Oh, there certainly is.
That is, toward real Christianity. You're not marginalized if you're nominal and don't really let it affect your decisions or your behaviour, and so long as you never share the fact of your actual belief with anyone; but if you do, you're pilloried immediately...at least in any public context.
Christians are supposed to wear their faith like underwear: everybody might have some, but it's not polite to bring it out in public.
Well, only because that's nominal and shallow. Perfectly safe. No more substantive than saying, "I'm a human being."If you were to ask people at random on the streets of Western Europe and the whole continent of America, I think a majority would identify as being Christian.
You'll know, I'm sure, that historically, especially in places like America and the UK, there was a time when saying "I'm a Christian" was roughly taken as equivalent to saying, "I'm a citizen of the country," or "I'm civilized," or "I behave generally decently." Its opposite was something akin to "pagan," or "barbarian." Everybody who was a decent bloke went to church twice a year, and if asked, anybody would say, "I'm a Christian."
Shakespeare, for example, has a character in Twelfth Night who says, "Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has..." He means that "Christian" and "ordinary man" are equivalent expressions, as they were, in his day. And even today, you hear people still say things like, "England is a Christian country." And it means that, regardless of the particular beliefs and convictions of Englishmen today, the country remains operating vaguely under a kind of Judeo-Christian moral constraint...and no more.
But that's not real Christianity, obviously; that's nominalism. And so long as the word is kept on that level there's no opposition. How could there be, since it means almost nothing.
But what you're not allowed to say is, "I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah of Israel, and the Judge of the Earth," or such things. You're also not allowed to say, "I believe He is the way, the truth and the life; and that there is salvation in no one else," even though the Bible tells us flatly that Christians must believe these things.
So even in this nominally "Christian" country, any deep faith has to stay at the vague, inconsequential level. If it rises to any level of reality, and affects a person's actual conduct and values, he or she will run into conflict immediately.
Church of England Christianity is what I had limited exposure to as I grew up, and although it always struck me as being uninteresting, there is very little about it that would cause a hostile reaction in any reasonable person.
That is exactly right. And it exactly illustrates what I've been saying. The C of E is, in many places (but not all, I hasten to say) like a shell on the beach: very pretty, sometimes, but nothing lives in it.
Thank you. We were told by Jesus Christ that it would be exactly so. The world would hate us, and call us all kinds of names because we actually stood for His name; and only compromisers and phonies would be loved by the world.Your variety of Christianity, however, seems very harsh and quite disturbing, not to mention stuffed full of prejudices of its own, and it does suffer the disdain of reasonable people; quite rightly so in my opinion.
Of course, being disliked is no proof of faithfulness, I freely admit. One can be obnoxious in oneself, and I'm sure I'm capable of that. But being accepted and liked by the world is, in fact, proof positive of Christian unfaithfulness. So perhaps it gives me some hope I may be doing exactly the right thing. And in either case, it's exactly as things should be.
Not at all. In fact, I generally quote Scripture to emphasize things like salvation, not things like judgment.Perhaps it's the way you use Biblical quotes that prompts the negative reaction you claim to always receive. You often seem to call upon them to reinforce some implied threat or other.
But recently? Only because I was engaged in a discussion in which my interlocutor was bluntly accusing God Himself of injustice and of unsuitability to judge. So he needed to understand that the Bible was very clear on the point. And I'm sure I put that beyond all doubt, so we can return to the less frightening things the Bible has to say.
One doesn't have to lose one's sense of humour, I think, even when one is discussing serious matters, sometimes.I have learnt to see the funny side of your style of persuasion, but I'm afraid I appear to be one of the very few people here who have managed to achieve that.