I have just had a shocking experience, I have just been banned from a Naturist Christian group because I supposedly expressed an idea which was supposed to be "Un-Christian". I critisised the statements the Moderator made about Muslims. He seemed so full of hate I had no choise but to try and point out that to win people from other faiths to Christianity we have to relate to them and to get along side them, show them that strictly following a doctine and behaving in hate is not the path to Life but the Path to destruction.
I have never been banned before and it feels funny.
Tevita
I wouldn't worry about it. You weren't banned. You were persecuted!
And you stood up for people who do not yet know Christ. Let's all give this man a gold star!
It is not our responsibility to hate them, it is our responsibility to love them and lead them to Christ. Jesus died for them too!
Just because they do not know Christ does not mean we hate them. It's because we hate them is why they don't know Christ.
Just "telling" someone about Jesus is not good enough. Our lives should be to a point where they would notice that you have something they need and want. They would have no choice but to make a choice, for or against. In the case of Muslims, they live thier lives with MORE faith than we Chistians do!
How many "Western" Christains do you think would be willing to die for their faith? Compaire that with Asian Christians in China. they are being persecuted and hunted down every day, being thrown in prison, raided, the churches are all "underground" in small private homes, etc. yet China is the fastest growing Christian community in the world today!
We are so fat and sassy as Christians that we are afraid someone would punch us in our fat tummys if we spoke about Christ in an effective way!
Muslims need our love! And we need their example of faith!
So you just got banned from a small group of naturists, who is praying for people to understand them, to except them, to allow them their freedoms, yet do not show love and acceptance towards Muslims.
I am not condoning the behavior of SOME...(note: FEW, small handful, a radical few, a minority)...Muslims, who did what they did, but I will love the people, hope and pray for them. They love God too. They just have a misunderstanding of God's mission. They do not yet know the Christ. But that is our fault. We should be the ones to carry the message of Christ to them. But the problem of the average Christian is that they do not know Christ enough themselves to help the Muslims who know ten times their own faith than we do ours.
You may consider going back to the other members of that small group (individually) and ask if they feel the same way as this group leader does. Then you get with them if they are on your side on this issue.
Just because you don't agree with the leader on everything, does not mean you should have been banned. That was a side issue, had nothing to do with the overall purpose of the group.
The group is not about hating Muslims or any other group. The group is about worshipping Christ and asking him what we should be doing, thinking, feeling. You also happened to be a naturist group, which again, is not about hating others.
We should not even be hating gays or lesbians. We should love them as Christ loves them. Not the behavior! That needs to stop. Its the people we are aiming for. Not the beliefs or behaviors. Jesus will help them through that. We do need to let them know about the Truth, which will set them free.
Abraham Lincoln was accused of "colaborating with his enemies he vowed to get rid of". He answered, "I did get rid of them! I made friends out of them!"
The enemy is not the person. It's the principles they represent. And Satan is behind those ideas and philosophies. Therefore, it is SATAN who is our enemy, not the people he has imprisoned.
Let's set them free! We must love them so much that we become a magnet for them and a repellent for Satan!
Hi
After 9/11 I started to study Islam. Its been quite an education. I don't see Muslems as people of faith, but people of fear. The pressure they put on each other to live an Islamic live is beyond anything I can imagine. An example is honor killings that happen in a number of Muslem societies. If a woman has flirted in any way with a man not her husband the society puts pressure on the family till they kill her. The whole community then is free to mourn her death.
Clearly we need to love the muslim people. Its the command we have from Jesus. But from reading history, I don't have much hope that that will change a Muslem society. Its no happen once in 1400 years. The only place that has ride its self of the hate of muslems was Spain in 1492. That was after they were given over 100 years in integrate themselves into society. They didn't so Marcos and Ferdenann forced them out of the country along with the Jews.
I have learned great respect for the Coptic Church of Eygpt. For 1300 years they have remained Christian after the increadable pressure that Muslims can put on people to convert to Islam. I'm not worthy in comparison. I'm so glad Jesus gave me righteousness. I'd not measure up on my own. Or with the Chinese Christians you meantion Boyd.
