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Christianity Explained Information Find Christian Unity in Biblical Explanations of the Doctrines That Count! |
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You
have a choice to make: You can either believe the opinions of
theologians, atheists, or agnostics, or you can determine for yourself
what the Bible says by studying it. |
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Topics What Is Christianity Explained Information?What Is Religion and Where Did It Originate? What Is the Bible, and How Relative Is It to My Life? What Are Messianic Prophecies? Who Was Jesus of Nazareth, Really? Why Are There So Many World Religions? Why Are There So Many Christian Denominations? What Is the Law and How Does It Apply to Me? What's All This About the End of the World and End-time Prophecies? Isn't the Book of Daniel a Closed Book? Revelation: How can anyone understand all that symbolism? Who or What Was Jesus' Mother, Mary? Didn't Darwin Disprove Creation? What's the Truth About Faith and Works? Christian E-mails: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Complete Directory of Articles/Studies
Title Abbreviations for Books of the Bible Genesis
- Ge |
Christian E-mails: the Good, The Bad, and the UglyThe difference between Christian writers and pseudoChristian spammers is the ulterior motive behind their messages and who decides where those messages will eventually go. If the writer/sender is attempting to bless the recipients, without thought to how recipients will think about the writer/sender, that's a good thing. If the writer/sender is trying to impress the recipient with his/her holiness/intellect/superiority or has no respect for the stresses on, intelligence of, or spirituality of the recipient, that's a bad thing. If the writer/sender is trying to manipulate and coerce people into sending his/her message on, that's just plain ugly. I haven't decided where to file the person who thinks forwarding on other peoples stuff is a good substitute for writing a personal individual communication to each person in his/her address book: Good 'n' lazy . . . Good 'n' self-involved . . . Good 'n' unloving . . . I suppose that'd be under Ugly. THE BADOddly enough, there are spammers out there who think they are Christian. They think that, because their messages are about something religious, it's okay to send them to people who don't know the sender and may not care to have their inboxes cluttered up with unsolicited email--no matter where it comes from or what it's about. They think nothing of robbing others of their precious time. That's bad. Stealing time is just as bad as stealing money. But what's worse is that Satan has seduced these people into annoying others in the name of God--turning away some who might have been reached by the loving actions of friends and neighbors or family members but who bristle at receiving junk mail, and presumptive junk mail at that. Worst of all, however, is that these spammers don't view their stealing of time or their disrespect for the privacy of others' e-mailboxes as something for which they should repent and ask forgiveness. If they don't repent and ask forgiveness, they'll be lost.
The motives of all hearts will be seen by the judge, who will decide which have truly accepted his sacrifice for their sins and which have not. What spammers, Christian or not, need to understand is that posting a message on a Web page is the same as placing a sign on your own land by a highway; if the people passing by read it and are blessed by it you have done them a favor, but those who see it and don't care about it or don't like it have no right to complain because it's on your own property. When you push e-mail out there and into the e-mailboxes of individuals who have not requested it, you have now invaded their personal territory--you've put your sign on their front lawn--something they have a right to complain about and something for which your Internet access can be shut down. THE GOODThen there's the wonderful practice of friends forwarding beautiful stories of encouragement and faith and strength under duress, uplifting and inspirational e-mails that their friends and acquaintences will love receiving. Each of us has a list of people to whom we forward messages we find particularly inspirational or spiritual or funny. This is a good thing. Sharing Christ's love with those who want to share is Good! You'll notice I said sharing. Sharing is a two-way street, a mutual thing. That's really the only difference between the good and the bad. So what's the Ugly?Every time you send out a beautiful Christian message to people whom you think will be blessed by it, you are doing God's work. However, when you attempt to coerce its readers into forwarding it with an admonition such as the following, you are doing yourself and Christ a disservice. Almost every time I forwarding instructions at the end of a beautiful message, it's like a slap in the face that destroys all the good that preceded it.
"-----Jesus
said, 'If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed
of you before
my Father.' " Not ashamed? Pass this on . . . only if you mean it."
