Have you seen the movie "Come Sunday," and what do you think about it?

Part of what got me was the pastor was a GOOD man who desperately wanted to do the right thing by humans, and by God and Jesus. Oh the struggles and the pain he faced because of his convictions.

Religion is about power, about controlling humans.
The standpoint, that you do not have to be a member of a specific religion to go to paradise, is to contradict the claim to power that religions have constructed for themselves over the millennia, and is sure to cause backlash from religious institutions, who see their dominance threatened, and their followers, who are enraged and sickened by the thought, that someone who does not believe as they do, and who have not “sacrificed” as much as they did, could possibly be rewarded in the afterlife alongside them.

Right.

I think I know this story. I heard a documentary episode on “This American Life”. Is the preacher in this movie a black man?

Yes he is. And his best friend is a white man, and together they built this mega church with a black and white congregation.

Yes. That’s the guy. If I remember, it was the reverend’s inability to reconcile the existence of hell with a just God that got him in trouble.

I always had a hard time with that part too. How could he send people who never even had the chance to know about Jesus, straight to hell (which I never believed in.)? And what about the people who lived before Jesus was born? His idea, which he was able to back up with scripture, sounds much more like I would expect from a just and kind God.

Maybe god is not “just and kind”.
A benevolent god would not commit global genocide against billions of plants, animals, innocent men, women, and children, born and unborn, save for a drunkard on a wooden boat.

I know @ragingloli. There is a meme on FB where this pastor and his friend are waiting in line at a restaurant. The pastor says, “Being gay is a mental illness and boy will they regret it when they burn in hell.”
I turned and said, “Your god tortures mentally ill people?”
10 long seconds of silence.
Pastor’s friend said, “That’s a good thought, actually.”

Except, of course, that Christians don’t believe that homosexuality is a mental illness, nor that anyone goes to hell for being gay or mentally ill. The FB meme makes no sense..

Christians believe that Jesus. or Yeshuah. died on the cross in atonement for all sin, and that an individual must receive it in order to be reconciled with God.

The question remains, however, as I think this movie is addressing, what about those who have never had an opportunity to hear about Christ. The book of Romans has a whole chapter which deals with this issue.

If you want to ponder, dispute, or bash Christianity, you should at least know what it actually teaches, involving salvation, homosexuality, etc etc.

Some actually do believe that @yellowdog. And for many of them it’s a sin and they’re going to hell.

I’m not bashing Christianity.

I was a Christian all of my life. Born again in the 80s. I pondered the hell.out of the religion.

God does NOT make mistakes!!! God creates life & He’s chosen to create lives for gays, Atheist, & may others that most Christians condemn. The Bible clearly states that it’s a sin for anyone to judge others. The Bible also clearly says “Love thy neighbor as thyself” & there is NO “unless…” behind those words.So, I see Christians who judge those God chose to be on this earth & in their lives are not being faithful & obeying God & that, in itself, is a sin. In developing my faith, I do my best to never second guess God. It is not my place to understand His end results. My job is to love & obey Him. He frequently instructs me to love those He’s put in my life; so, I do my best to share His love with one & all.

I don’t believe that He sends innocent children to Hell…especially those who haven’t even had time to sin!!! I believe that we create our own Hell here on earth by the way we live our lives. I believe that we’re sent to Heaven for the things that we do & not by the number of times we were in church. God has given me a wonderful life & has guided me daily on which way He wants me to go.For that I am blessed & do my best to honor Him by obeying Him. I believe that many who think they are the perfect Christian will be shocked when their time comes & they’re sitting in Hell. I also believe that many of the so called sinners will be in Heaven.

No, I’m not very popular at my church; but, then again, I wasn’t put here to please others. I was put here to please God!!!

Normally, of course, a documentary about children starving and dying in Africa, children who had never heard of Jesus, inspires a church to DO something— that’s why so many Christian missionaries are focused on places like Africa, and Christians are so quick to respond to human need, including a need for Christ, and for food, water, housing, and medicine.

I would recommend watching documentaries on what Christians ARE doing and getting involved, rather than teaching something aberrant in church, where people need to be led by Biblical precepts and get involved..

Teaching Universalism or Universal Salvation (neh, they don’t need Christ) seems a rather bizarre way of responding to a documentary about starvation in Africa and children who have never heard of Christ—especially considering that they DO need Christ.