In my Opinion the West's fight with Islam is WW4. It will be way harder to win than the cold war, WW3. I decided back about 1978 that Europe wasn't the seat of the AntiChrist. Its only after 9/11 that I felt I knew a people that were passionate about evil enough to fulfill the promises around the AntiChrist. Its the Muslems raticals. But I could be wrong, so much of Islam doesn't fit. How could a muslem worship the Antichrist? I've got no clue. Well, other than I think Allah is Satan.
Dayhiker, if you will permit me, I'd like to point out a couple of things. Islam is peaceful religion. The Koran does not condone suicide killings, etc. Those that claim to be Muslim or Islamic in the name of killing people are like members of the Ku Klux Klan who say they are Christian, yet burn crosses and terrorize there fellow human beings.
It is also historical fact that Christianity and Islam came from the same beginnings. Christianity came from Israel because God gave them His covenant. God said He would give the those who eventually became today's Muslims that same covenant, but they had to repent . I'm blanking on the name of the old testament person (I want to say Ishmael). Muslims and the Islamic faith believe Jesus was/is a great prophet.
That said, Allah is God. Allah is the same God we worship as Christians, except that we look upon God as the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Much like the Jewish peoples look at God as one diety, not the Triune God, and that Jesus was a great prophet but was not the promised Savior. One God, three major religions with the same historical background, all worshipping the same God, BUT it is with Israel and thus Christianity that the covenant was made that we would have a promised Savior and Redeemer of the world.
With all of that said, do we need to "convert" Muslims? Yes that is a mission of ours. God gave the the covenant to Israel and thus to Christians -- the covenant that Christ would be born, die for our sins and raised to live again, and thus redeeming us.
In the days that followed 9/11, I had a very steep learning curve in Islam. At the time I was teaching a music appreciation course in San Antonio and had three Muslim students from one of the very small countries in the Middle East (again, I'm blanking). They had nothing to do with what happened in New York, Washington, DC, or Pennsylvannia, yet they were so persecuted in those following days that they had to return to the Middle East. People wouldn't serve them at restaurants, they were literally kicked out of their apartment complex. Before they returned, though, we talked a lot about Islam both in class and in private meetings in my office. I felt it very important that I understand where they were coming from and what their beliefs were because since then I've taught and known several Muslims. They are wonderful people, and as Boyd said, certainly put their faith in action more than we might. They are dedicated to prayer, what, five times daily, and all are expected to make a trip to Mecca in their lifetime. I know "Christians" who say they don't have time for Bible study, prayer, and a trip to church on Sunday because it's more important to take the kids to soccer, piano, baseball, football, play dates, etc. Can you imagine telling them they HAVE to pray five times a day? (I do know a couple of Christians who exceed Muslim's requirement for prayer. These people pray the canonical hours which if I remember right are 6 am, 9 am, noon, 3 pm, 6pm and 9pm.)
Anyway, now I'm getting off on a tangent.
We have to be careful in this day and age to step on toes. Is WW4 possible? Sure. But, I think we really need to understand each other, and as far as leading Muslims to Christ, we have to meet them where they are and together move forward. We can't stay on our soapbox and point down to them and say, "change." None of us like that. And I also believe we need to make sure we don't clump ALL together for the stupidity and atrosities of the FEW. Others could easily do that with Christians; not all Christians have been, well, exactly Christ-like through history and even today.
Muslim and Hindu converts to Christianity often find themselves rejected by their support network, their communities, even their families.
Some who come to Christ emigrate to the West where they can start a new life. For most, they must remain in the Muslim or Hindu world.
Some missionaries have discovered that new Christians must form entire villages, or at least new communities within the major cities just to stay alive. Really not so different from the situation in the days of pagan Rome!
Internet, radio and television are creating a great harvest of souls in these forbidden lands, but cities of refuge serve as "silos" to keep the harvest safe until their societies grow more tolerant or Jesus comes, whichever comes first.
