Hard-Heartedness

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BornInMarch

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Jesus taught to love your neighbor, to love your enemy, and that God is both loving and forgiving.

Yet on this forum and in society in general, there seems to be a disturbingly large amount of Hard-Hearted Christians. Not large enough to make more than a vocal minority, but still large enough to be worth discussing.

I’ve seen people claim that coercion or even torture never reduces the severity of a sin (despite having never themselves faced coercion or torture), I’ve seen people claim that letting ones children die would be preferable to saving their lives through sinful means, I’ve seen people claim that whether or not someone goes to Heaven or Hell has nothing to do with that person’s morality, I’ve seen people claim that 90% of humans go to hell when they die, and I’ve seen many other Christians here say some decidedly unchristian things.

At one point, I even began to fear that God might not be benevolent. Fortunately some more level-headed people on this forum explained that what The Church teaches and what “hyper-orthodox loons” claim the church teaches are not the same thing.

However, this still raises a question. Why do you think some Christians in society are so hard of heart?
 
They make their lives harder feeling it makes them better… I don’t know if they are right or wrong alI I can do is live my life, not theirs, likewise all they can do is live their life, not mine. God will sort us out in heaven.
 
BornInMarch said:
Jesus taught to love your neighbor, to love your enemy, and that God is both loving and forgiving.

Yet on this forum and in society in general, there seems to be a disturbingly large amount of Hard-Hearted Christians. Not large enough to make more than a vocal minority, but still large enough to be worth discussing.

I’ve seen people claim that coercion or even torture never reduces the severity of a sin (despite having never themselves faced coercion or torture), I’ve seen people claim that letting ones children die would be preferable to saving their lives through sinful means, I’ve seen people claim that whether or not someone goes to Heaven or Hell has nothing to do with that person’s morality, I’ve seen people claim that 90% of humans go to hell when they die, and I’ve seen many other Christians here say some decidedly unchristian things.

At one point, I even began to fear that God might not be benevolent. Fortunately some more level-headed people on this forum explained that what The Church teaches and what “hyper-orthodox loons” claim the church teaches are not the same thing.

However, this still raises a question. Why do you think some Christians in society are so hard of heart?
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Do hard hearted Christians go to heaven too?
 
Don’t gauge the Christian Faith in accordance with the behavior of Christians. Christ came to call sinners and Christianity is full of them. From the time of Saint Peter and Paul much of their writing and efforts were spent trying to keep wayward Christians in line and Christ himself often rebuked his followers and others for their hair brained ideas. That is the struggle we all face along the way, trying to bring our worldly attitudes and behaviors in line with Christ’s teachings. It is a life long struggle for us and the Church.

We don’t follow a religion because we’re holy, we follow it because were not! The Faith is perfect, the “faithful” are not.

So you can expect on this site and in all Christian churches, to hear error and old-self notions being expressed but don’t let that discourage you from seeking truth. Christ warned us about this struggle and about wolves in the sheepfold. I ask God’s forgiveness for when my opinions have been a little wolfish and when I haven’t been a good light for others.
 
Sometimes God hardens the hearts of men, to humble them. Hard Heartedness to me is a mind that is determined even after being taught the right thing to do, to do it’s own will contrary to what it was taught. A good biblical example was when Moses warned the Pharoah of Egypt that if he didn’t let the Israelites free, that the Egyptians would be punished and lose their first born sons. And so it happened. The Pharoah then let the Israilites go. Then scripture said that God hardened the heart of Pharoah, and he set out to re-capture the Israelites. In the process, Pharoah’s army was destroyed, to manifest the Omnipotence and glory of God, and to humble the Pharoah. When one is stubbornly proud, he is courting a “harden heart”, and he is setting himself up for a big fall. When many efforts are made to warn someone, for their own good, and they don’t listen, it is not surprising what tragedies may befall them, it becomes necessary to soften their “harden hearts”
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
Do hard hearted Christians go to heaven too?
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I guess it would depend on whether or not their hearts are hard enough to lead them away from God.

For example, I do not expect Oliver “kill all Catholics!” Cromwell to have a place in The Kingdom of Heaven.
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
Do hard hearted Christians go to heaven too?
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"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.

Hmmmm I’d say a lot of people don’t o.O
 
We should be very sad at OC’s deeds and words and the deeds he put his henchmen up to. If God didn’t give us as individuals the life to be in proximity with him as an individual and talk with him as individuals in the power if the Holy Spirit we cannot discern his position vis a vis God and certainly there have been horrendously hard-hearted Protestants and in many countries still are hordes of them. But the only thing we can say really is that obviously OC with his words and deeds was sailing horrendously close to the wind obviously (as indeed have some Catholics over the centuries). God doesn’t call us to have “expectations” of another’s position vis a vis God, in my opinion. A virtue is hope so I’m told. How widely do or should we apply hope (not a rhetorical question)?

I’m not clear what “letting your children die” means. People old and young do die anyway. If a child is drowning (GF), get help to try and rescue them, if they have a 104 degree temperature, try and find a reliable doctor, nurse them etc. Do our best.

Stop the all-or-nothing thinking. Because we feel that would be an unreasonable line towards ourselves, we invert it (impute it) to everbody else by proxy.

It’s a reflex to regard someone’s views that aren’t directly fulsome of our own in the way we have actually expressed them, as posing some kind of general threat, and the war of feelings gradually mushrooms, often on a vague basis. This is why responsible, mature older children and adults have always been called to use consideration and reflection in tempering their reflexes, in almost all religions and none.

Most of us have come off worse in life than we dare face (and that includes things our parents and forebears have got through with gritted teeth) and we go from that to assuming that because we are too “little” for God to think us worth helping, we have got to “help our own unbelief” by hoity-toitiness towards another, especially if their qualm, quandary or query is what we have had drummed into us to regard as non-textbook.
 
BornInMarch said:
Jesus taught to love your neighbor, to love your enemy, and that God is both loving and forgiving. …

Yet on this forum and in society in general, there seems to be a disturbingly large amount of Hard-Hearted Christians. Not large enough to make more than a vocal minority, but still large enough to be worth discussing.

However, this still raises a question. Why do you think some Christians in society are so hard of heart?
Click to expand...
There is only one requirement to belong to Catholicism. You must be a sinner and know it.
 
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