Sexual desire is one thing. Pornography is another. Porn is evil.

This is depressing.

You’ve made your position very clear: submission, sacraments, and Church are non-negotiables in your view of faith.

It’s THE view of the early church fathers ergo it’s real Christianity. Adherence to the structure of the church isn’t blind submission it is a union of the body in trust and love. The sacraments given to the Church by Christ are key to spiritual healing and union with God. (Which is what you’re on about by the way)

But what’s missing here, and what is truly heartbreaking, is any sign of compassion for another person’s spiritual wounds.

Clarity is a form of compassion. I don’t mince words especially on Lemmy where Christianity is all but spat upon. My comments are clear, concise and uncomfortably direct on purpose. No matter what you have gone through you will never heal heal on your own. Period. When you go to church you will find people that will relate to your struggles and a confessor who will hear your sins and offer spiritual guidance. You will not and should not expect to find this on Lemmy. There is no substitute for the Church.

Your response hasn’t engaged with any of that. You haven’t asked a single question. You haven’t tried to understand. You’ve quoted doctrine and offered correction without even pausing to wonder who you’re speaking to.

That’s not what Lemmy is for. I didn’t offer you that courtesy because you shouldn’t bear your soul online to strangers. You should do that with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Preferably far away from electronics during coffee hour or something. You DO need a group of people that have a sound theology and doctrinal awareness so that you can trust their advice and earnestness. You could even befriend them and know that the new person in your life is well-intentioned and seeks Christ as you should.

The Church you speak of, and the God you seem to represent, appear interested only in obedience and conformity.

Orthodoxy sees obedience as union, not conformity. It’s about becoming one with Christ, not passing a test. Christ did dine with the outcast, but He also told them, “Go and sin no more.” He loved without condition—but He also called to repentance. Both truths walk together. One without the other isn’t love—it’s sentimentality or legalism.

But the Jesus I encountered in Scripture? He wept with the broken. He dined with the outcast. He challenged the religious elite. He called people not to power, but to love.

He also chastised them, challenged them and told them to pick up their cross and follow him.

If someone came to you and shared that the Church had wounded them, not once, but persistently and they did so with humility and pain in their voice, how would Jesus respond? Would He accuse them? Would He quote doctrine? Would He tell them their experience doesn’t matter? Or would He listen?

I can’t speak for Christ but I assume he would listen, for a time. He has the advantage of truly knowing your heart. He would ultimately call you to repent and follow him though. Your suffering and heartbreak, your “story” is only important insofar as it leads you to Christ.

Because that’s really what this comes down to. Not whether I agree with every line of theology. Not whether I tick every box of orthodoxy. But whether those who bear the name of Christ actually reflect His posture when someone is bleeding spiritually

Without knowing you better than what I’ve read so far my inclination is not to engage with your call to bear witness. I do not think it would be helpful. This is the wrong place. By now you know where you should go to resolve such things. Christ is not monochromatic and the truth is the truth. You are excommunicating yourself from the body of Christ and are putting yourself in spiritual peril. Do with that what you will. I care far more about you going to church to find spiritual healing than I do about piety signalling with some phony affectation.

Am I Christlike?

I have no idea of the content of your heart. This is a question only God can answer.

If I were to assess myself I’d say ‘No’. I’m a selfish and indulgent sinner who daily disobeys God and pursues my own passions.

I will add you to my prayers.

Me too

I’m not swayed by your moral posturing and stand by everything I said.

I shared a deeply personal experience about the gap between Christ’s teachings and the behavior of many who claim to follow Him.

“I believe, O Lord, and I confess that Thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who camest into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first.”

Unless your deeply personal experience about the gap between behavior and Christ’s teachings starts with yourself then you are just being a Pharisee.

Dismissal. Accusations of delusion. Demands for repentance. Theological gatekeeping. No curiosity about my journey. No questions about what I saw or experienced. No willingness to consider that someone might leave the church for reasons worth examining.

News flash. Christianity isn’t about what works for you. It’s about repentance and submission to God. You CAN be wrong and there is a REAL church and fundamental theology that cannot be dismissed.

If you’re leaving a church because the people there are “bad Christians” then you should look at yourself in the mirror because – guess what – we’re all bad Christians. The worst ones think they are the best.

No matter how “good” of a Christian you think you are you will always fall short and be a sinner.

