Billy Graham in heaven?

[Cyril Haearn]

What is a "christian attitude"? Whether we like it or not, it is synonymous with being good, +1

Thank God so many beautiful churches were built! One of my favourites is the Marble Church at Bodelwyddan

[mercalia]

esp in the land of the free where there is so much poverty?if I was that well off I would feel very embarassed and feel inclined to give most of it away keep maybe £2-3m - thats enough for most people?

There's a teaching in Evangelical Christianity called "Prosperity Teaching",which states that if you are fully committed and have total faith Jesus,God(Jesus)will return the committment by bestowing you with material wealth in abundance,and if you don't receive such wealth then you don't have enough faith.
I'll leave you to work out whether such teachings are of Christian origin or otherwise and it's effect on those who believe everything such preachers say but aren't materially wealthy

wasnt that the Puritan ethic. not just evangelical?

[mercalia]

What is a "christian attitude"? Whether we like it or not, it is synonymous with being good, +1

Thank God so many beautiful churches were built! One of my favourites is the Marble Church at Bodelwyddan

hmm more like the sweat of the craftsmen & labourers. I have only been to Notre Dame once and was surprised how dark it was inside

[mercalia]

He failed to fire up the UK as a Christian nation. It just didn't happen. Maybe he had some impact in the USA, but not here.

I think probably his biggest victory here was influencing Cliff Richard to become a christian. And what surprises me about that is that when Jet Harris ( Shadows) later on in his life encountered problems CR attitude towards him to me didnt appear to be very christian.

want to elaborate?

[Vorpal]

wasnt that the Puritan ethic. not just evangelical?

No. The Puritans decried wealth, and the church's accumulation of it.

[mercalia]

wasnt that the Puritan ethic. not just evangelical?

No. The Puritans decried wealth, and the church's accumulation of it.

ah I was thinking of the Protestant Ethic - still not just Evangelicals. seems like the Puritans also part of it though and not as you describe. Just that they were a bit more crafty than the Roman Catholics ( Bishops ) seeing themselve as stewards of a gift from God?

http://www.apuritansmind.com/stewardship/rykenlelandpuritansandmoney/

[661-Pete]

What is a "christian attitude"? Whether we like it or not, it is synonymous with being good, +1

Thank God so many beautiful churches were built! One of my favourites is the Marble Church at Bodelwyddan

Does that mean that non-christian attitudes - i.e. those of people of other faiths, or no faith - are synonymous with not being good?

[Vorpal]

wasnt that the Puritan ethic. not just evangelical?

No. The Puritans decried wealth, and the church's accumulation of it.

ah I was thinking of the Protestant Ethic - still not just Evangelicals. seems like the Puritans also part of it though and not as you describe. Just that they were a bit more crafty than the Roman Catholics ( Bishops ) seeing themselve as stewards of a gift from God?

http://www.apuritansmind.com/stewardship/rykenlelandpuritansandmoney/

Yes they saw themselves as stewards of a gift from god. And they had no problem with money, private property, or financial prosperity. They were opposed to the accumulation of wealth for the sake of wealth. They were opposed to spending money on finery and frippery (hence the traditional plain attire) or ostentation.

They were opposed to economic injustice, and they taught that the rich should help the poor.

I don't think that the Puritans would recognise the prosperity gospel, even though it arose to some extent from their view that prosperity is godliness.

[pete75]

No. The Puritans decried wealth, and the church's accumulation of it.

ah I was thinking of the Protestant Ethic - still not just Evangelicals. seems like the Puritans also part of it though and not as you describe. Just that they were a bit more crafty than the Roman Catholics ( Bishops ) seeing themselve as stewards of a gift from God?

http://www.apuritansmind.com/stewardship/rykenlelandpuritansandmoney/

Yes they saw themselves as stewards of a gift from god. And they had no problem with money, private property, or financial prosperity. They were opposed to the accumulation of wealth for the sake of wealth. They were opposed to spending money on finery and frippery (hence the traditional plain attire) or ostentation.

They were opposed to economic injustice, and they taught that the rich should help the poor.

I don't think that the Puritans would recognise the prosperity gospel, even though it arose to some extent from their view that prosperity is godliness.

Yes and they were also quite keen on persecuting innocent women for witchcraft and then killing them.

