Unit 2 - Ethical Living and Experiencing God Flashcards

1
Q

Why would a Christian want to live ethically?

A
  • The way a person lives affects their afterlife
  • Christians want to live in a way that shows obedience to God and pleases Him
  • Christians want to make sure they look after the environment
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2
Q

What are examples of ways that Christians have tried to live ethically?

A
  • As stewards of the Earth many Christians will intentionally choose to buy products that demonstrate their concern for the world
  • Christians will consider how the products they use have been made, whether the workforce is likely to have received fair pay and have good working conditions
  • Using renewable sources of energy, such as solar power
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3
Q

What are practical ways that Christians can live ethically?

A
  • Choosing products that have been made from recycled materials
  • Buying Fair Trade products
  • Churches, like the Methodist Church, promotes the use of solar panels on church roofs
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4
Q

Part of 1 Peter 4:10

A

‘as good stewards’

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5
Q

3 Christian charitable organisations

A
  • Cafod
  • Christian Aid
  • Tearfund
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6
Q

How is God revealed through scripture?

A
  • God reveals Himself through the Bible
  • The Bible is the Word of God
  • All Christians believe that in some way God reveals Himself through the Bible, but they don’t necessarily agree on how He does this
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7
Q

Fundamentalist view on the Bible

A
  • Fundamentalists argue that God is infallible, unlike humans who are fallible
  • In order to get to the truth, it’s necessary to trust the Word of God rather than the words or ideas of humans
  • Many Protestants and charismatic Christians hold this view
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8
Q

How have the Amish community taken a fundamentalist view of the Bible?

A
  • Refuse to adopt modern culture or technology
  • No photos allowed because of the 2nd Commandment where it says not to make ‘graven images’
  • Live peacefully and separate themselves from the rest of society as God instructs His people to do in the Old Testament
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9
Q

How have some Christians used a literal interpretation of the Bible to support prejudices against others?

A
  • The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa used the Bible to support apartheid, racial segregation
  • Used Genesis 11
  • This is an account of God separating people of different nations
  • They claimed that people were spiritually, not physically, equal before God
  • They used Gen 11 to justify apartheid
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10
Q

Conservative view on the Bible

A
  • Bible writers were inspired by God, but they were human and therefore the Bible may have mistakes in it
  • They were writing at a certain point in history and the Bible needs to be interpreted so that it’s relevant and applicable in the world today
  • For example, teaching in the Bible relating to slaves being obedient is understood to be cultural reference and not an attitude that should be promoted today
  • The accounts of Adam and Eve may be interpreted as as myth, they are there to teach Christians something
  • The authority of scripture comes directly from God, not through the Church
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11
Q

Liberal view on the Bible

A
  • Stories in the Bible are mythical and symbolic
  • Accept that scientists have a far better understanding of the world than anything recorded in the Bible
  • Reject the belief that God created the world in 6 days, because science explains that the universe comes from the Big Bang
  • There is no claim in scripture to the Bible being inerrant (without error)
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12
Q

How is God revealed through Jesus Christ?

A
  • Most significant way God revealed himself
  • God Himself took human form by coming to Earth as Jesus
  • God’s way of showing to humans what He was like
  • God demonstrated his great love for humanity
  • Took on the limitations of a human body as Jesus in order to teach people, perform miracles and ultimately sacrifice Himself on the cross
  • Christians can come to know Jesus through the Gospels and in Jesus, God showed Himself in a way that humans can understand
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13
Q

God acting in the word: Miracles

A
  • Many Christians believe that God still gets involved in the world today through miraculous works
  • Christians understand miracles to be when God intervenes and breaks the laws of nature
  • E.g. if a Christian prays for a person who is blind and they receive sight, this could be regarded as a miracle
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14
Q

Define ‘transcendent’

A

Beyond the laws of human nature.

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15
Q

Define ‘miracle’

A

A supernatural event or act.

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16
Q

What is the most significant miracle in Christianity?

A
  • 3 days after Jesus’ death, he was resurrected
  • This miracle is central to Christianity
  • The resurrection demonstrates that Jesus was God incarnate, possessing power over death
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17
Q

What are the 4 main categories that miracles are divided into?

A
  • Healing miracles
  • Miracles over nature e.g. when a storm suddenly stops
  • Raising the dead
  • Exorcisms - when a person has an evil spirit cast out of them
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18
Q

Examples of miracles that Jesus did

A
  • Healing a leper
  • Raising Lazarus from the dead
  • Calming the wind and waves in the boat
  • Healing Jairus’ daughter
  • Walking on the water
  • Resurrecting
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19
Q

Do the RCC and COE believe in miracles today?

A

Yes

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20
Q

How do miracles help Christians and their relationship with God?