I don’t need to watch documentaries on what Christians are doing. Comprehend? I wanted this to be a discussion about the power that religion has in some people’s lives. Why does it have that kind of power? I mean, the man just wanted to teach something a little different than what has always been taught. He even had scripture to back it up…and he lost everything because of it.
It’s a very powerful show. You should watch it. He was a good man. He was a very caring man. He desperately wanted to “save” everyone he possibly could. But none of that mattered in the eyes of man. He wanted to change a tiny bit of the doctrine so they crucified him.

He’s still a good man and beyond that, he is clearly a man of principle. But good man or not, he forced the cult as an organization to shun him on a matter of dogma. It has always been a major weakness in the cult of Christianity that many of its greatest champions and best minds MUST be muffled at questioning the more illogical aspects of “ the faith”.

God don’t I know that. They tried to muffle the hell out of me! I finally quit asking questions. Have I told you about the time my Christian friends pushed me to go to a seminar that would prove that evolution was impossible? Did not turn out well for the speaker when he allowed me to ask questions. He should not have done that.

I just heard on the radio that “this American Life” is repeating this very episode about Carlton Pearson. The episode is titled “Heretics” and will air tomorrow on one of my local NPR stations. Even if you can’t get the broadcast over the air, I understand you can download it free of charge. Like a lot of the programs from the series, this one will rivet you to your radio for the full hour.

Finally saw it on Netflix.

There are a lot of good Christian movies out there.

Half of them, perhaps, are true stories that happened to real people. Half of them, while not autobiographical, still deal with real issues people face: people facing a TRUE crises of faith; with struggling pastors in struggling churches, with people facing marriage crises and issues with forgiving parents who were abusive; drugs, pornography, gangs, racial issues.

Many of these precepts involving saved marriages and rescued lives, dealing with guilt and grief, the actions and principles themselves, would be useful even WITHOUT being a Christian.

I know a lot of non- or uncommital believers who STILL watch, over and over, the I Can Only Imagine movie, the film FIREPROOF and the film Courageous—because of the very REAL issues they address, regardless of one’s belief in Christ.

The overall themes seem to be that when all hope seems lost, it turns out that God had a better plan for us (the character(s) in the story) than we had for ourselves; or that when we have a right relationship with God, our relationships with others are healed and made whole. The movies tend to be very positive

Contrast that to Come Sunday: The story of an African-Methodist Episcopal (AME) preacher who believes God has literally told him there is no hell, begins to teach this and is unjustly excommunicated from his church for threatening the status quo? Hell is an extremely rare topic in church anyway – what’s the point of debunking it when there is more important work to be done in the here and now?

Add some racial tension, hint at the pain of a homosexual teen trying to live up to God’s unreasonable standard, and you will surely get a blockbuster… If only the movie wasn’t so unbearably dull.

Any potential drama or thoughtfulness is overshadowed by a not too subtle assault on Christianity and its hateful God.

As far as Carlton Pearson goes, I’m sure he WAS a good man with good intentions, but we cannot cherry pick doctrines that are unpopular.

The AME Church is and EVANGELICAL, PENTECOSTAL denomination – like all Evangelicals and all Christians, they affirm that the doctrines of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the bodily resurrection, the atoning work of Christ on the cross, and SALVATION BY GRACE through FAITH in the atoning death and resurrection of Christ make up the essential, distinctive nature of Christianity.

This is radically different from what Bishop Pearson was teaching. How can he be a Bishop in the AME church if his views are so different?

In regards to these essential doctrines there can be no conflicting opinions of those who call themselves true followers of Christ However, there are peripheral, or non-essential doctrines, that are important, but not critical to the follower of Christ as it relates to salvation. Some of these non-essential issues include HOW Christ is received, the manner of baptism, exact manner of the return of Christ as it pertains to eschatology, the setting & use of certain spiritual gifts, the relationship between election and free will in salvation, etc.

If one were to sum up the essentials into one theological statement, it would be SALVATION BY GRACE through FAITH in Jesus Christ.

Although sermons and discussions about hell are extremely rare in churches, it is the whole point of what we are saved FROM.

