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From: hedrick@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Charles Hedrick)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: A primary reason for belief in Christ
Message-ID: <3358@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Tue, 20-Aug-85 13:08:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3358
Posted: Tue Aug 20 13:08:09 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 05:39:05 EDT
References: <908@uscvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: hedrick@topaz.UUCP (Charles Hedrick)
Distribution: net
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 31

I don't know what churches you go to, but I have been going to church
(mostly Methodist and Presbyterian) all of my life, and have never run
into a preacher who used the fear of death as a motivation.  Indeed
within the more liberal denominations, it is fairly unusual for much
emphasis to be placed on life after death.  (I can't speak for more
conservative churches.)  Christians believe that Christ brings us into
the Kingdom of God now, in the present.  Of course we expect a more
visible Kingdom in the future, and we expect to see God more directly
after we die.  But anyone who is motivated primarily by a fear of
death is not likely to make a very good Christian.

The comment you objected to, about Christ freeing us from a world of
death, was quite likely talking about more than physical death.  And
the freedom it was referring to was not primarily life after death.
Death is often used metaphoically to refer to the whole range of evil.
Who is the Twentieth Century can fail to understand someone believing
that the world is full of death, as well as lesser forms of evil?  The
Christian faith cannot, of course, get rid of this evil.  However
Christians do see God at work in this world.  These comments are very
quickly going to lead into theodicy, an issue which we have discussed
before and which I do not want to reopen.  So I will stop here.  But
the point I am trying to make is that we see God as active in the
world against the power of sin and death, and do not confine this to
pie in the sky bye and bye.  And of course we also expect Christians
to be active in this struggle now.

It is perhaps ill-advised to use metaphorical language in a newsgroup
such as this.  I generally try to confine myself to language that will
be understood by non-Christians.  However this is
net.religion.christian, so perhaps we can forgive someone for assuming
that readers will have a general familiarity with Biblical language.