You are telling me that:
1. I'm too stupid to see that this is an impressive message and should be passed on.
2. If I don't pass your message on, I'm ashamed of Jesus.
3. That tells me you think what you write are Jesus' words.
Thanks. How judgmental of you. How egotistical of you.
Here is the actual Bible quote:
This verse is loaded with meaning for every Christian: 1. "ashamed of me and my words" does not apply to people who write inspirational messages--they are not Jesus. Though their messages may be inspired by the Holy Spirit, even then, the writers are not Jesus and are not writing "my words"--unless, of course, they were "in vision" when they wrote them. 2. To be ashamed of Jesus and His words means that, though we read what he said, we don't follow his instructions, nor do we teach others to follow them. I'm guessing there's not a Christian alive who has followed every word Christ ever spoke, but that doesn't mean every Christian is "ashamed" of Jesus.
For instance,
Not likely any of us are going to measure up to those words. Praise God he has written his laws in our hearts so we may engage in the life-long process of learning to hate sin and learning to seek Christ's righteousness to save us, knowing we cannot save ourselves.
The real message:
In actuality, if you use the above "ashamed" admonition you are demonstrating
1. Your ego. It is obviously your opinion that what you've written is so important that it needs to be seen by everyone who has an e-mail address. Furthermore, you know this is important enough to send on, but I don't. I have to be threatened into sending it on. If that's not the case, then you must not be sure this message is impressive enough on its own that people will be inspired to forward it, so you have to threaten them. If it's not inspirational enough that people will want to pass it on without being threatened, why would you want it to be forwarded? In an age when time is premium, you should realize that we only have time to read the most important of messages, let alone send them on.
2. Your need to control. You can't be there to push the forward buttons on your friends' systems--let alone their friends' systems--so you need to make sure that they do what you want them to do by threatening them.
3. Your low opinion of your friends' ability to be inspired by the Holy Spirit into forwarding the message to others.
4. Your lack of faith in God's ability to ensure that the people who need to see the message will receive it.
While it would be nice if people found your missive impressive enough to send it on, your goal in sending it should be to bless those to whom you send it, not to coerce them into sending it on. Does being the author of a missive that proliferates across the Web somehow prove how wonderful you are?
It is up to the Holy Spirit--not you--to decide whether what you've written is important enough to be forwarded. It is up to you to rely on the Holy Spirit, and not a guilt trip dumped on your readers, to send your message to all who need it. This would be demonstrated by a simple, "I've given up the copyright to this, so feel free to forward it or post it anywhere the Holy Spirit impresses you."
The ashamed admonition above is one of those "holier than thou" coercive manipulations for which Christians and Jews have been vilified throughout the ages, but when it's all boiled down, it's just like any other worldly justification: If you can't reach people by telling them the truth, threaten them. Wasn't that a method used by Hitler?
Did Christ EVER coerce anyone into doing what was right? Oh, he threw the money changers out of his father's temple . . . twice . . . but did he just barge into the homes of people who didn't want him there and preach to them? No. He preached in the synagogues, on the streets, and in the homes in which he was welcome, and he let those who were so inclined come and listen and learn. True, he warned that there were consequences to not following God, but I don't recall him warning against not following man. In fact, he warns against following man instead of God.
And when Jesus gave the great commission to his followers,
was there an "or else" there that I missed? No. There was only an objective, a job to do. Jesus expected the Holy Spirit to accomplish the task. And he did not say, "Invade their privacy and force them to listen to you." In fact, he told them to just move on if people would not receive them.
God has
different ministries for each of his followers. Some preach, some
teach, some encourage, some help, some show mercy, some
prophesy, etc.
Some people keep the church's books, some defend the church in court cases, some write and/or perform Gospel music, some write and send or read and forward e-mails.
Indiscriminant forwarding is not just indiscriminant.Some, however, read but don't forward many e-mails or to "everyone" on their lists because they have the discernment to know who on their lists would or wouldn't respond well to a specific message. Even Jesus was cautious how much he taught his own disciples--let alone acquaintances and strangers--and when. He knew there were things they could "handle" and things they could not.