In the Bible it clearly states in John 14:6 Jesus said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

You simply cannot get to heaven with out a relationship with Jesus Christ. Carlton Pearson has been spreading a false doctrine and Not everyone will go to heaven..

Matthew 7:21 “not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

The Bible even warns about false prophets like Carlton… Mark 13:22 For false Messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even God’s chosen ones.

While Christians will be diligent to establish positions as it relates to these non-essentials , Christians are commanded by Christ and by early Christians in the letters/epistles to not allow these peripheral doctrines to cause division within the church. Most churches will accept into their congregations those who have differing views on the non-essential doctrines, but will not allow those of a different opinion to fracture the church. While Christians celebrate diversity along all lines – racial and theological – we will ultimately pursue the unity of Christ.

I’m sure Carlton is a good man with good intentions, but he is far from the message of Jesus Christ on this one.

To a non-Christian, to a white atheist, none of this matters. The unjustly persecuted, mega-wealthy African American bishop with a dying-from-AIDS homosexual son trembling at an angry God is the theme of this movie.

^^^Bullshit.

What you just did there @Yellowdog, is exactly what the Jews did to Jesus because they were upset that he could come in and preach such radical ideas. If everyone was a stagnate as you, that faction of the Jewish religion that morphed into Christianity wouldn’t have happened and you’d be going to hell.

@Yellowdog In Pearson’s case, the item that snatched my attention was his apparent willingness to sacrifice all that megawealth in support of his convictions.

But here we face the primary flaw in the Christian narrative that has plagued the cult and bolstered atheists and agnostics since the days of Jesus himself. And this is around the petpetual struggle to decide orthodoxy. Just who is entitled to set the rules of the mystical road? Is a man any less holy or unlikely to see heaven for his inability to reconcile the existence of hell with a just and loving God?

I was impressed with his unwavering faith and genuine love for his fellowman.
It just hurt to see all the pain so many people were going through in the name of superstition.

Actually, that’s probably what you liked about the movie.

Virtually every faction of Christianity ascribes to the Hebrew (“old”) and New Testament, the Nicean Creed of AD325 and Chalcedon Creed of AD451.

I do not believe Person knows more than these sources, and I do not believe you care anything about them except a chance to bash Christianity with stories of a man who declared there is no hell, was African American, opposed to a fundamentalist denomination, and had a homosexual son dying of AIDS, terrified of an angry, overbearing, demeaning God—an “invisible man” that “superstitious” and brainwashed people believe in

I had a great deal of respect for the man, and my heart hurt for his son. My heart hurt at everything he lost.

@Yellowdog It always amazes me when cult members find the cheek to declare non believers and those skeptical of the mumbo jumbo “brainwashed”. And it is specifically the doings at that council in Nicea that proved the final nail in the coffin of my Christianity. For in the end, it turns out that just as with all the other cons plaguing mankind, the cult is just another scheme cooked up by fallable and very flawed misogynists.

I have taken very long and detailed graduate-level classes on these councils, Even where they are not officially adopted, theystill define Christianity except on very minor points. the ones who served on the councils (many of them maimed martyrs, not misogynists) and how carefully and meticulously they hammered out what the Bible did and did not say, what they rejected and why, and how carefully they attempted to define the indefinable. I don’t think any works in history have been this carefully deliberated and crafted. You will never research this except from atheist sources, I’m sure. But even I regret that your hate has obtufiscated a very important and fascinating part of Western history

You should resist the urge to relegate my comments to hatred. I don’t nother to accuse you of anything so silly regarding nonbelievers. I will only state that the Council of Nicea was a political event, much more in common with our political conventions than anything holy or noble. It was an affair forced on the bishops by an impatient
emperor demanding the uniformity required of a state religion. NOTHING was “carefully and meticulously hammered out.” The issues were fought over and hastily put to the vote, with dissenters excommunicated when they failed to fall into line. And it was at Nicea where women were officially tossed to the back seat of all matters Christian —mysogyny.

By the way, it is generally agreed that the standard for gauging craftful deliberation belongs to the effort erecting the codex of Justinian 200 years later.

@stanleybmanly Yup. They finally realized that religion was starting to sweep the world, so they convened a meeting to figure out how best to use it to control the masses. Putting women in the back seat was number 1.

Yes.I liked it.