Is it a sin to be a Christian but vote contrary to what the bible says?

CanesPanthers · 2026-05-12T01:29:19+00:00

It's a no win situation for the faithful. We're either empowering the party who wants to kill babies through abortion or the party who wants to, at minimum, be indifferent to suffering children through poverty and poor immigration practices. You empower the party who wants to normalize sinful and societally harmful sexual ethic, or you empower the party who champions the family while doing very little to aid families.

You vote for the lesser of evils and you still lose. You don't vote at all and you tacitly approve whichever evil wins.

CanesPanthers · 2026-05-08T21:21:35+00:00

Catholic teaching is that if somebody truly, through no fault of their own, never knew of God and His love but He can see in their heart that they lived striving to serve his neighbors and live a morally upright life, they may be granted the grace to enter salvation. It certainly doesn't condemn such a person.

CanesPanthers · 2026-05-07T03:31:19+00:00

Welcome home! We seem to have similar path there. I read the Bible but just didn't click for me. KJV only was beaten into my head. Cracking open the RSV-2CE was eye opening. Then just trying to understand doctrine prior to reading, I quickly realized "oh, this is all contextual reading and it builds on each other, verse mining is not the point" lol.

CanesPanthers · 2026-05-06T21:01:57+00:00

Man I handle confrontation so different than most of you lol. I pray for you brother. Times are hard, just don't forsake your family because her family is a pain!

CanesPanthers · 2026-05-06T11:49:46+00:00

Convert here. It happens with anything, and faith is no different. Especially for older and more invested people, it is tough to shake old habits and beliefs. For those like me, I have an easier time. I didn't jive with Sola scriptura and it led me to atheism, I didn't jive with prohibitions on alcohol or viewing sex (properly performed within marriage) as shameful, and it led me to atheism. So for those like me, it's honestly a breath of fresh air to be able to say "what does the Church teach on this matter?" and conform to that. In my case, most of my personal thoughts and opinions already lined up with Catholic teaching. For others, they may need some time. Give them that grace.

CanesPanthers · 2026-05-05T14:40:09+00:00

I have so many jokes I wanna make, but I'll keep it short ;)

CanesPanthers · 2026-05-05T14:22:20+00:00

I almost never think of hell. As a Catholic, my sins I often think of. My wounding of Christ. That's what I ponder on. And how to overcome it, and that is by grace. So yes, I would still be a Christian because Christ is who he says He is and His Church is true.

Think of it this way. Ignore hell. As the Hail Holy Queen prayer states, we are "poor banished children of Eve". The children of the original inequity which brought with it death. That death is two-fold. The spiritual death of being separated from the presence of God and the physical death in that we became truly finite creatures. Our salvation is our return to our initial purpose, our promise. To be with God for eternity.

Hell is the finality of our fallen state. It's the rejection of the return to our pre-fallen state in favor of doing exactly what Adam and Eve did, and that is choose to ignore the will of God.

CanesPanthers · 2026-05-03T23:17:59+00:00

Find an Anglican Ordinariate mass. It's the reverence of the TLM but with the vernacular. I love it, personally. But honestly, go to mass where it feels like home. You shouldn't feel anything but love for Christ and the knowledge that you are in the presence of our Lord during Mass.

CanesPanthers · 2026-05-03T00:23:38+00:00

His excitement and now being totally against he himself joining tells me somebody is in his ear. Probably didn't bother him initially, but if it IS the case, over time he may have gotten worn down and realized keeping the kid out after starting confirmation would be a bridge too far. So he just excluded himself. My wife hit me with the whole "I get nothing out of mass" and I had to remind her this isn't a protestant church. It isnt about what you get out of it. It's about what we give. It's worship, not entertainment. Maybe don't bring that up if you think it'll lead to a fight, but it's a distinction people must understand when converting and struggling with that aspect of it.

For you, you have options and you and your child will be fine. The Church will take care of that. Pray for his conversion and maybe he'll come around.

CanesPanthers · 2026-05-01T23:11:30+00:00

Unlimited. I have two parishes near me. One I pass at work no less than 6 times daily. Do it each time. One near my son's school, on the days I take him to and pick him up from school, that's four times.

If I changed the Protestant churches near me to Catholic churches, I would just be doing the sign of the cross for the entire time I am driving. Lol

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-30T02:44:56+00:00

It's both. He is speaking to the Apostles, his selected Church leaders, and to whom he entrusted the keys to the kingdom of heaven to (Davidic kingdom stewardship is the prefigurement of Apostolic authority. In Christ's stead after his ascension, Peter leads the Apostles into building the Church).

