I am sorry you feel persecuted and attacked Wolf. I am a pentecostal Christian and I would never think of persecuting a Catholic or Orthodox.
I am pretty sure a pentecostal Christian has never approached you as a Muslim would in the middle east.
This whole sentiment baffles me really, do you guys think we are that bad?
Course not. I was speaking tongue-in-cheek, just as a Baptist living in a mostly Catholic country might feel isolated. I actually know a very nice chaplain who’s Pentecostal, and comes from one of the branches that doesn’t speak in tongues and is more Evangelical in nature than anything else.
Now I HAVE had people tell me I’m not Christian, that I worship idols, that I don’t belong to a real church, that I don’t have the Holy Spirit, that I follow tradition, etc. So in some regards I have been approached in a similar manner that a Muslim might. But this is more a case of the regional understanding of what those things really mean.
Although the fact remains that eastern theology and modern-western theology are often, at times, incompatible, and the way I worship or understand God and his Church will seem baffling to many of those on the streets of the city. That is why, even though I have mostly Protestant friends, I find myself bonding closer to Catholics.
And so, someone who seems more concerned about the teachings and scriptures of other faiths instead of the teachings and scriptures of his or her own faith would be, by my reckoning, someone of weak faith.
No, it simply makes them a good apologist.
And I’m unaware of anyone here in this forum (since you mention that) who are more unaware of their own faith than others. In fact, most of the time when I see people teaching universalism or having misconceptions about other faiths, they don’t know their own as well, so from what I see it’s simply the opposite.