This is the pattern many of us have encountered. When we raise concerns about the church’s witness, we aren’t met with reflection or dialogue. We’re met with accusation and calls for submission. The response isn’t, “Help me understand what went wrong,” but, “You are the problem.”

The Bible is literally a book telling you that you are a fallen, spiritually sick creature that despite this fact is made in the Image of God and can be saved. In short, you ARE the problem. If you don’t understand that then you’ve missed the entire point. Submitting to God is actually the best, most healing thing for yourself because only then will you cooperate with the Holy Spirit and begin the process of spiritual healing.

Instead, I was told: “You’re deluded. You’re prideful. You’re antisocial. You must go to church.”

You must go to church.

Notice what happens: Scripture becomes a weapon instead of a balm. Theology becomes a wall instead of a bridge. And the conversation becomes about control, not compassion.

Exactly. You are using Scripture to keep dominion over yourself instead of submitting to God and living in accordance with the doctrine of the Church. You are building a wall to separate yourself from the body of Christ.

And this is precisely why I can no longer bear the name Christian myself. Because this, this dismissal, this judgment, this refusal to engage with genuine spiritual struggle, is what that name has come to represent. Manmoth isn’t an outlier. This response is the norm. This is Christianity as most people experience it.

I’m not morally posturing or softening my language I’m giving you real Christian advice. Go to church, repent, participate in the sacraments and engage in fellowship with your struggling brothers and sisters in Christ. Your “story” doesn’t matter because Christianity isn’t about you. It’s about prayer, fasting and almsgiving. It’s about being a functioning member of the body of Christ and cooperating with the Holy Spirit.

If you’re upset because you’re not getting the response you want then maybe you want the wrong response.

To those in the church who genuinely want to understand why people are walking away, this exchange is a case study. The ones leaving aren’t always rebellious or prideful. Sometimes, they’re the ones who took Jesus’s words about love and integrity so seriously that they couldn’t ignore the contradiction between His call and what they saw happening in His name.

The Church (Eastern Orthodoxy) is eternal. You are always welcome but it is up to you to take your seat at the wedding feast. Any church that bends to the arbitrary demands of modernity isn’t a real church. At best it’s a community with a vibe.

Ah, and there it is. You’ve neatly demonstrated the argument that religion, at its core, can’t exist without a generous dose of authoritarianism.

So what? You submit to God not the other way around. A shepherd doesn’t ask his sheep for a vote.

You mention Pentacost, but even the bible is inconsistent on what Jesus told his disciples. Were they supposed to go out and spread the word immediately? Or wait in Jerusalem to be clothed with power from on high? Was the Spirit received quietly on Easter, or did it come down dramatically at Pentacost? Please understand that I’m not trying to undermine your personal faith here, just illustrating how things can appear to an outsider who did take the time to learn more the world’s various holy books.

Yeah you’re missing the tradition of the church which precedes scripture and explains everything you think is inconsistent. You mistakenly think you’re not blinded like us zealot lemmings when in reality you’re functioning with incomplete information from a sola scriptural paradigm that didn’t emerge until only 500 years ago.

Your perspective is familiar, and can be comforting in its own way. No room for pluralism. No room for nuance. Certainly no room for growth. And that, I think, is the fundamental dialectic underpinning our conversation: the church longs for an absolute, immutable scaffold onto which society can be safely and unquestioningly constructed. Meanwhile, I see all of human history, including the panoply of religious teachings, as a rich and chaotic mosaic to be studied, questioned, and woven into an ever-evolving understanding that supports pluralistic, humane, and thoughtful governance.

“My perspective” reflects the view of all Christians until the schism and, frankly, until the Protestant reformation. You are viewing an ancient religion with a post-modern lens. There was no such thing as “ecumenism” or “invisible church” in the first thousand years of Christianity. You were either in the Church or outside of the Church and there were fundamental beliefs such as the Trinity that everyone had to believe or be excommunicated.

Are we only allowed to analyze something if we’ve taken a loyalty oath?

I never subscribed to the binary view that you have. I think analytical minds can critique their own system as well as others.

Do I need to be a card-carrying member of “Joe Jimbob’s McChurch USA” to point out inconsistencies in religious practice? And even then, would I only be allowed to critique that church, and not the broader system it’s derived from?

I’m putting no such constraints on your ability to attempt a critique I just have my sincere doubts about you providing a coherent internal critique given your presuppositions.