Is it the same with Christian nudists? Do we need to come together in community to protect those who have been rejected? As CNC grows, this is one ministry that they have been considering, support for our brethren who have been rejected by their local church.
Fortunately, we as Christian Naturists will not have to come together to form communities, and I doubt seriously we will want to.
First of all, that is how the name "Nudist Colonies" got started, people who had to "colonize" and hide their existance from the main stream communities.
Today, we are still fighting that name. Even the natuist communities that do have full time naturists there, are fighting the name "colony" because simply put, they are not colonizing any more than "San Hose Village" in the next clothed community is "colonizing" or KOA Campground is a colony. Take off our clothes, and we suddenly become a "colony".
So I don't want to "colonize". Just pray that we as Christians are able to take naturism to the world.
Funny thing is (and a sad "funny" to be blunt), I think it would be easier to take naturism to the world than it is Christianity!
So the CNC'ers are taking Christianity to the Naturists that assume that all Christians are against naturism! And they still try to reject the Christian Naturists because of that! Even naturists gets stuck on weired ideas!
As long as we are not persecuted to the point of being driven out, then we are ok.
As you mentioned already, the above scenario of Muslims being converted to Christianity, is a lot like what happened in Rome.
Isn't that what Jesus promised? We will lose our families, our homes, even our lives! Are you (WE) ready?
Hi Nancy,
Many of the things you say are true. I'm farmilar with God's
promise to Hagar and Ishmael. Ishmael did move in the direction east of Israel. There were already were people living in those arid lands. By Christ's time its hard to say who was descendants of Ishmael and who was not. Mostly there was no way of knowing. They didn't keep geneologies as the Jews did. So I find it hard to think of Mohammid in Mediena in 600 AD as fulfilling this prophesy.
The word islam means submission. So religiously it means submission to Allah. As I heard a Muslim teacher say, there is only peace in Islam after one has submitted to Allah. The large Muslim audiance in an Washington DC hotel agreed. The Koran says that many of the Israeli prophets submitted to Allah and so immans today say they submitted to Allah and impling that Jews and Christians aren't following Allah's prophets.
Praying 5 times a day and all the other rules Muslims keep is a religion of works. I have a hard time to compare that to faith or the salvation that Jesus bought for me in the Cross.
When you study Mohammid's life you find it is divided into two parts. The 1st part is while he lived in Mecca. All the Koran that has comments along the line of "there is no compulsion of religion" come from this period of his life. He had a max of 60 folowers.
All the tribes in Mecca rejected him as a prophet including his own tribe. Then Mohammid went to Medeina. There he signed a treaty with them that he would be a leader and midigate their disputes. At 1st his followers were so poor that they were once refered to as being so dirty that they were like the sheep that laid in the sand. They were on a verge of starvation when Mohammid started to raid the camel carrivans that passed along the trade routes.
The Koran and hadith documets how these raides started to bring Mohammid and his followers wealth and power. Once he had power he started to break the treaties and drive them out of their houses if they didn't submit (islam) to Allah and his prophet. As he got more power Mohammid started to kill those who wouldn't submit to Allah and took their property including taking several woman whose husband he has just killed as his wife. And so Islam tells us that Mohammid so love women that he took widows as his wife so they wouldn't starve to death.
This seems so hard to believe. Yet the first biographers of Muhammad’s life, Ibn Ishaq (870 AD) and al-Tabari (950 AD) tells us these things as they are recorded in the Koran and the Hadith. These were muslim historians and they were proud to write these things about Mohammid.
If Islam is a religion of peace, why are there 3 to 5 random killings by muslims of none muslems almost every day of the year.
www.theReligionofPease.com
If Islam is a religion of peace, why of the almost 30 armed conflicts in the world are Islamic nations the initators of almost ever one of them?
If Islam is a religion of peace, why does the Koran say this about terror?
3:151 We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve, because they set up with Allah that for which He has sent down no authority, and their abode is the fire, and evil is the abode of the unjust.
