of scripture is more theologically sound than the adult D&D club that BRTD attends every Sunday.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Who’s ER?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

As a Christian part of a Church which is rather different from both BRTD's and ER's (and which both of them feel overly antagonistic about) all I can say is: lol.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Who’s ER?

ExtremeRepublican

[Person Man]

What kind of question is this? Culturally, "true" Christianity would have an Eastern Mediterranean feel. Which of their churches has olives and hummus in the undercroft?

[LabourJersey]

Both of them are way too low-church to be the True faith


/s

[100% pro-life no matter what]

For what it's worth, I believe that what the Bible says is perfectly True and that any human ideology or worldview will fall short.  There have been plenty of times where I've voiced discomfort or disagreement with a GOP position, focus, or direction based on my faith.  I hate that my username is ExtremeRepublican, because I think it clouds that belief a bit.  And, I'll note that I wasn't truly a Christian in 2015 when I registered here under that name.

And, there absolutely are cases of churches that idolize politics and let their party morph into their religion.  I've talked candidly here about a church not that far from me called Global Vision (Pastor Greg Locke) that is a MAGA rally disguised as a church.  That's not to say that the Church should totally withdraw from politics either.  But, when we engage, the direction of that engagement has to be letting our faith flow to politics, not the other way around.

[Alcibiades]

For what it's worth, I believe that what the Bible says is perfectly True and that any human ideology or worldview will fall short.  There have been plenty of times where I've voiced discomfort or disagreement with a GOP position, focus, or direction based on my faith.  I hate that my username is ExtremeRepublican, because I think it clouds that belief a bit.  And, I'll note that I wasn't truly a Christian in 2015 when I registered here under that name.

And, there absolutely are cases of churches that idolize politics and let their party morph into their religion.  I've talked candidly here about a church not that far from me called Global Vision (Pastor Greg Locke) that is a MAGA rally disguised as a church.  That's not to say that the Church should totally withdraw from politics either.  But, when we engage, the direction of that engagement has to be letting our faith flow to politics, not the other way around.

How can the Bible be “perfectly True” when it frequently contradicts itself (as is to be perfectly naturally expected of a text compiled over 1500 years by many different authors)? My understanding is very much that, unlike, say, Islam, which holds that the Quran is the direct word of God, most Christians do not believe that the Bible was literally dictated to its human authors word-for-word by God; rather, it is merely divinely-inspired, and thus is liable to human error.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There seems to be a strange viewpoint here that conservatism is by default always closer to "true" Christianity.

[Santander]

There seems to be a strange viewpoint here that conservatism is by default always closer to "true" Christianity.

True Christianity is based off teachings from 2,000 years ago, so yes, it is conservative.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There seems to be a strange viewpoint here that conservatism is by default always closer to "true" Christianity.

True Christianity is based off teachings from 2,000 years ago, so yes, it is conservative.

Karl Marx's writings are almost 180 years old. Conservative?

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

What kind of question is this? Culturally, "true" Christianity would have an Eastern Mediterranean feel. Which of their churches has olives and hummus in the undercroft?

BRTD's seems likelier to, because olives (at least decent olives) and hummus both strike me as, unfortunately, "Whole Foods America" foods.

I assume there are people at BRTD's church, as at most left-leaning Evangelical churches, who have conservative beliefs about personal morality and just don't vote based on them ("like me lol", as we used to say). If I'm assuming correctly then his church is closer to "true" Christianity than ER's on moral and political theology and about equidistant on sacramental theology and ecclesiology; if I'm assuming incorrectly then it's a wash on just about everything. I voted BRTD's church.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Say what you will about ER, but his brand of scripture is more theologically sound than the adult D&D club that BRTD attends every Sunday.

It’s incoherent to be atheist and claim one or the other sect of Christianity is more or less theologically sound.

[Vosem]

There seems to be a strange viewpoint here that conservatism is by default always closer to "true" Christianity.

True Christianity is based off teachings from 2,000 years ago, so yes, it is conservative.

Karl Marx's writings are almost 180 years old. Conservative?

Certainly are in some parts of the world.

[John Dule]

Say what you will about ER, but his brand of scripture is more theologically sound than the adult D&D club that BRTD attends every Sunday.

It’s incoherent to be atheist and claim one or the other sect of Christianity is more or less theologically sound.

Why?

[Skill and Chance]

There seems to be a strange viewpoint here that conservatism is by default always closer to "true" Christianity.

True Christianity is based off teachings from 2,000 years ago, so yes, it is conservative.