The clergy, across all denominations, has historically used the Bible as a tool of control. The sheer number of splintered sects is testament to the unlikeliness of divine clarity and more a case study in cultural evolution. Or is pointing that out off-limits to outsiders, too?

Splintered sects are evidence of nothing other than humanity’s limitless capacity for ignorance and disobedience. When you examine church history it’s clear that since the schism of 1054 the Western Tradition continues to fragment further and further while the East is monolithic in comparison. Schism begets schism.

Which brings me to your next claim: that my understanding of Jesus must’ve come from some specific church’s Bible.

From a religious perspective saying one doesn’t conform to any given church’s interpretation of scripture is no different than founding a new schismatic denomination with a congregation of 1. (e.g. you are your own Pope)

From a secular perspective who cares because it means you don’t believe Christ is Risen and are arbitrarily picking and choosing what you like and don’t like without submitting to the totality of doctrine.

Christ’s egalitarianism doesn’t require Sunday attendance to appreciate.

It does if you want to interpret and experience Christ’s teachings the way the apostles intended.

And you certainly don’t have to be a capitalist to notice the glaring contradictions in the modern Christian zeitgeist.

Most modern self-professing Christians in the West derive from the schismatic traditions I was talking about and are only Christian in some vague cultural sense.

Also Christ instructed us to love all people but he gave his apostles authority at Pentecost so it’s natural that control is a part of the way the Church functions. Christianity is not a democracy.

Which part of what I said is wrong?

Funny thing: the people most qualified to critique a system are usually the ones not inside it.

The only thing funny about that is that it’s a baseless assertion.

Remember when the church opposed the printing press because they were worried people might start reading the Bible for themselves and realize the clergy were editorializing

The early church produced the canon of scripture we now know as the Bible. (E.g. It is literally the editor) What the Church was worried about is people getting Bibles and thinking they can figure it all out without the tradition of the Church. 40,000 Protestant denominations later it’s pretty clear their fears were well founded. This is why Joe Jimbob’s McChurch USA is playing with snakes instead of attending liturgy, participating in the sacraments and living the liturgical life of the church. It’s why ahistorical low-church Protestants are proto-atheists.

what Jesus actually taught

It will be very interesting to hear your opinion on what Jesus taught considering you’re entirely reliant on a canon of scripture assembled by a church you do not trust.

Was it pride that moved Him to confront the Pharisees, the respected religious leaders of His day, for their hypocrisy, their arrogance, their empty performance of righteousness?

empty performance of righteousness

Like your entire post? You know when you read the Bible you’re supposed to see yourself in the bad guy of every parable right? You’re not an “authentic” follower of Christ. You are suffering from severe prelest. You’re literally a sinner and should be begging God for mercy and praying daily for all the people you disparaged earlier.

Try pulling the log out of your own eye before talking about the speck in your brothers.

Also if you’re a follower of Christ you have to go to Church. It’s not optional. Your antisocial musings about your “authenticity” are a clear sign of somebody who is out of orbit and believing their own BS.

That’s why I and some of the most authentic followers of Christ I’ve known don’t call themselves Christians anymore. Our Christian values won’t allow it.

That was an awfully long story just to say you’re prideful at the end.

Last Sunday

ITT People who think they understand Christian doctrine well enough to critique Christians

Jesus wasn’t a communist. Sorry folks.

Does your Dad know that you’re making epistemologically unjustified arguments on the internet?

I know what asserting without evidence means.

I never personally attacked you.

state my argument back at me to prove your faith, peasant

Ironically you tried to push this back in my face as if I’m some pedant when it’s the most pragmatic way to make sure we aren’t talking past one another. If you just said “I have no idea” it would have been a better response.

clearly triggering for you and difficult to discuss

I’ve had some great discussions in this thread and everyone is better for it. You haven’t bothered to even understand what I’m arguing though so this exchange is a waste of time.

To prove you have any good faith in your “critique”. State my argument back to me.

There is argumentation beyond the transcendental argument to believe, for example, the Christian God. It has to do with prophesy, metaphysics, theology etc

I’m saying that your assertion isn’t justified (e.g. it’s just a subjective opinion). That you can’t expect to apply the scientific method to something that transcends the material world and that there are indeed logical arguments for why someone should believe in God as opposed to not believing in God.

I’m an Orthodox Christian.