Kicked Out of Church

O

Orleander

OH JOY!!!!
Valued Senior Member
Does he really wonder why he was kicked out??? Is this one of those cases that if he asks for forgiveness he will be allowed into heaven? And does 'kicked out of church' mean excommunicated or told 'don't come back here'


SAO PAULO — Police in northeastern Brazil suspect a convicted child abuser of killing an 11-year-old girl and disposing of her body parts in plastic bags.

A spokesman for the Rio Grande do Norte state public safety department says the body parts were found Thursday, two days after the girl disappeared. The girl's father recognized her clothes and a sandal on a dismembered foot.

Bezerra says the suspect was previously convicted of child sex abuse in the state of Amapa.

Police say the suspect may have killed the girl out of revenge because her mother complained about his behavior to the priest of the evangelical church they attended. He was eventually kicked out of the church and remains at large.
 
her mother complained about his behavior to the priest of the evangelical church they attended.
Click to expand...

How did he find out, did the priest tell him what the mother told him?
 
Orleander said:
Does he really wonder why he was kicked out???
Is this one of those cases that if he asks for forgiveness he will be allowed into heaven? And does 'kicked out of church' mean excommunicated or told 'don't come back here'
Click to expand...
Yes Orly, according to Christianity, if you ask for forgiveness and 'sin no more' God is supposed to forgive you.
Excommunicated and told 'don't come back here' are pretty much the same thing.

And yes Orly, as disturbing as it sounds, a church shouldn't refuse someone coming in just because of their past. If they are refused, then the Christians running that church are hypocrites who do not represent what Christianity is supposed to stand for.

I'm by no means speaking on behalf of that jackass. I'm just stating objectively.
 
When religion isn't good enough for the faithful

Mikenostic said:

I'm by no means speaking on behalf of that jackass. I'm just stating objectively.
Click to expand...

Indeed, one of the great problems many people have with religions, one that actually drives some people to abandon their faith altogether, is the realization that the religion has little, if anything, to do with the text.

This apathy (at best) or hostility to the holy texts of a faith is such a common phenomenon that it can be observed regularly on either the macro- or micro-scale. That is, while some might say it is unfair to indict people over an institutional act, we also see the problem occurring on an individual level. For instance, Christians who put their families first are in violation of Jesus' teachings. And then there's all the Christians who believe in retribution. As I said in another discussion recently that, "Even the religious find their religion unsuitable".

It's all great to claim a religion or whatever. It's a bit harder to live up to it. If it was just human shortcomings that prevented people from living up to their faith, I could understand. But there is such a lack of faith apparent among the faithful that it would probably be best if they just ditched their labels altogether.
 
Orleander said:
Does he really wonder why he was kicked out??? Is this one of those cases that if he asks for forgiveness he will be allowed into heaven? And does 'kicked out of church' mean excommunicated or told 'don't come back here'.
Click to expand...
Presumably you all know that I'm about as aggressively hostile to religion as anyone on this forum. Nonetheless the purpose of the Religion subforum is to understand religion. Know your enemy, etc.

Christianity teaches tolerance and forgiveness toward the members of one's own particular sect and especially toward the members of one's own congregation. Churches are not supposed to kick people out, especially when they've committed a mortal sin and have a long arduous path toward divine forgiveness and entry to heaven. Many priests and pastors make it their mission to minister to prisoners, even prisoners on death row who have committed crimes that make this guy look like an amateur, in hopes of saving their souls by leading them to sincere atonement, in time to avoid eternal damnation in hellfire.

Excommunication is usually the result of violating one's relationship to the church, not to his fellow man. Got to keep our priorities straight.

I would think that being kicked out of a church is to be told that all that stuff in the Bible about forgiveness no longer applies to you. You're going to hell and it's a done deal. You might as well rape, torture and murder a few dozen more people, you've got nothing to lose.

In light of institutionalized events which have recently been exposed, it would be the height of hypocrisy for any Catholic congregation to excommunicate a member for pedophilia.

As for being admitted to heaven after asking for forgiveness, I'm hardly an authority after dating a Catholic girl in high school fifty years ago. But I'm positive Catholics believe that God stands ready to forgive absolutely anyone for absolutely anything. Still it's going to take a little more than merely kneeling alongside his bed at night and saying, "God, I'm really really sorry about offing that little girl and I promise it won't happen again. Can I go to heaven now?" Priests know God better than anybody (that's what you get in divinity school) so they'll be able to tell this guy what to do to flip off Satan.

Catholics don't want to save people just to give them a happy afterlife. They hate Satan and they want to torture him by keeping as many souls as possible from going to hell.
 
StrangerInAStrangeLa said:
Don't they believe suicide is an unforgivable sin?
Click to expand...
In order to be forgiven for a sin you have to sincerely regret committing it, accept Jesus, ask God to forgive you, do penance, and put yourself at God's mercy (usually all under the oversight of a priest who knows exactly the right penance for every sin)...before you die. The problem with suicide is not that it's any more unforgivable than any other sin. The problem with suicide is that by its nature, if you're successful at it, then you're already dead and your window of opportunity for seeking and gaining forgiveness has expired.

Even though Christians believe in an "afterlife" during which (if I understand this correctly) they still have consciousness, vision, hearing, language, emotions, reasoning, and perhaps even mobility, it's nonetheless a qualitatively different kind of life. Any epiphanies they have about their dissolute life after dying, no matter how sincere, don't count toward redemption.

(Catholics used to put an asterisk on that and I don't know if they still do. It's called Purgatory, a halfway house between Heaven and Hell. Some sins are a little too wicked to be admitted to Heaven, but not quite evil enough to merit a direct trip to Hell. You spend a certain amount of time doing tasks God gives you for penance, and if you measure up then he lets you into Heaven. If I've got that right. God has an extraordinarily large ego so all atheists automatically go to Hell no matter how much good they've done, therefore there was no point in studying up on Purgatory.;))

Anyway, if I've got this right: If you attempt in good faith to commit suicide and fail, due to incompetence, rescue or bad luck, you still have a chance at redemption.

As long as you're alive it's never too late to be reborn, forswear your ignoble past, do penance, accept God, beg his forgiveness, and be granted it. From a certain perspective, that one tenet of Christianity sums up the whole religion.
 
Orleander said:
Police say the suspect may have killed the girl out of revenge because her mother complained about his behavior to the priest of the evangelical church they attended. He was eventually kicked out of the church and remains at large.
Click to expand...

The key word here is "EVANGELICAL" church ..... they do not believe in confession and forgiveness and a free ticket to heaven .......
If he had been in the catholic church , he would have no problems .... they accept and forgive anyone ....even pedophile priests and murderers........

The evangelical church is a Lutheran church , founded out of protesting against the catholic church ....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top