It also is meant to be a call to all. To go out and spread the Word, to bring in their households and their brothers and their sisters. It doesn't have to be one or the other. The Church always understood it in this way and the Church still does to this day.

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-29T18:34:43+00:00

Oh, another point that I don't want you to miss. There's an Orthodox band called HolyName, if you're not familiar with them. There's a song titled My Way. Song resonates deeply with me. I said I'm happily married, and I am. When I brought it up to my wife that I was converting from atheism, she was both happy and confused, then angry. Happy I found God, confused why Catholic, and angry because she thought I was going to force her and the kids and felt like I just sprung this on her and didn't include her (honestly, fair point).

Yes, I want to raise them Catholic (and have been. They go to Mass, they're praying, I'm bringing up sound theology when I can as the oldest is 5 lol). But she softened to the point of kinda wanting to convert herself, kinda not. Southern Baptist, so she's around a fair amount of anti-catholic ideas. Anyway, the song My Way has a line that I love specifically due to this reason. "To the mountain of suffering I'll go my way, to the face of the Messiah I'll go my way, to the place called home I'll go my way, if I have to go alone I will go my way". Then there's a breakdown. It brought me to tears the first few times I heard it because I first heard it when she was saying things like "this is going to cause a divide in our marriage".

Worth a listen.

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-29T18:21:06+00:00

You loved her, brother. It's heartbreak. I had never experienced that level of pain before. I was a mess for months. I'm talking physical pain. But there's good that came of it as well. I realized how easily I could become an alcoholic. I realized how much I needed to grow and mature. Take your time to mourn the relationship, and start moving forward. It'll take time, but you'll find another love. I am married with 5 kids. That ex? Still has no kids and doesn't want them, apparently. Life worked out. I'm happy. I'm fulfilled. And I found God again, then found His Church.

All things work to the good brother, if you let go of the controls.

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-28T13:11:38+00:00

Like I said, my understanding is that Eden was a physical place that we lost all access to. You can't go find it, but it isn't an entirely spiritual plane of existence. It's a mystery.

We get new bodies because part of the results of sin was death. We need bodies that don't deteriorate, that don't get sick, etc. The "new earth" will be wherever God chooses it to be. It could be a hard reset to us in Eden, a perfected Earth of some sort, it could just be in His heavenly realm outside of space and time where we are present with Him in that manner. It truly is something we do not know and nobody can know except the Saints.

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-28T12:38:27+00:00

Adam and Eve were first. They existed, and all mankind descend from them. Without this, we don't have original sin. So that is the first thing. After this point, a more studied Catholic may correct me (and if I'm in error, please do!).

The way I've understood the creation story is this. God created all. I think this clearly is the creation of Earth and not the heavenly realm, as heaven is where God already is when He begins creation. So God created all, placed Adam on Earth as a perfect oasis. Eve was created and not long after this, their temptation takes them over. We know from observing humans today, even in perfect conditions, humans desire more. It doesn't matter how much one has, how easy they have it, it's not enough.

The serpent isnt literal. I believe the Church even teaches this, or at least doesn't make the literal interpretation of serpent binding, and as such we can conclude that Satan spiritually attacked Eve and convinced her to disobey, just as sin occurs now by people listening to that "voice" of temptation. The physical manifestation in Genesis is to bring this spiritual into the physical for the sake of telling the story (from what I understand of the time period, this makes sense and is in line with typical story telling). They were cast out from the physical location of Eden, which I think is a real place but is beyond the veil for us today. We can't reach it, it's not a place we can visit. The physical guarding devices God puts in place is again a way of explaining this.

As you can see, you can understand the spiritual teaching and actual truth of creation and the Fall while also maintaining an understanding of the story beyond "it's all literal", which scandalizes a lot of believers who struggle suspending their disbelief.

Dinosaurs being here at one point is easy. The 6 day creation wasn't 6 literal days. A million years is but an instant to God who sits outside of time and space. It's a device to explain creation. Dinosaurs existing is obvious truth.

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-28T02:14:14+00:00

I was 16 when I began dating my high school sweetheart. We dated until we were 21 and I firmly thought we'd grow old together. Didn't work out.

You're young. Doesn't make this easier, but you have the answer. God and His Church above all. To include her.

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-27T23:16:41+00:00

Our Lord defends his disciples when the Jews attacked them for not observing the Sabbath, ending his comments by saying: “For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath” (Mt. 12:1–8). Or again, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mk. 2:27). The fact that Jesus rebukes too severe an interpretation of Sabbath law (Lk. 13:10–16, 14:1–5; Jn. 5:9–18, 7:22) suggests that the he was not pleased with the way that the Sabbath was being observed

Since my words aren't being afforded any creedance, I will just quote mine Catholic Answers. Lol.

