Thank God for Libby

alicambridge

Spot on. I was struck by the line: "ask yourself whether it is worse to stop a child’s pocket money for being obstreperous, or to inform him that he is sinful and likely to burn in hell forever."

Precisely this theme dominated debates over the nature of Christianity in the Early-to-mid 19th Century. Charles Kingsley's 'Alton Locke' (1850) provides a compelling account of what it is like being brought up amidst fear of eternal damnation.

Fergus Pickering

I was brought up in the Church of England, went to Church every week, read the Bibler every night until I was twelve or thirteen in accordance with a programme in little books my father supplied. I NEVER believed I would gomto hell, nor anyone of my acquaintance. I knew it was just a tale like the siege of Troy. I found out later that Presbyteriansd and Catholics were fed these absurdities, but then they were medieval people steeped in superstition. I'm not saying this was so, I'm saying this was what I THOUGHT. Good old Church of England.

Yam Yam

Alicambridge - Hell-fire damnation for the believer is a perversion of Christian truth, not its essence. After all...

"If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 8:31-39

Anyone who has genuinely accepted Christ as their Saviour has been spared all this - period! If 'death, life, angels, demons, the present, the future, any powers, height, depth, or anything else in all creation' can't separate us from the love of God, then I would imagine being 'obstreporous as a child' doesn't stand much chance either.

Noa Srk

"..ask yourself whether it is worse to stop a child’s pocket money for being obstreperous, or to inform him that he is sinful and likely to burn in hell forever."

My own experience of this was that both sanctions were applied. The practical consequence of not having any pocket money far outweighed any far off sanction of eternal damnation. But I don't think the latter option is available today, it's more a Godly ASBO surely? A sort of "Three smites and you're out".

hadrian

What incredible humanistic pride informs the so called churches these days!
We would not adopt a 'snooty' disdainful attitude towards a Christian state if we had been reared in one tyranised by the likes of Bolshevik Communism or Islamic Sharia- or even , we dare say, the kind of intolerant cynicism and utterly blasphemous culture we are increasingly enduring in our own generation where the very idea of a clear distinction between right and wrong and the knowledge that in the end wrong will not go unpunished and unvanquished- where, I say, such views are snootily sniffed at by a comfortable Middle Class.
As for the doctrine of Hell- anyone who professes to follow Christ and the Cross yet denies it is nothing but a self deluder and hypocrit. No one warned more graphically but its reality than our Lord. That man is a sinner through and through is glaringly obvious but laughably it is the smug, humanistically leaning professed Christians who most hate that truth most of all. Man's condition is incontrovertably fallen and when we forget that vital fact we slide into tyranies of all shades and sorts.
As for the sheer venom of those who pretend to portray an evangelical upbringing as one of oppression and moral intimidation I can only say that is entirely foreign to my experience.We were reared to respect life as a gift, to therefore respect and care for the highest welfare of all our neighbours, to exercise forgiveness and longsuffering to all having enjoyed that ourselves from the hand of our gracious Saviour. We had values of good and bad instilled from an early age by both precept and exapmle. That is now scoffed at as 'indoctrination' as if the humanist/PC/multiculturalist brigade did not have a set of values they sedulously instil into our youngsters themselves!
So to all who think it would be great living under a godless regime I say grow up.
A biblical polity guards against centralist power by enjoinng personal responsibility from the individual up and diffused power bases- not one lumbering messianic State.

rollzone

hello. i am happy to kick religion out of government when i call for help with bullies. when they are too slow responding, i must act within my own parameters of religion. i do not expect them to respond within my parameters, yet it perplexes me they are not closer to my beliefs. i would never kill, while they find circumstance. there are instances beyond my abilities, whereby a time frame for response is inconsequential; and they are the only realistic countermeasure to deploy: so i do need them somewhere in the bedroom. i dream of a closer union between God's law and man's. technology can capture anyone without harm, but the savage animal man still can not.