Oh dear! The particular church in the news for the above claim (that Indian Hindu's should not be allowed to celebrate the festival of Diwali in the "Christian" country of the Cook Islands) appears to be Pentecostal.
So - Are Pentecostal Christians, really Christian? But before I go there, I'd like to say I agree with Tammy when she says:
(the religion of christianity has plenty of its own false idols to worry about, before it starts pointing to others who don't even claim to worship God, the Father of Christ)
Peace,
tammy
I suggest they should go a step further, and that Christians should be taking out full page adverts. in all the newspapers of the world, every day of the week, asking non-Christians to forgive "Christians" for all the terrible things that "Christians"have done in the name of Jesus.
It's easy to find crimes against humanity, I think I posted one, a few weeks ago:
It was about the murder of Hypatia, a woman who was a non-Christian philosopher, respected in her city, and yet torn to pieces by a howling mob of Christian monks.
You can read of this crime at: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/hypatia.asp
There are many such awful crimes in history, and seldom are the perpetrators, 'ex-communicated' or disfellowshipped, or whatever other word you may want to use to describe the process of officially denying these people the right to call themselves 'Christian.'
In fact, some seem to argue (on this site) that it's not scriptural to do that, in spite of the fact that its been done for centuries.
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Now let's examine this statement:
"just because the sign on the door says christian does not mean christians are inside. just like if there were lets say a group of athiest who were racist, that does not speak for all atheist. same with those who claim to be christ followers."
There are literally hundreds of different brands of Christians, each group marketing their own version of "truth." Are you guys arguing that some should not be called "Christian?"
The gentleman who made the statement appears to be a spokesman for the Pentie church in the Cook Islands. You guys appear to disagree with his statement, I assume he would disagree with your stated views, and probably call you p*ss-weak Christians, or something similar.
Which one of you is right? Isn't there a text (divinely inspired, no doubt) that says something about a house divided against itself ?????? (If you're not too sure, maybe check Mark 3:25) and may I point out that individuals who have concluded that there is no divine personage somewhere in the universe, speak as individuals, (which is the way that some of your arguments seem to want to be the way that Christians should be seen). Therefore individual anti-theists do not do group-speak, and seldom ask for laws to be made about someone else's beliefs.
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Finally:
I am pretty certain that Christ said His kingdom was from another place.
So how could there be a 'christian country' other than the one He is coming to establish?
Now that text of course, was often cited among JWs, as being the basic reason for not joining national armies, or voting, or such like things, so I recall it well. You can be quite confident that the text exists and can find it in your own Bible at John 18:36.
I do not have any reason to argue against this statement, but I'd like to point out that Orthodox Christians, who number some 200 to 300 hundred million "christians," once thought of the Byzantium empire as "THE" Christian nation. But since Allah eventually proved stronger than Yahweh, I guess they no longer do that.
But note that: this church whose roots can be demonstrated to go right back to the early Christian church, did not agree with your statement about a 'christian country.'
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All of this is irrelevant to anything important in our lives, but it does demonstrate how Christians can tie themselves in knots, over such stupid statements as the Pentecostal Christian Church spokesman made in the Cook Islands, and therefore how irrelevant that Jesus is in the world of today.
