When someone assures you that they are “not one of THOSE Christians”, you can assume they are not a Christian at all. They are only using the word “Christian” as a cover to infiltrate the religious culture with their personal brand of godlessness. Christianity as it is generally understood by millions of people around the globe is so distasteful to them that they can’t tolerate even a loose association with the church.
Look out for the folks who use terms like, “Non-religious” or “Unfundamental” or “Un-Evangelical.” Making up new terms to describe their religion is a red flag that the religion is not rooted in the Bible.
From one side of their mouth they proclaim, “Christianity is supposed to be all about nothing more (and nothing less!) than living a life of love, compassion, fairness, peace, and humility.” From the other side of their mouth they condemn everyone who believes homosexuality is sin.
When the “Not Those Christians” talk about ‘love’ they mean ‘sex.’ They don’t think love can be separated from sexuality. That is why they label any objection to LGBTQ doctrine as ‘hate.’ Conflating love and sex is how they are able to put paragraphs like this on their websites:
“The Biblical scholarship supporting the idea that Paul never wrote a word condemning natural homosexuality is more credible and persuasive than is the scholarship claiming that he did. Moreover, we remain mystified as to how any follower of Jesus could choose damning an entire population over obeying Jesus’ Great Commandment to love God and one’s neighbor as oneself.”
It is ‘mystifying’ to “Not Those Christians” how a follower of Jesus can obey Christ’s commands and still oppose sin. That is why Christians should not strive to be “One of Those Christians.”
(John 14:21) “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”
(Matthew 16:24) Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
One Response
There is not much scholarship among Liberal Christians. They don’t have much concern about what the Bible actually says. They are much more concerned with telling us what they want the Bible to say. If enough people actually read the Bible, they would laugh at such nonsense.
The absence of serious scholarship is why the statement that the New Testament does not condemn homosexuality is so absurd. It is easy to find examples where the New Testament condemns homosexuality. Jesus also endorsed the Old Testament. That includes using the Old Testament to define marriage when He spoke against divorce (Mark 10).