A
  • Many Christians have a personal relationship with God and pray to Him for miracles and healings
  • Christians claim to have experienced miracles
  • Helps them to reinforce their faith and personal relationship with God
  • Reveals God’s glorious perfection
  • They can prove that God exists and cares
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21
Q

How is Lourdes linked to God’s miracles?

A
  • Catholic site of miraculous healing
  • Over 6,500 people have claimed to have been healed at Lourdes
  • Bernadette Soubirous, at 14, claimed to have experienced 18 visions of the Virgin Mary there
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22
Q

Examples of inspirational people

A
  • Mother Teresa
  • Nelson Mandela
  • The Pope (my Brudda)
  • Jackie Pullinger
  • Nicky Cruz
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23
Q

How can meeting inspirational people have a significant effect on Christians?

A
  • As they hear the way God has worked in and through the life of that person they may feel a sense of God’s presence
  • They will feel inspired to do more good works and please God
  • Encourage a Christian’s faith
  • Sense of holiness
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24
Q

How do figures from Christian history effect Christians?

A
  • Christians may look to these historical figures and study their lives in order to understand how God has worked through people in the past.
  • The positive impact these people have had on the world are a source of revelation
  • They can be encouraged to keep on winning souls for God, just like John Wesley
  • Their lives reveal the power of God at work across the ages and around the world
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25
Q

Who is Mother Teresa?

A
  • Mother Teresa helped the ‘poorest of the poor’ and showed kindness to others
  • She gave money, food and necessities to those who were less fortunate, especially in India
  • Became humble in order to help the needy
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26
Q

Elizabeth Fry

A

Elizabeth Fry was involved in prison reform in the early 1800s and was driven by a sense of the value of all people and by God’s command to show love.

27
Q

George Cadbury

A

George Cadbury was a Quaker who developed the Bournville Estate - a village that offered improved living conditions for the workers in his chocolate factories.

28
Q

What is revival?

A

A revival is a time of increased numbers of people converting to Christianity.

29
Q

John Wesley

A

Led the revival in the Methodist Church in England in 1738, where John Wesley preached in open fields to thousands of people.

30
Q

Jim Elliot

A
  • Jim Elliot was a missionary who travelled to Ecuador in order to share the gospel with an Indian tribe.
  • On his second meeting with the tribe, he and four other missionaries were killed.
  • Incredibly, after his death his wife Elisabeth, daughter and a woman named Rachel moved to work with the Auca Indians.
  • The love of Christ shown through their forgiveness allowed them to have amazing success, with many of the Auca tribe converting to Christianity.
31
Q

Who is Jackie Pullinger?

A

In 1981, she started a charity called the St Stephen’s Society in Hong Kong which provided rehabilitation homes for recovering drug addicts, prostitutes, and gang members.

32
Q

Who is Nicky Cruz?

A
  • Nicky Cruz was living a life of pure violence and was involved in an extremely rough gang.
  • His parents abused him and were involved in satanic rituals.
  • A pastor called David Wilkerson spoke to Nicky about Jesus and he converted to Christianity.
  • His life was changed forever, he’s married with four girls and God helps him to make the right decisions in life.
33
Q

What is a religious experience?

A

Religious experiences are when people claim to have had some kind of direct encounter with God.

34
Q

Examples of godly encounters

A
  • Seeing visions of God or the Virgin Mary
  • Mystical experiences through which the believer has an overwhelming sense of awe and wonder
  • Conversions
35
Q

What is a conversion?

A

A conversion is when a person moves from a state of non-belief or doubt about the existence of God, to a belief and faith in God.

36
Q

What happens to a convert?

A
  • Causes a person to adopt a belief in God
  • New sense of direction in their life, with God at the centre
  • Change their behaviour and choices, they are now on a new pathway to heaven
37
Q

What happened to Saul of Tarsus?

A

Saul was completely evil and murdered many Christians. One day, Saul was blinded by light from heaven and he heard the voice of God. He converted to Christianity and turned to Jesus because of this experience.

38
Q

What is a mystical experience?

A

An overwhelming awareness of the presence of God, leading to feelings of awe and wonder.

39
Q

What happens to someone who has a mystical experience?

A
  • Sense of peace in the believer
  • Oneness with God
  • Experiences are so powerful
  • Left in no doubt God is real
  • Strengthening of faith
40
Q

What is believed by some Christians to be a downplay of mystical experiences?

A

Mystical experiences seem to imply that God’s revealed Word and Jesus’ incarnation are not sufficient.

41
Q

What is a vision?

A

When someone claims to see something supernatural.

42
Q

Examples of people who have had visions

A
  • Isaiah in the Bible claimed to see God on His throne
  • Bernadette Soubirous had 18 visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes
  • Joseph having a dream telling him to marry Mary with her pregnancy, or the Magi’s dream not to revisit Herod.
43
Q

What is believed by some Christians to be a downplay of visions?