The passage explains that there were things Jesus told his disciples that they didn't want to hear (I tell you I'm going away, but you don't ask me where), and that his disciples were saddened by what he told them so he had to explain why it was better his way. We Christians have trouble understanding the big picture, so how can we assume that if we forward something we've received to nonChristians or nominal Christians ("everyone you know" or "15 people in the next 5 minutes") it will do them any good? Worse yet, how do we know it won't actually do harm? However, there are many other reasons an e-mail may not be forwarded.
Some people may not forward a message because everyone on their list is on the sender's list, because they've received that message from multiple people before, because they barely have time to read all the mail they receive (let alone forward each message), because they recently lost loved ones and their minds are just too cluttered or numbed to go to all the trouble, or because . . . [provide your own reason].
An admonition like the above or any command to "forward this" at the end of a supposedly Christian e-mail is, at the very least, an insult to the readers' intelligence, and especially to that group of people who use their own relationship with God to determine which e-mails to delete, which to rewrite or reconstruct, and which to forward as is.
Who's really in charge?
Instead of trying to use God, why don't people let God use them?
Now I don't want you to think I'm picking on Christians. I'm opposed to most forwarding instructions! More reasons not to forwardMuch of what is being forwarded today is recycled from as much as 10 years ago.If you send out recycled messages, your recipients may feel you've wasted their time. I have received the same message from 4 or 5 different people over a 4- or 5-year period, and I've even received the same message from the same person several years apart. This can be annoying, not to mention time-wasting.
If I found the message worthwhile, I have assimilated that message and have grown in my walk with Christ to a point far beyond that message. I have also integrated the content into my own notes and teachings and sent my own version of the teaching to whomever I feel is at a point in their walk with Jesus that they can use it, and I will continue to do so at my own pace.
Therefore, it's a good idea to begin this type of message with, "This has been around for a while, but I just received it for the first time, so I thought maybe you've never seen it before either. If you have already received it from someone else, please forgive." or something to that effect. Chain letters use leftover superstitions that overtake the minds of supposedly Christian as well as non-Christian people. "Pass this on to _______ people within the next ____________ minutes and you'll receive ______________ in the next _____days!" (Fill in the blanks yourself; I'm sure you've received these: 5, 6, 10 people; 5, 15, 30 minutes; blessings, wealth, your prayers answered, thousands of dollars from Microsoft; 4, 7, 30 days).
I'm still waiting for people who sent me this stuff to show me their checks. Well, not really.
I check out e-mails on hoax sites (see end of article), and I know the Microsoft one is a load of sawdust.
As for blessings, God blesses every person on earth at least once in 4 (or however many) days--why, he blesses me every day!
All we have to do is pray to the Father in Jesus name for good gifts, and he will give them.
Of course, what we view as good gifts and what he views as good gifts may be different. And what we want to do may not be what he wants us to do.
Still, if he can trust us with wealth, he'll even give us that. But blessings don't come and prayers aren't answered because we forward e-mails!
If you don't see God's blessings around you, you're not looking hard enough or you aren't crediting your blessings to God! Maybe your preconceived notion of what a blessing is has become warped by this world's value system.
For instance, I could use some money right now, myself; but I'll settle for the hummingbird that ate from the flowers outside our Bible Study classroom one Sabbath and then hovered there looking in the window at us for probably 5-10 seconds. It was as though he was inviting us out into the world that God created and that man is slowly destroying. Or maybe (s)he was just trying to remind us how intricate and fascinating are the creations of God.
And if your prayer is not being answered, do you think you can "buy" an answer by forwarding an e-mail?
The thought that works, whether forwarding e-mails or cleaning the church, can gain you a special blessing, answer to prayer, or any other gift of God is the same as thinking money can buy you one--after all, most of us receive money by working.
Admonitions that question the reader's character are just plain insulting.
Pass this on to everyone you care about.
This presupposes that I do not care about others if I don't forward it. Never does it take into account that someone else might have said it better or more accurately in a message I've already passed on. This is usually used to keep a hoax circulating. Pass this on if you agree: If you don't agree, delete it.