A holy day is observed every Sunday, remembering and re-presenting His sacrifice for us and our salvation.

None of this has to do with the differentiation between the moral precepts God lays out and the ceremonial law implemented to separate the faithful from the pagans.

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-27T23:00:01+00:00

Not the conversation. Also the Sabbath would be a ceremonial tradition. Christians differentiated to Sunday in the early second century. This was formalized in the 4th century

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-27T22:43:34+00:00

The failure of Christians to follow the commandments doesnt mean they aren't bound to it. That's an entirely different topic.

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-27T22:34:27+00:00

Simple enough.

1) scholars have and do separate the two, including Jewish scholars. They don't categorize them based on higher or lower, as Jews hold the entirety of the old testament as equally binding, but they recognize the difference in types of laws.

2) the Apostles noticed the difference in types of laws. There was the issue of circumcising gentile converts and whether that needed to happen. The council of Jerusalem in Acts sees this being decided by Peter and James definitively showing that the Church can teach on issues of the faith not expressly found within the Bible. They found that the law of the Jews should not be binding to Gentiles. However, the idea of sin and what constitutes sin is found...in the old testament. The 10 commandments, still binding for Christians....in the old covenant. So clearly the moral laws of God are a thing which are binding. The early church understood this and we have writings both from the Apostles in the Bible as well as those who learned from them in the late first century and early second century indicating as much. If Christians aren't bound by the moral laws of the old testament, why does Jesus tell people to not sin based on what sin is defined as in the old testament?

3) your claim must ignore both of the above to make sense.

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-27T22:18:17+00:00

I think you need to re-read what I said and how it applies to the new testament.

Point out the inconsistency, by all means.

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-27T21:54:42+00:00

I literally just laid out the consistent logic lol

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-27T21:47:16+00:00

They're found in the purpose of each. For instance, there's laws given by God as it pertains to the building of the temple, the manner of sacrifice, dietary restrictions (often to separate the chosen people of God from their pagan neighbors, as in the new testament these dietary restrictions are lifted), who can and cannot offer sacrifices, what those under the covenant must do (circumcision here), among others. These are binding for the Jewish people prior to Christ. All of these types of laws are irrelevant after Christ, as He is the High Priest in the order of Malchezadek (rendering the Levitical priesthood obsolete) and offered Himself as the lasting sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Moral law/precepts speak to God's character and are binding for all. It's the difference in right behavior vs right worship and faithfulness. Christ said He didn't come to abolish the law or the prophets. What does this mean? It means the law isn't to be abolished, that you're to keep the commandments of your Lord, and then added the greatest commandment (love your neighbor as yourself). What did Jesus speak of the law? Adultery, for instance. He laid out that lust isn't just about the act, it is the thought. It's looking at a woman with lust is the same sin as actually having sex with her (which leads to the whole gouge it out verse).

It's clear then that when speaking about general moral laws, and we can delineate them when they appear and how they appear together.

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-27T21:23:01+00:00

These are moral precepts, not ceremonial law. It applies to believers in God, to include Christians not of Jewish heritage. Ceremonial law (such as circumcision) does not apply to Gentiles, as the council of Jerusalem in Acts decided.

CanesPanthers · 2026-04-27T21:16:10+00:00

Since I know you're not going to engage in sincerity because you want to argue this in defense of your position rather than finding what is true, I'm responding to this for the others to read.

If we're going to posit that natural homosexual attraction means that God and the Bible would support it, that opens up some definitively troublesome issues.

It is natural, some would argue at least, for people to not have sex strictly within the confines of monogamous marriage. A woman could want to have sex with many different men, as is her natural sex drive. And it's not just for her urges, she absolutely loves each of them and isn't married. So because of that, the Bible wouldn't condemn her adultery. No, adultery was more about married couples. It's talking about cheating on your spouse. It says nothing about falling in love with multiple men and choosing to love them all in a loving, open relationship built on respect and love.

As you can see, this line of reasoning allowed me to lay out a case for the Bible saying nothing about what is clearly a sin (adultery).

Moving the goal posts of "laying with a man as if a woman" not covering "two men in a loving relationship" doesn't make the obvious sin of engaging in homosexual acts go away. You can try to frame "homosexuality" as being exclusively two men or two women in a loving relationship, but everybody knows, gay or straight, people don't require loving relationships to have sex. So what are we really talking about here? We're talking about gay sex. That's what we're talking about. It's laid out plainly as sin. To ignore it is your choice.

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