8:60 And prepare against them what force you can and horses tied at the frontier, to terrorize thereby the enemy of Allah...
8:12 I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.
About killing unbeleivers?
2:191, And slay them wherever ye catch them
2:193, And fight them on until there is no more Tumult or oppression
2:216, Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you
Suras 2 and 9 are the last words Allah gave to Mohammid before his death. Because these words contradict earlier Suras Immans says that the later words abrogate the earlier words.
Well, I know almost all muslims live peaceful lives. The problem is peaceful muslems have no high moral ground in the Koran to correct militant muslims.
I hope I wrote this in love .. as you can see this topics gets me going. If you know of anything that needs correcting please do. Oh, I never could spell, so I'm sure you'll notice some spelling issues! grin
dayhiker
You didn't offend me. I too begin to take off on the subject.
I will get back to you on the rest of your post. I have a few
ideas I'd like to share, but I need some time to think about
them. But again, it's dialogue between people that is important
to learn, so you didn't offend me at all.
I'll be back...
Nancy
I also believe that the Koran tells it's followers to atack any country that is not Islamic, and that if any non-Muslim person lives in an Islamic country, that they are to be taxed extremely highly in order to "convince" them to convert.
I know that we are to approach the people with love, but I believe it's a mistake to imply that their religion is one only of peace. Too much evidence otherwise.
According to the Bible, since Ishmael was Abraham's son he would be the father of a great nation, but God did say that it would be with Isaac that He made His covenant, not Ishmael.
If I'm not mistaken, because of course I can't find the exact verses right now, the descendants of Ishmael are the groups of peoples that the Isrealites have all the trouble with when they come back to the Promised Land. Even today those two groups of people fight over that land, each claiming it as their own.
As others have said, I hope this is taken with the heart that it's said with- not condeming, only concerned and trying to be truthful as far as I know it.
I've read that some historians are refering to the cold war
as WW3. While the US(west) and Russia(communism) didn't engage
in direct war, we did engage in conflict in quite a few puppet
states. Korea and Vietman in Asia. Cuba and Guatamala in Central
America. Lots of watching each other and manovering from Finland
down thru Eastern Europe and east to Turkey. Plus the influnces
each wanted in the Middle east and to a lesser degree in Africa.
In general, most foriegn policy was seen thru glasses of how it
would effect the cold war no matter what part of the world it
was it.
Praise God that both sides realised that to fight a war would
lead to nuclear war and we both would loss.
I fear that the Terrorist may not see things so clearly.
As I've read Mat.24 I wondered why Jesus said not to be alarmed
at wars adn then said wars are the beginning.
24:6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. Make sure that you are not alarmed, for this must happen, but the end is still to come. 24:7 For nation will rise up in arms against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines and earthquakes15 in various places. 24:8 All these things are the beginning of birth pains.
As I meditated on this, I asked what is the differance between
these two listing of conflicts. The type of weapons used didn't
seem to be it. They have always been changing. There hasn't been
wars and then a long period of peace with war starting again.
So the thing that made sense to me was when the ever day wars
between local nations became world wars.
This then fit how I look at the seals. I think the 1st horseman
is an ideal that set the world up for war.
Rev.6
“Come!” 6:2 So3 I looked, and here came a white horse! The one who rode it had a bow, and he was given a crown, and as a conqueror he rode out to conquer.
The rider has a bow, but no arrow. He brings an Ideaology that
warmonglers can use. Atheism with Evolution for an explanation
of origins fits that description for me. In 1850 we have Darwin.
Then the 2nd seal is a rider going forth to a real war with
weapons. WW1 (1917) and 2 and 3 and now 4 fit that.
Particularly WW1 and WW2 the Germans used evolutionary ideas
often called social evolution to justify their wars.
That's it in a nutshell. OH, I don't know anyone that has
taught that senario. So take it for what its worth to ya.
...he was prophesying of the destruction in 70 AD when the temple was destroyed. The book of Revelation was also written just before the 70AD destruction.
