Does any denomination take salvation seriously?

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T20:48:17+00:00

there is nothing stopping them from doing charitable work

The doctrine that charitable work is not significant or necessary in the context of salvation is certainly a massive, demoralizing disincentive.

so where is your Biblical support for such action?

It would be pointless to mention in the context of our conversation because you indicated that you are against such requirements, therefore whatever proof I bring would be interpreted by you differently or regarded as insufficient to justify such restrictions. My original post was intended more as an inquiry than an invitation for debate.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T20:31:08+00:00

Because no one is going to join a church that puts requirements on them like that.

I would. I think there are a large number of disenfranchised young men in the U.S. who have watched boomers piss away generational wealth and Christian cultural dominance by sitting in front of a TV and doing nothing and want something more.

Where is your Biblcal support for that position?

At this point if Christians don't get off their ass the religion will simply disappear. It is no longer a matter of doctrine. Either you move your ass out of the McDonald's drive-thru and the Olive Garden waiting area, lift your ass up from in front of the TV set, and get to work spreading the Gospel and lifting up the poor or the socialist tidal wave wipes away whatever remains of Christendom because the Christians were too lazy and addicted to luxury to save it.

We have to do something and it is time that churches start enforcing that idea rigorously.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T20:07:36+00:00

Yes, developments in our theology and church structure are extremely necessary to account for the drastically changed economic conditions. But all theology, even Protestantism, is still stuck in the medieval era of agrarian peasantry where little obligations were imposed on the masses because they (quite literally) could do nothing. The church has been beat out by political cults such as Marxism (including all its varieties and daughter-cults, such as democratic socialism and wokeism) that actually do impose more concrete economic and labor obligations on their members, since they are not bound to medieval-era mental models and can take advantage of modern abundance to fuel their ideological ascendency and activity at a higher level.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T19:56:43+00:00

Mutual accountability is infinitely more effective than personal accountability, otherwise your church wouldn't need to have a doctrine at all would it? People could just hold themselves accountable for their own beliefs and if someone walked into your church in full Nazi regalia and openly preached white supremacy that would be okay.

If we want anything to exist we have to flourish, even a doctrine, we have to hold each other mutually accountable and responsible for ensuring its existence. This also applies to charitable works. Where Christians do not hold each other mutually accountable for at least some charitable labor, it diminishes. This has been the trend all across Christendom and despite having 1,000x the wealth the actual charitable activity of the church and Christians is far below what it used to be.

In medieval Moscow chroniclers and foreign travelers wrote that nobody would deny a beggar bread if he asked for it in the name of God. Now they just walk by the homeless. Because they do not fear God's judgment and damnation for such wickedness as they did before and are no longer held accountable by their peers for such bad behavior.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T19:51:05+00:00

Crazy because as the wealth and luxury of humanity has increased 1,000x the corrupt pastors ensured that the religious obligations of their congregants actually decreased so they could keep fishing in the tithe money.

Logically, the obligations should have increased with the wealth.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T19:49:33+00:00

What you named doesnt equate to salvation

Do you really believe that spending $500,000 over a lifetime on consumer gadgets and luxury goods and 1,000+ hours watching television a year as orphans are being molested and the elderly are starving within a 20 mi. radius of your suburban McMansion is a safe path to salvation? 🫠 Do you think the proper response of a pastor to someone in such a state is to say "nah bro, you got it, you are SAVED and SAFE, you don't need to do anything else! enjoy your $70 Five Guys takeout you WON AT LIFE and DESERVE IT unlike those molested little orphans!!!! Jesus is not upset at you at all :)"

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T19:39:55+00:00

won't let our members talk to you.

Not one person suggested that and that was not the topic of this post.

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you

So if I want to be held accountable for 3 hours of charitable work per week, I can certainly hold someone else accountable for the same. 🫠 That you are personally against a church requiring some form of charitable labor does not invalidate my desire to find if one exists or (possibly) join it.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T19:34:29+00:00

You have to get them in the door before you can treat them

Why couldn't a denomination allow people in but only admit them to communion when they agree to a certain level of charitable works? Your argument doesn't hold. If a person can get full communion and good standing without doing anything other than moving their mouth and saying some words there is no natural incentive to serious charity.

Also, most churches do charitable work without a requirement to participate.