This sender must be a mind reader to suggest that if I don't send something on, I don't agree with it! Whether I agree or not, it's my decision what should or shouldn't be passed on. See all the reasons above that I might not want to forward it.
Pass this on and send it back to the one who sent it to you as well.
Aha, does the one who sent it to me want to monitor whether I sent it on and judge me too? Or is the one who sent it to me so insecure about our friendship that he or she needs the instant gratification of receiving back from me sentiments composed by a stranger that he or she sent to me in the first place?
If the people who send me things send them because they know I'm their friend, why would they care whether I send it back? When they send me a birthday card do they ask me to send it back? If you send something in the hope of getting something in return, are the motives of your heart Christian?
While your motives might not be Christian when you expect something in return, you probably just let yourself get in God's way for a moment. He can fix that.
Rather than send "friendship patches"--somebody else's idea of how I should express my friendship--because I'm too busy or self-absorbed or uncaring to send a personal note, I prefer to support my friends with personal messages that show my true gratitude for their attention and my real interest in their lives.
So, did I mention that I attempt to delete what I consider to be offensive "forward this" demands or coercions from the messages that I decide otherwise merit forwarding? If I cannot delete the forward demand, which is the case with many html attachments containing animated gifs, I just don't forward the message.
Thankfully, there are a few precious souls who know how to encourage forwarding.Feel free to pass this on . . .
You may pass this on if you like . . .
I didn't write this; it was forwarded to me. So I'm forwarding it to you because I thought you'd like it, and you can do the same.
Finally! People who know how to encourage, rather than demand, the passing on of messages! And it's so simple! My Collection
I'm collecting uplifting and/or inspirational stories (to combat all the bad news of our era) that are not "urban legends" and do not contain "coercive" or insulting forwarding instructions. I'll post them on Christianity Explained Information, because Christianity takes many forms and is practiced by apparent non-Christians as well as Christians.
"What's that?" you ask. "How can a non-Christian practice Christianity?"
The following relates both how some non-Christians practice Christianity and how some Christians do not practice Christianity. Most Christians have heard it a time or two though a lot of them apparently forget it as soon as they hear it.
Some people don't even know there's a "Christian" component to their lives.
Examples
So some of the "e-mails" will be very Christian and others may not seem so, but will bear good news and uplifting messages to counteract what we are fed by the various news media.
The first true story that ends very nicely involves Ann-Margret. There are others on my hard drive and I have been able to edit some messages, removing the "ugly" endings, which I'll also post in a directory that I'll link here. However, some messages with annoying endings cannot be edited so the forwarding admonitions can be deleted. Those messages, no matter how uplifting they may be, will not appear here, because those endings indicate that another spirit is "pushing" them.
Probably the best forwarding encouragement would be, I, (your name), hold the copyright to (or have obtained the copyright to or permission to forward from the copyright holder of) this story. If you know someone who might be blessed by it, feel free to pass it on.
Which brings up another point.
Copyrights
If you don't hold the copyright to something, you technically should not be forwarding it without the copyright holder's permission. The original writer could sue you for copyright infringement.
I attempt to protect myself by attaching a disclaimer to messages I forward. For instance, I put "Author Unknown" after the message title, if there is one, or after the message body if there is no title. Then I add this at the end of the message: "I don't know who originated this message, but I found it so inspirational that I thought I'd forward it anyway. If anyone knows the writer, please let me know so I can obtain his/her permission to use this elsewhere." Privacy and Spam ProliferationWhen I receive an address-filled message that I want to pass-on, I copy the message and graphics to my hard drive and reconstruct the message without the e-mail addresses of everyone to whom it's been sent so far (there are several ways to do this). Then I send it to those on my list whom I think will appreciate it.
Unfortunately, that's hard to do with some animated gifs or other animated graphics. If I receive a message I might want to send on, I often find that I would be forced to "forward" it, including all the e-mail addresses it has collected, because after I download the message etc., clean out all the e-mail addresses, and then attempt to send it on as an attachment, the graphics don't remain animated, if they show up at all. In most cases, out of deference to the privacy of the owners of the e-mail addresses I can't delete, I don't forward these messages. For that same reason, you won't find any of those messages posted here either.