That destruction represented the "end of the age" (not "world" per se) and ushering in the "Kingdom of Heaven" when Christ took the throne where he sits today. The Church was concieved by his blood on the cross, born on the day of Pentecost, and the Old Age was destroyed, along with the Priestly Lineage, in 70 AD. When the temple was destroyed, the priests, all the people that could cram themselves in, on, and around the temple, did so. There were destroyed along with the Temple. That means, today, they do not know who the current High Priest is.
Now for a "literal" coming? That is yet to be seen. But these prophesies could easily have been read into "near future" times many times over since 70 AD, but I think the primary prophecy was for then, not today.
The book of Revelation was not really a prophecy in how we see it. It is an Apocolypse, which is a "hidden story" for current events. We tend to use "Political Cartoons" or "Political Satire" for our version of events. But we tend to use real names and places.
They did not have that luxury, so they wrote in apocolyptic form, using the spiritual world to represent the physical world of the reader of it's day. Another fine example of an apocolypse is "Dantes Inferno" where today, people get the idea of hell with a "Devil and a pitchfork" under ground in deep caves. That is not biblical. But somehow, it became our "prophecy" when in fact it was only a current political story of situations around them. It helped them make "sense of it all" you might say.
It also protected the writer from being accused (like that ever stopped them) of directly writing about a person of high power.
Why the events of 70 AD never hit the bible pages we don't know, but it could have been because the Christians who fled never saw it, and could not "witness" it, or it was too dangerous, or they just never cannonized (put into holy scriptures) the letters about it.
Of course, the later letters refer to it indirectly by talking about the "scattered" bretheren.
It was because of the Revelation of Jesus Christ (not John) that the Christians fled and got out of there in time! That and the gospel of Matthew and of course, the apostles direct teaching and warning to the people.
When you look at all the warnings of Jesus Christ, and then compare it to the destruction of the temple and the blood that ran in the streets in 70AD, you will find it very interesting!
So I don't try to look for todays and tomorrows world events via bible anymore. I have heard all that I need to hear since I was born! I have heard so many, and according to the "Law of Moses" about prophecies, any prophet that prophesies and it does not come about, should be stoned to death. How many prophecies of things in my life time I heard and never seen? Way too many!
We have a lot of lying prophets today who have told us over and over again about prophecies that did not come true! Including the prophecies of Y2K! ESPECIALLY THAT ONE!!
Jesus said that no one knows the time or day, not even him! Only the Father.
Hi Boyd,
I have read the interpretation of Rev as 70AD. Whlie 70AD was a big even for Jerusalem and therefore for Judism it doesn't appear to have been a big even for the Church and diffinately not the world from my understanding of history.
It just didn't fit the text to me. As I implied in the previous
post, neither did Hal Lindsey's view. That was the view that
I grew up with. I liked the idea of the "pre-wrath rapture"
but as developed in the original book Did quite do it for me either.
So I feel comfortable that we are at the 2nd seal in fulfilling the Rev. now.
I look at the seals as man reaping what he's sown. The trumpets as Satan pouring out his wrath on mankind and the bowls of God wrath as God judging the ungodly. So we are still in the time of man reaping what he has sown.
Cool, as hot and muddy as it is in MA the last few days
it sure would be nice to walk around nude. But MA is more concervative in those areas than the Bible belt I think!!!
it sure would be nice to walk around nude. But MA is more conservative in those areas than the Bible belt I think!!!
Having lived in Alabama for four years, being born and raised in South Texas, and now living in West Texas I can assure you it doesn't get much more conservative. To the point where people were amazed a month ago when a young man (the son of a musician I know) died of a drug overdose. The people around here were aghast that something like that would happen in this "Bible-Banging" town. While I was in Alabama a friend of mine from our church college group was found murdered in her apartment. Again, the people acted like that would never happen in the Bible Belt.
By the way, you guys have Ted Kennedy! How much less conservative can you get?