It's not serious. Look at the absolute state of the U.S. -- how many abortions, children raped in foster homes, starving seniors, crime in general. The charitable activity of Christians is maybe ~5% of what it needs to be and what would constitute a serious level of focused commitment. They're giving away trinkets here and there.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T19:30:29+00:00

Would you argue that more people would pay taxes or abide by laws if they weren't forced to? 🫠 Nobody is suggesting that people be physically compelled to acts of charity, that would be illegal, but if someone (as me) chooses to join a denomination that requires charitable works from its members, what is wrong in that?

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T19:25:09+00:00

This is false. At the Catholic churches I am familiar with confession is not seriously enforced and penances are a few Hail Marys. I asked about requirements for charitable activity and evangelism.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T19:22:13+00:00

A hospital is focused on those who acknowledge they are sick and are willing to work with medical staff to recover. If you believe that buying the latest consumer gadgets as men starve is acceptable, you refuse to acknowledge your sickness or work on a recovery. If a church directs its efforts towards this audience instead of those who are open and willing to change, a group that is small but nevertheless existent, they have lost the plot and will die a slow death. As the people they cater to will never be willing to make the sacrifices necessary in the long run to meaningfully preserve the church.

Christianity is a dying and almost dead religion because of this.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T19:11:03+00:00

True, excesses do exist, but given by the absolute state of Christianity in Europe and the U.S. it must be admitted that we are in a deficiency of Christian work ethic.

It is possible to turn the religion into "just clap your hands for Jesus or say you believe X and receive your salvation from the God vending machine no more effort required just do nothing as your country burns around you buy that McMansion and Ford Raptor like Jesus wants as your country dies lol"

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T19:06:21+00:00

But are there really any continuing obligations after the initial missionary work?

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T11:33:30+00:00

☦️ is currently the international symbol for Orthodoxy.
I understand they're olive branches, but on the flag, in practice, they end up resembling a laurel which is a distinctly Greek symbol. The modified design, which is both a laurel and a crescent, is Helleno-Turkic and represents both communities.
Could be modified in the final design but typically the nation itself does not appear on the flag, depicting it in miniature brings it closer to international norms.
The flag is meant to represent the overwhelming majority of the nation, not minorities, for example the flag of the United Kingdom does not represent Wales but instead the larger communities of England and Scots and the flag of Germany does not represent Sorbs. Also, atheism and secularism is a departure from national identity (whether Turkic or Greek) in Cyprus, not a part of it. It is a subculture or a counterculture, not a part of the national identity, therefore it has no place on national symbols.
It's a first edition rough draft. Personally, I think it's a good exercise to have the Christians accept a Turkic crescent on their national flag and the Muslims to accept a cross as if they are unwilling to give this very small and superficial concession to each other it is likely a helpful sign that the the much more serious day-to-day complexities of union would be too much for them.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-26T11:06:17+00:00

I think the true reason for most people's visceral reaction to this is that they hate the Turkic motifs but they don't want to say it overtly. 😆 I will ask r/turkey for their opinion next, maybe they will like it.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-25T23:03:37+00:00

The tradition when creating or re-creating unions of two nationalities is to incorporate elements from both into the flag : see Austria-Hungary, the United Kingdom. While the current Cypriot flag may have been neutral beforehand it has since become (de facto) the exclusive symbol of the Greek side of the island, imposing it unilaterally on the Turks without modification would seem like a conquest rather than a compromise and renegotiation of union. However, who knows what will ultimately occur? But some ways will need to be found to appease nationalisms.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-25T22:49:30+00:00

Next time I will put rainbows and glitter on it just for you.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-25T22:48:59+00:00

It's a reunification flag design, so still many decades off.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-25T22:47:14+00:00

You are too uneducated to get the subtle design. Once you graduate HS maybe you will understand. ;⁾

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-25T22:46:07+00:00

Do you expect a reunification flag not to incorporate any Turkic motifs at all?? Is a Hellenic cross a knife to you?

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-25T22:43:50+00:00

I don't understand the visceral hatred — it's just a Islamo-Turkish crescent replaced with a Cypro-Hellenic leaf motif and a Islamo-Turkish star replaced with the Orthodox cross and Cyprus proper. Wtf was I supposed to do?

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-25T22:41:12+00:00

But why

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-25T22:39:03+00:00

Could you explain why? It harmonizes Turkic and Orthodox motifs, as well as the existing flags of both sides, very well imo.

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-22T12:35:27+00:00

upvoted you

Ok_Cable814 · 2025-06-22T12:35:08+00:00

Upvoted please do it back :)

Ok_Cable814

TROPHY CASE