Since it makes me feel bad that I can't forward them, those people who are trying to bless me with these great messages end up making me sad as well, because they haven't taken the precautions necessary to avoid forwarding their contacts' e-mail addresses all over the Web.
You see, I'm a weird bird. My conscience won't allow me the justification that someone else originated the e-mail address-spreading message and sent it to me, so it's not my fault they're being sent on. I simply cannot allow myself to compound the situation. Even though I will be protecting the addresses of those to whom I personally send it, I'm still sending out all those other addresses. Now I trust those to whom I send it, and they probably trust those to whom they send it.
The problem is that e-mail is an unsecure medium. Every message travels through ISPs and other Internet Machines called relays on it's trip to it's final destination. It goes through the ISP that originates it and the one it is going to, of course, but it can also pass through dozens of relays on the way. It doesn't travel through the air, but over the electronic wires or signal relays that make up the Internet--which may or may not include wireless legs of the trip. In the few seconds or minutes it takes an e-mail to reach your friends and/or associates, whether next door or half-way around the world, your message can pass through dozens or even thousands of relays, and it leaves a copy of itself at every one of them. Anyone with access to that relay (including hackers looking for addresses to spam) can read your message if he or she cares to and knows how. The more times a message is forwarded, the more relays have one or more copies of it in their databases from which hackers can retrieve the addresses.
Something else to consider:With the advances in computing and the ability of html graphics and other things to gather information about the messages you receive . . . possibly the e-mail addresses of people to whom you forward an e-mail? . . . are you subjecting your friends to possible problems by forwarding "everything you receive"?
After all, how many of you (or the people who send messages to you) have enough computer savvy to send e-mail messages with all contacts' addresses in the blind carbon copy (Bcc) field instead of the To or Cc field so that the privacy of all the recipients can be maintained? Addresses in the Bcc field receive the message, but no one can see the addresses in the Bcc field except the sender of that message. You can actually send the message to yourself with everyone else in Bcc, and your address, which appears in the from field anyway, is the only one exposed. Hackers don't bother copying and pasting a single address when it takes the same effort as copying and pasting 10 or 50 addresses.
And what's up with the guy who "bet" some other guy he could come up with 300 people who believe in God before the other guy could come up with 300 people who don't? He asked readers to add their names to the long list and send it on.
Was he looking for people's names to use in the from field in spam he sends out? Why 300? How do you verify the "signatures" as real people? Is the fact that 300 people believe in God going to convert the other guy? After all, hasn't the other guy read how many millions of Christians there are world-wide? Does he not know that millions of Muslims supposedly believe in the same God of Abraham that Christians claim to believe in and that further millions of people "believe in God" though it may not be the God of Abraham? Will the world be a better place as a result? Is he trying to elevate himself in the other guy's eyes, or is he just trying to waste my time?
Furthermore, do the people forwarding this, apparently trying to get 300 "signatures" in one message, not realize that there are probably hundreds of these e-mails floating around so that each one probably needs only about 5 names to reach the 300-name mark? Is the originator hoping to get back more like 30,000 e-mail addresses to spam? Since there's no way to stop people from forwarding this, considering that I received in 2005 an e-mail that was initiated before 1997, how many e-mail addresses might the request for 300 people who believe in God acquire over, say, the next 10 years?
The key to the Christian forwarding e-mail is discretion.
The key to forwarding should be the inspiration factor. Who or how many are likely to be impacted positively? If it's only paying homage to its composer's ego because it sends him/her a signal or a message every time it is viewed or forwarded, it's a waste of inbox space.
Finally,
passing stuff along only qualifies as "good" if the
story is accurate. Please check all
stories against urban legends and hoaxes listed at sites such as
Enough said?
May you have showers of blessings and many beautiful e-mails . . . |
Related Links Written in the HeartThe Truth About Mary Magdalene
Scriptures: Within Text: Matthew
28:19-20 |
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Copyright 2005-2007 Lynda Karr
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