More on Christian Narcissism

(Narcissism is obsession with one’s own image, excluding all other persons (and even oneself) as possible objects of genuine love. This is a new comment from the “I wanted to be a Christian” article.)

Any religious obsession with a righteousness as imposed on others (morality issues) as opposed to a personal repentance and works is essentially a narcissistic religion. It all happens in the eye of the beholder instead of the heart of the believer. This is the problem in the US church today, what with the highly public religion so many are tempted to pursue to the exclusion of a personal (and anonymous, as Jesus taught) walk in goodness.

Our media-based culture is all about narcissism (television, movies, the rest) – that’s a no-brainer. What a tragedy that the US church is going headlong into the narcissistic folly, what with all the media circuses. What is being lost is the personal walk in Christ.

This is not to discredit a civic life which reflects one’s values. It is to protest that the public and the private have become conflated in the mind of the larger US church. Believers are encouraged to perform, as it were, into the mirror of the media. And that is contrary to what Jesus taught about works of righteousness.

The other line I draw, which is my personal interpretation of events, is that we are, as Larry maintains, in a unique time. My take on it is that an evil government system is stepping up to the plate, and that we were given the prophecies for a reason – to understand things. We need to be paying attention, so that when the evil is wreaked upon our country, we are not confused as to why it is happening. Which leads us into the grotesque tragedy of the pre-trib rapture fantasy… another story…

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Leave a Reply to Anonymous X

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  • “It’s just upsetting to hear people are certain that God’s wrath is reserved for gays and fetus murderers”

    I’d like to meet the person that believes that.

    I’d also like to hear a solid argument from a (I guess liberal, the name isn’t important) point of view without obviously false things like this.

  • And do we really expect headlines in papers: “Antichrist elected to power?” Will it not rather be likely that people align themselves with the Antichrist thinking they are doing the will of Jesus?

  • Speaking of nakedness:

    Rev 16:15: Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.

    Watch what? The choir?

    The US church is buying a big lie, about the government, while international war criminals are attending President Bush’s prayer breakfast.

    We are to keep ourselves away from the world. Nothing was ever said about voting the world in or out of power. When a politician claims that by voting for him, we can achieve that, we need to pay closer attention.

  • Because you say, “I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’–and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked–

    Yes. That’s the US church to a t. And the solution is to receive healing and covering and true wealth from the One crucified by the greatest earthly power in collaboration with corrupt relgious leadership. And this healing and covering is not just formal acquittal by some blind injustice of God. He intends to, and DOES, make his true people actually, practically holy in their real lives and relationships, to the benefit of all around them.

  • Yea, end-times chronology. So much fun, so little fact. Is it just me, or do most pre-trib fans stop at the 6th letter in Rev., the one to the church in Philadelphia, reading:
    Rev. 3:10 Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.

    Did anyone ever think that this may only mean that they would die before the trial began? That it might not be a promise to remove them from the stage at all? On the other hand, if you simply keep reading, you hear something far more familiar– to the 7th, the church of the Laodiceans:
    Rev 3:17 Because you say, “I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’–and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked– 18 I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.

    If the USA is mentioned only one time in the Bible, it has to be that passage. If I’m wrong about the [churches = historical periods] theory I adopted, then I *guess* it can mean that those who are kept safe are “airlifted out” and those who are preoccupied with pleasures are going to be tested and given time to repent– in the midst of the madness. The big problem I have with that is that I made it up just now, a theory to support a compromise of extra-bibilcal ideas about when things happen. It gets a bit clearer, see also:
    2 Thessalonians 2, 11b …God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, 12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
    This could easily occur without a pre-trib rapture, no airlift, and it would definitley become a proving ground, the true believers reduced to a minority (& hunted?) and thus the reign of evil is unthreatened until God destroys the beast Himself. And the deceived people… they are deluded, unable to see the evil that rules the world, pleased to be entertained and fattened by it for as long as they breathe. And the seal of their death is their loyalty to the new political/economic system, their ticket to the carnival, the mark of the Beast. It can happen in 2 or 3 years, at the rate Christians are being assimilated. Dark enough for ya? Must remember to pray for them….

    Anyway, we can’t just excuse ourselves. It’s just upsetting to hear people are certain that God’s wrath is reserved for gays and fetus murderers, and that they, though typical consumers today, will be long gone. So selfish! And I used to be the very same, in too many ways I still am 🙁 Sorry if the side-topic is too “huh?”

 
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