Small "c" conservative, not American libertarian/MAGA style Conservative.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Say what you will about ER, but his brand of scripture is more theologically sound than the adult D&D club that BRTD attends every Sunday.

It’s incoherent to be atheist and claim one or the other sect of Christianity is more or less theologically sound.

Why?

Because there isn't a valid theological standard to measure them by.

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

Say what you will about ER, but his brand of scripture is more theologically sound than the adult D&D club that BRTD attends every Sunday.

It’s incoherent to be atheist and claim one or the other sect of Christianity is more or less theologically sound.

Why?

Because there isn't a valid theological standard to measure them by.

There's internal coherence. It doesn't strike me as any different from claiming that there are more or less sound interpretations of a novel.

[John Dule]

Yeah, pretty much what Nathan said. I would have compared it to interpreting the law-- whether or not you agree with a particular statute, you can still objectively assess whether certain actions or procedures conform to that statute.

[PSOL]

There seems to be a strange viewpoint here that conservatism is by default always closer to "true" Christianity.

True Christianity is based off teachings from 2,000 years ago, so yes, it is conservative.

Karl Marx's writings are almost 180 years old. Conservative?

Certainly are in some parts of the world.

Karl Marx had unsavory views of unemployed people that are immensely classicist and was conservative relatively to relationships between the sexes and social rights to LGBT people. He also did not talk about racism all that much which to other theorists became very important.

I’ve spoken against egregious attacks on his character before from these angles, but he was not some perfect individual for whom is the end all be all, he had issues and was a guy with many smart ideas.

[Dr. MB]

For what it's worth, I believe that what the Bible says is perfectly True and that any human ideology or worldview will fall short.  There have been plenty of times where I've voiced discomfort or disagreement with a GOP position, focus, or direction based on my faith.  I hate that my username is ExtremeRepublican, because I think it clouds that belief a bit.  And, I'll note that I wasn't truly a Christian in 2015 when I registered here under that name.

And, there absolutely are cases of churches that idolize politics and let their party morph into their religion.  I've talked candidly here about a church not that far from me called Global Vision (Pastor Greg Locke) that is a MAGA rally disguised as a church.  That's not to say that the Church should totally withdraw from politics either.  But, when we engage, the direction of that engagement has to be letting our faith flow to politics, not the other way around.

Do you think your Christian faith has made you more or less of an "extreme Republican" than when you first joined here?

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Say what you will about ER, but his brand of scripture is more theologically sound than the adult D&D club that BRTD attends every Sunday.

It’s incoherent to be atheist and claim one or the other sect of Christianity is more or less theologically sound.

Why?

Because there isn't a valid theological standard to measure them by.

There's internal coherence. It doesn't strike me as any different from claiming that there are more or less sound interpretations of a novel.

Not sure they're equivalent. I think theological claims are more serious philosophical truth claims than interpretations of novels, which are, yes, basically headcanon. Not to get all death of the author.

Yeah, pretty much what Nathan said. I would have compared it to interpreting the law-- whether or not you agree with a particular statute, you can still objectively assess whether certain actions or procedures conform to that statute.

I mean again the law is a social convention. Whether same-sex sexual relations are a sin or not is to Christians a truth claim about material reality.


I could easily say that I think ER's Christianity is on that score more faithful than BRTD's to my 'literary' interpretation of Christianity. This is what Paul said, what most churches said until the 20th century etc.. But I don't see how I could make that a theological claim, because I don't know how I would falsify BRTD's theological justification on the plane of theology, something I don't believe is a valid path to knowledge.

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

There seems to be a strange viewpoint here that conservatism is by default always closer to "true" Christianity.

True Christianity is based off teachings from 2,000 years ago, so yes, it is conservative.

Karl Marx's writings are almost 180 years old. Conservative?

Certainly are in some parts of the world.

Karl Marx had unsavory views of unemployed people that are immensely classicist and was conservative relatively to relationships between the sexes and social rights to LGBT people. He also did not talk about racism all that much which to other theorists became very important.

I’ve spoken against egregious attacks on his character before from these angles, but he was not some perfect individual for whom is the end all be all, he had issues and was a guy with many smart ideas.

You have a BS Bob-esque tendency to think of "conservative" as indicating a specific set of political stances across time periods and cultures, rather than as a set of attitudes and social emotions that people can take towards a variety of historical conditions and processes. This has led you on several occasions to what strike me as unhelpful and unnecessary misunderstandings of how other posters are using the word.