Can Christians fully practice their beliefs today?

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Artificial birth control. The argument is that if they cannot prescribe it for whoever that wants it for both control, they have no business being doctors.
 
The field of medicine is where Christians arguably encounter a huge, (if not the highest), number of obstacles to religious freedom and exercising their conscience.
 
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Come to think of it, I briefly pondered this: How is this athlete’s situation different from the Christian doctor refusing to perform an elective, induced abortion? Aren’t they both exercising their conscience?

Yes and no. Conscience protections should be there for our actions. But there’s a time to keep our tongues under control. It would be wrong and unprofessional, for example, for a pro-life doctor to address openly a patient considering abortion as a “baby killer.”

The athlete in question would have more of my sympathy if he had to do something against his conscience. If two guys on his team were getting married, for example, and his faith opposes it, he should have a right to stay home from the wedding without any repercussions.

I don’t think he would have landed himself in hot water if he had expressed his Christianity in a more loving way, tweeting John 3:16 or something.
 
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I would suggest the writings of Catholics who are FAR smarter than I about Evangelization.

The US Bishops have some fantastic resources here:

http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/new-evangelization/index.cfm

This specific document:

http://ccc.usccb.org/flipbooks/living-as-missionary-disciples/files/assets/basic-html/page-I.html#

This book literally changed my life.


I think the bottom line here, if this person feels the need to point out sins in this manner, they would have been advised not to sign that contract. We cannot always eat our cake and have it too.
 
Far better to quote John 3:16 than Rev 21:8
Rozellelily said:
at the same time this quote was from the Bible itself so if it causes this much offense shouldn’t those pages be removed from the Bible altogether?
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The Bible is not intended to be self-interpreting. It is to be read in the light of Church Teaching.
 
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The good news is that in the USA there are protection of conscience laws for medical professionals.

Federal laws

www.hhs.gov

Conscience Protections

OCR enforces laws and regulations that protect conscience and prohibit coercion on issues such as abortion and assisted suicide (among others) in HHS-funded or conducted programs and activities.
www.hhs.gov www.hhs.gov

The most updated state-by-state list is complied by those who oppose these laws:


If your state does not have such laws, work with the people who are lobbying for them.
 
I think it’s probably like you said about each private entity having the legal right to exercise things.
Even there surely,there must be some legal “checks and measures” because otherwise couldn’t private employers exploit people’s desperation for jobs and “force” people to sign things that were really unreasonable?

There was this other guy Anthony Mundine here who used to play footballer and boxing and he was even much more vocal about his views about gay marriage and and also because he is a Muslim even used to say things like men can have numerous wives etc so while he’s controversial and definitely got a lot of criticism in the media etc it never affected his sporting career.
Maybe it comes down to the “financial bottom line” with some organizations more concerned than others it will affect them financially/lose fans or maybe it’s because now Australia is post pro gay marriage voting,I don’t know.

He should have quoted John 3:16 but unfortunately maybe this wouldn’t have provided the same media interest and conversation and the quote would have just been unnoticed by “everyone”.
(In the same way that if someone posts a photo on Instagram in a maxidress vs one in string bikini with bum out it’s the second one that everyone pays more attention to.)
That said,maybe not all attention is good attention because if there’s no good fruit it’s useless?
It’s just caused him to be “in trouble” for his career and I haven’t seen it caused anyone (that I know of) to do the “repenting” that he mentioned.
 
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I didn’t even consider that could be an option someone could negotiate 🤦‍♀️
 
But then though,isn’t there the real risk of leaving out certain part of the Bible/Gods ways because some people find them offensive?
I mean I can already think of certain politicians who say their religion is Christian but support gay marriage or believe in abortion etc.
I’m not saying this to judge them,but just to get my own understanding.

Also,is this footballer saying anything that hasn’t been said by some Catholic priests before?
For example this below article about this priests words.
The thing is,words like this from a priest are “controversial” to an Australian “left” media and society where I live,but my background is Slavic European and his words would be nothing controversial there but commonplace.

What is the cause that societies like Australia and USA have become so pro gay relationship?
Sure,every country has gay people and hidden gay people but Australia now seems to have disproportionately more than my background country and similar Euro country or China even when one counts factors such as cultural taboo/closeting.

So while the footballer shouldn’t have posted definitive statement about who going to hell,is it necessarily unloving to openly suggest that there may be factors that have caused this disproportionate number of gay people in Aus/US such as sexual abuse as child,past hurtful experiences with the opposite sex making the same one now “safer”,brain hormonal maldevelopment factors in womb etc?

People would think you a bigot just to suggest this and a person would have to very bold/courageous to say it here.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/b...n/news-story/c2e0e555bca17d6d3a0c023b042e6d87
 
Rozellelily said:
But then though,isn’t there the real risk of leaving out certain part of the Bible/Gods ways because some people find them offensive?
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The Bible never tells us to pull verses out of context and use them to shame other people. We read Scripture in it’s fullness and in light of Christ’s teaching.

We are not “people of the book” but we are to be the light of the world. Remember, the Holy Spirit convicts people of sin. As a Christian grows they shed the old self, they die to sin,

Think of a tree, in one season it has dead brown leaves that fall to the ground. During winter some of those dead leaves will cling to the branches.

In time, the new growth season begins and the new life pushes out the old, dead leaves.

It is not our job to go out there and pull the leaves off our tree or off our neighbor’s tree. It is our job to let the process designed by God for new life to take it’s course.
 
The basic premise of freedom, is doing what we want so long as it does not infringe upon the rights of others.
We are able to practice Christianity, and moreso Catholicism, today. It is not only our right, but it is our duty.
On the other hand, we should respect others enough not to try to impose our beliefs on those who take another path.
Though our actions we should provide proof that we are Christians, through our prayers and through our deeds.
 
With Folau,being a different Christian than catholic,I guess he’s taught a more literal interpretation.
Even me,being a baptized as baby a catholic,I still don’t understand much about the Holy Spirits working so I imagine this the same for people in other Christian churches?

Still though,how is it explained the Catholic priests (like in the link) saying pretty much the same thing?
 
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They are priests, they are appointed in authority over the souls in their care.

I am not a priest.
 
Would posters here consider a person should have free speech or not have free speech if instead of quoting a “definitive” statement regarding who going to hell (like this example) a Christian instead stated that they have believed that the reason there was a disproportionate number of gay people in Aus/US compared to some other countries (after taking into consideration factors like cultural stigma and being in closet) perhaps due to causes such as sexual abuse as child,past hurtful experiences with the opposite sex making the same one now seem "safer” for relationships,brain hormonal maldevelopment factors in womb etc?

If someone said that here,they would be quickly labeled as a bigot so you can’t even have these conversations anymore.
 
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I think all people need to be clear when making controversial statements as to what is their opinion vs. what is fact. If something is stated as fact, they need to be ready to back it up with the research or the Magisterium’s statements or some recognized authority.

So, you can express your opinion of the causes of homosexuality as long as you clearly state it’s your opinion. If you word it in such a way as…This is why they are homosexuals…then you are making a fact claim and need to defend it as more than your opinion. And when you state your opinion, you are open to everyone else’s opinion clashing with yours. It’s the risk you take, like it or not!
 
How is this any different then religious employers firing gay employees because they violated their code of conduct?
 
How often would a Christian doctor have to refuse to an elective abortion? Two ways of exercising their conscience:
  1. I’m sorry but we/I don’t provide that type of procedure.
  2. Do I look like a baby killer?
I’m pretty sure that the number 1 would go a lot better then number 2.
 
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