I forgot to say, the town I lived in while in Alabama and out here in West Texas, are both dry. The restaurants sell beer, wine and liquor, but not the stores. In fact, out here the city council just said no to a possible vote to approve beer sales in the grocery stores. You have to drive to the next county to buy alcohol. Ah yes, that's exactly what we need 26,000+ college students and the faculty and staff driving that far, on an interstate, to get to the liquor stores.
nancy
Well, I see my mind didn't really tell my fingers to type what I was thinkinng. It was conservative in this thing a naturalism and being nude. There is one landed nudist resort in western MA and only one beach that tolerates nudism at the very end of the Cape. Well, that's all that I have heard of. The percentage of people going to church is small. Few people even visit churches. And I find God and Jesus and religion in general only come up in conversation is forced or with other Christians.
So conservative with nudism was what I was thinking
Nancy.
So what you're saying is you live in a state-full of people with hang-ups. In the part of Texas there isn't any clubs that I have found or heard of, nor has anyone else. But the problem is that there are a lot of conservative (legalistic) Christians around here who just wouldn't get it and are way too quick to judge.
But it is interesting that so few people attend church, and still there is this conservative streak. Is it the Irish-Catholic beliefs that are prevalent? You know, the one major one that the only time the nude human body should be seen (and only as much as it takes to "accomplish" the task) is for procreation? It may also explain the low church attendance in some ways. I'm NOT knocking Catholics because some of my best friends are Catholic, but I find it interesting that some of my friends tell me that if they go to church on Christmas, Easter, and a few other special times of the year, everything is good with God. Not all my friends are like that, but some are.
Hi nancy,
It my be that catholic thing. There have been a lot of people
that ahve gone thru the catholic schools. Yes, the sex is only
for reproduction is has had a big effect on our world. I was
reading that that idea goes clear back to the Stoics in early
Roman. Yet God created everything good. We are to partake of
what God has given us with thanksgiving.
I find myself trying to get free from some legalistic stuff
and I never thought of myself as that way!
Well, that would explain things about the members of the "practicing" medical community I been unfortunate enough to be around for a while. They're all absent minded doctors! At least I'll be an absent minded doctor of music!!
nancy
We've a good friend working as a missionary in Indonesia. Indonesia, unlike Malaysia, let those of other religions come in and convert their people.
The Muslims in Indonesia are a gentle people, very much like the gentle people in Buddhism in Thailand.
We need to learn what the radicals are doing to so persuade their young people to kill others, even their own people. It's only a few of them doing it. We need to learn what they're doing to be able to stop it. Unfortunately, a few of them with A LOT of money (Osama's) can do a lot of damage.
Of course, if we could convert some of them to nudist, that would be a positive change, too.
That's one of my biggest arguments is that there are a few doing it, but making the rest look bad. It's kind of like a few idiots in the world of nudism making the rest of us look bad. It's the same in any group. Talking to a pastor one time who has some first-hand experience dealing with Muslims, he explained that they are a people who are easily shamed. Ariel Sharon's ascent to the top of temple mount didn't exactly help matters in 2000. But it's not a problem that is easily solved because there has been a faction of radicals for thousands of years and fighting is the only thing those radicals know. Getting some leaders involved from those various countries that really see a vision past the violence may go a long way to curtailing it. But Ralph has an idea. If they were all naturists, where the heck would the bombs be?
O.K., never mind...
Nancy
What a neat idea to combat terrorism! Maybe we could put our heads together and write an article (let's be sure to tap into the linquistic skills of Trailscout - he is a wordsmith par excellence) "Social Nudity - The Ultimate Weapon Against Suicide Bombers" - In fact, even if it weren't an article, if it were just a "letter to the Editor" for Time, Newsweek, etc, and "slipped" in, it could be an interesting foray for naturists into educating the textile community about another benefit of the naturist lifestyle.
New security scanners at airports allow the screeners to see right through clothing, just as if the person were nude. I imagine that people might object to mandatory nudity, but the fact is, with the aid of these machines, clothes are an exercise in futility. We are all naked no matter how much we wear.
Perhaps a great increase in the number of body scan machines at train and bus stations are the answer.
