Journal 1

Jodi Finchum

Professor McLaughlin

Journal 1

June 23, 2010

Christianity is a practicing religion that is founded and based on loving God, loving your neighbors and the ability to live a self-sacrificial life. If you love God and love people, everything else involving Christianity should follow in that direction. For example, if you love God and want to please him, you will not steal because you know that would make your God unhappy. Quoted in the bible, it is stated that you should love your neighbors, and it even takes the statement a step further when Jesus says “…love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” The previous statement that comes from the book of Matthew gives a good depiction of what Christianity shows as “love”, and what the actual meaning of love is. Jesus is explaining that loving your neighbor is easier, just like loving your family is easier to do than loving a complete stranger. The hard task of Christianity is to love your enemies, which you would honestly want to have no ties to, but we are told that we need to love them just like our brothers.

Relating to the text, the idea of loving your enemies shows a great example of how important love and acceptance is in Christianity, yet pastors noted on page 95-97 try to somehow show otherwise. On page 96 Rev. Bishop Hopkins gave the argument that in the Old Testament, slaving owning was acceptable, so it is not a sin since the people of that time were permitting in the same action as southern slave owners. My response to that argument would revolve around the idea that a lot of scenarios and events in the old testament and even the bible as a whole were time specific, and we have grown as a people, and some of the ways of the old testament were not right in Gods eyes, so we should not use the idea that “ if it happened in the old testament, it’s okay” as a guiding way. Women were treated badly and of lesser importance in the old testament, and men had young boys on the side that they would have sex with, and you will not hear one argument from a southern preacher that those acts are “okay” because they are in the old testament. If your argument roots around everything being in the bible is the way to live, then you must use that statement with every intention to apply that to your whole life, rather than pick the parts that you would like to.