A

Some Christians are concerned that visions are adding to the Word of God and not genuine revelations by God Himself.

44
Q

What does Richard Swinburne believe about religious experiences?

A
  • We ought to trust the testimony of the person who has had the religious experience
  • We generally trust people when they give accounts of the things that have happened to them
45
Q

What is the numinous?

A

The numinous is a feeling of the presence of God. This could be in a religious building or looking up at the stars.

46
Q

What is religious ecstasy?

A

Religious ecstasy is a type of altered state of mind.

47
Q

What happens to people in religious ecstasy?

A
  • Become less aware of the world around them
  • Experience intense emotional and spiritual feelings about God
  • May enter a trance-like state and see visions
  • Usually happens whilst worshipping and during revivals
48
Q

What term do Charismatic Christian Churches use to describe religious ecstasy?

A

‘slain in the Spirit’

49
Q

What happens in charismatic churches when a minister lays hands on people?

A
  • Some fall backwards
  • This is called being ‘slain in the Spirit’
  • This falling is uncontrollable, as the believer feels that they are overcome by the Holy Spirit
  • You aren’t unconscious
  • May feel tranquillity and as though you are ‘floating in the love of God’
50
Q

Baptism in the Holy Spirit

A
  • Pentecostal Churches believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit
  • This is an experience in which the believer gives control of themselves over to the Holy Spirit
  • Happens after conversion
  • The believer comes to know Christ in a more personal way
  • Have a sense of being filled with the Spirit’s power to enable them to boldly share their faith with others
  • Grow spiritually
51
Q

What is Glossolalia?

A
  • Through their experience of God, Pentecostals believe that they are equipped with the gifts of the Spirit
  • These include prophesy, healing and speaking in tongues
  • Speaking in tongues is also known as Glossolalia
  • This is miraculously speaking in a language unknown to the speaker, as enabled by the Holy Spirit
  • Not an existing human language, it’s an ecstatic language
  • Can worship God through Glossolalia
52
Q

Why do some Christians oppose the idea of someone repeatedly being ‘topped up’ by the Holy Spirit?

A
  • At conversion God gives His Holy Spirit to be with the believer
  • Once the Spirit is present nothing more can be added
  • The believer can allow God’s Spirit to have more influence over their lives, but not that there is more of Him
  • These Christians understand that when the apostles spoke in tongues in the Bible, God enabled them to speak in other human languages
53
Q

What does Pentecostalism emphasise?

A
  • The work of the Holy Spirit
  • The direct experience of the presence of God by the believer
  • Faith must be experienced and isn’t something found just through religious rituals or thinking
54
Q

How do Christians encounter God through liturgical worship?

A
  • As they repeat the words and practices associated with liturgical worship they have an increased sense of his presence
  • In contrast, Christians involved in more charismatic services find that the freedom of these services allows them greater personal expression and they feel more able to connect with God.
55
Q

What is a sacrament?

A
The external and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
56
Q

What are the 7 sacraments?

A
- Baptism
- Eucharist
- Confirmation
- Reconciliation
- Anointing of the sick
- Marriage
- Holy orders
57
Q

How do Roman Catholic Christians experience God through the Sacraments?

A
  • Through sacraments Christ acts in the believer and makes them holy.
  • The Church teaches that sacraments help believers to worship God correctly
58
Q

What is the Catholic belief in transubstantiation?

A

Transubstantiation is the Catholic teaching that the bread and wine are transformed into the actual body and blood of Jesus.

59
Q

How do Roman Catholic Christians and Orthodox Christians experience God through the Mass (RCC) / Eucharist (Orthodox)?

A
  • Orthodox Churches don’t necessarily believe in transubstantiation, but they understand the real presence of Christ during the Eucharist
  • Taking the bread and wine provides believers with a way of receiving God’s grace
  • Catholic and Orthodox believers feel that they’ve become united with Christ
60
Q

What is the COE of consubstantiation?

A

Consubstantiation is the belief accepting the real presence of Christ at Eucharist, but the substance of the bread and the wine remains unchanged.

61
Q

What do other Protestant non-conformist churches (like Baptist) believe about the Eucharist?

A
  • Entirely symbolic
  • Taking of the bread and wine is an act of remembrance of Jesus’ death and resurrection
  • Encounter God through prayer and reflection
62
Q

What is the Sacrament of Penance?

A
  • The Sacrament of Penance in the Catholic Church involves the confession of sins to a priest
  • The priest provides absolution to the person so that their sins are forgiven
  • The person confessing their sin has to be remorseful
  • This sacrament (Reconciliation) allows Catholics to draw close to God and relieves them of their guilt
63
Q

What are the sacraments in the Church of England?

A
  • Baptism
  • Eucharist