[Cyril Haearn]

What is a "christian attitude"? Whether we like it or not, it is synonymous with being good, +1

Thank God so many beautiful churches were built! One of my favourites is the Marble Church at Bodelwyddan

Does that mean that non-christian attitudes - i.e. those of people of other faiths, or no faith - are synonymous with not being good?

No
The word "christian" is changing its meaning I think, decent, humanist could be alternatives, not so focused on going to church
Went to a talk about Iran, the history of religion and the emergence of monotheistic religions were mentioned, one wonders what people believed in before..

[Cyril Haearn]

ah I was thinking of the Protestant Ethic - still not just Evangelicals. seems like the Puritans also part of it though and not as you describe. Just that they were a bit more crafty than the Roman Catholics ( Bishops ) seeing themselve as stewards of a gift from God?

http://www.apuritansmind.com/stewardship/rykenlelandpuritansandmoney/

Yes they saw themselves as stewards of a gift from god. And they had no problem with money, private property, or financial prosperity. They were opposed to the accumulation of wealth for the sake of wealth. They were opposed to spending money on finery and frippery (hence the traditional plain attire) or ostentation.

They were opposed to economic injustice, and they taught that the rich should help the poor.

I don't think that the Puritans would recognise the prosperity gospel, even though it arose to some extent from their view that prosperity is godliness.

Yes and they were also quite keen on persecuting innocent women for witchcraft and then killing them.

Recently there have been apologies for the persecution of witches that happened hundreds of years ago
+1

[drossall]

What it *implies* however, is that a women is either a wife and homemaker, or she is a seductress and object of sexual desire (Eve who led Adam astray), and has little or no function outside of these two roles.

Why? These things tend to work both ways. I don't know for sure, but I rather imagine that his wife may have taken the same approach with men. Which, by your argument, would make Billy Graham a home-maker, and little more than a seductor and an object of sexual desire. Don't suppose anyone's ever written that before (sorry, Billy).

Or, you could be generous, and see it as taking such a high value of marriage vows as to take "forsaking all others" quite literally. Given the condemnation faced by preachers whose marriages fail, isn't there an element of "damned if he does, damned if he doesn't" here?

Of course, that was in the days when marriage break-up was scandalous. I'm reminded that, in our current scandals, people need to behave in ways that:

avoid any appearance of scandal, when so many ... (are) involved in scandalous behaviour.

[Vorpal]

Yes and they were also quite keen on persecuting innocent women for witchcraft and then killing them.

They did many awful things, including slaughtering indigenous people, keeping slaves, shaming and ostracizing people for anything from wearing silk to adultery....

[Vorpal]

Or, you could be generous, and see it as taking such a high value of marriage vows as to take "forsaking all others" quite literally. Given the condemnation faced by preachers whose marriages fail, isn't there an element of "damned if he does, damned if he doesn't" here?

Of course, that was in the days when marriage break-up was scandalous. I'm reminded that, in our current scandals, people need to behave in ways that:

I could be generous? I wouldn't mind for Billy Graham's own sake. But his decision influenced many other men.

As for 'in the days'? What does that mean? I was told in the 90s by a business associate that he would not travel with me for business because he was married and he didn't feel it was appropriate. I complained to HR and instead of telling him to get on with it and do his job, they suggested my boss could find a male engineer to send instead. My boss quite rightly told them where to shove it. In the end, I travelled and my associate didn't. I've heard of others experiencing even more overt discrimination in the name of preserving silly rules like this.

Mike Pence discriminates against his staff with this rule. Men and women should be able to work together as professionals without this sort of thing.

A marriage should not depend on whether one of the participants spends time alone with other people.

[drossall]

I don't know. I'm kind of thinking aloud on this. I can see why having a powerful person of one gender, refusing to travel with junior staff of the other, might be a discrimination issue. In the sense that it was your colleague who missed the trip, and presumably whose career suffered if anyone's did, and that you apparently ended up showing that he wasn't needed, I'm not clear that the outcome of your experience was actually discrimination, though.

And since it's blatantly not the case that

Men and women (can) work together as professionals without this sort of thing.

at least if you believe the divorce stories in the papers (hah!), I have a sneaking respect for those who are prepared to take active measures to put family before career.

Where it goes wrong of course is if that starts to affect others' careers. I know nothing about the Mike Pence issue, so I'm unclear why simple solutions such as having a third person in the room won't work. And if he applies this consistently, it's hard to see that he can go through a political life without needing to meet, say, a woman prime minister from another country for private talks.

Maybe he should work for Oxfam or Unicef?