The Suffering Of Christians By Ascetic Christians

Care of Souls provides an account of Christianity's historical practices of soul care through a culmination of his many years of scholarship, teaching and clinical work.

The existence of pain and suffering in a world created by a good and almighty God is a fundamental theological dilemma and may be the most serious objection to the Christian religion. In the book, The Problem Of Pain , author C.S. Lewis addresses the issue of pain as a mere problem that demands a solution; he formulates it and goes about solving it. "If God were good, He would make His creatures perfectly happy, and if He were almighty He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both" (p. 16). According to Lewis, this is the problem of pain in its simplest form. In his attempt to solve the problem of pain Lewis evaluates the past and the origin of religion, he

During the middle ages, Christianity was the most dominant force and empire in Europe. The catholic church had vast wealth, influence, and power during this time in the history. On of the main figures of that time was Pope Innocent III he was one of the most powerful and influential people in the world. An important writing the Innocent published was “On the Misery of the Human Condition”. This piece talked about the nature of the world as well as impending death and damnation. “He will become fuel for the eternal fires, food for worms, a mass of rottenness”(Innocent III).The “On the Misery of the Human Condition” reveal the medieval idea of the nature of man that humanity is evil and unworthy and life are pointless. Major churches stressed

The spiritual significance of illness and suffering is a topic Christians continue to grapple with, as Larchet points out in The Theology of Illness. Scripture offers a wealth of wisdom and cues for understanding illness, health, and healing from a Christian perspective. Larchet analyzes the various and often contradictory Christian positions on health and illness, revealing how attitudes have shifted over time and with changes in medical technology, practice, and ethics. For example, St. Barsanuphius presents a comprehensive analysis of the spiritual significance of illness and suffering. One view holds that illness signifies a lack of faith; another presents illness in terms of a person who is offered the opportunity to develop a stronger faith, or whose faith is being put to a test like the story of Job. Ultimately, the latter remains the most helpful way to approach illness and healing from a Christian perspective. The essence of Christian health care is that, "Healing itself, while resulting from natural processes, actually comes from God," (Larchet 116).

The purpose of this book is meant to create a foundation for Christian lifestyles. It addresses the origin of Christian values, and portrays the evolution of Christian worldviews throughout history. It briefly explains the biblical narrative and develops ideas in which Christians are able to live out their faith and deal with other worldviews existing in our world today.

The purpose of this research paper is to compare the public view of suffering in the Old Testament with the public view of suffering in the modern world. In order to properly achieve this comparison, I will explain the relationship between God and His believers in the Old Testament. More specifically, I will elaborate on the opinion that God is the cause of everything, including suffering and relate it to the first poetic book in the Old Testament, the Book of Job. However, influenced by the changes in science, upbringing, and multiculturalism this commonly held view changes. Therefore, I will explain the meaning of each of these three factors as well as their negative impact on religion. Finally, I will use three television shows as examples

As I grow in my Christianity He blesses me with Spiritual Discernment, thus convicting me of my sins after I repent for them, and He in turn removes my (sinful) fleshly desires.

This outright dismissal of pain and suffering arises because religious theology cannot answer the fundamental question as to why there is evil and suffering in the world. The result is a morality that can have a profoundly negative effect on human

of the church taught that sexual relations should be avoided if possible and indulged in

Everyone is trapped by pleasure. And those are some tough chains to break. Think about Mustapha's famous state that soma in his belief is "Christianity without the tears. " Without the tears part is consequential high and is obvious to what it means.

In his article “Try To Be A Man,” Satlow argues that the rabbis constructed their view of manhood based on their definition of self-restraint. Based on their understanding of the teachings in the Torah, the rabbis considered self-restraint, in terms of both Torah study and sexual acts, as the path to God, but saw complete sexual renunciation to be going against a commandment of God found in the book of Genesis. In contrast, early Christians asserted that celibacy, or total sexual renunciation, demonstrated self-restraint as well as the path to God. Using “Try To Be A Man,” Genesis 1:28, The Life of Saint Pelagia the Harlot, and 1 Corinthians 7:8-9, I will argue that the differences in early Christian and rabbinic views of manliness, especially relating to women, allowed early Christians to focus on sexual renunciation as the highest form of sexual restraint while the rabbis focused on a

Christianity teaches that in order to be able to truly serve God, one must give up worldly pleasures, which are deemed selfish. Throughout literature, many authors touch on this subject, some in very direct manners. Such is the case in Cervantes’ Don Quixote and St. Augustine’s Confessions. In excerpts from each, the narrator describes how he had undergone a change from relishing in worldly and selfish activities to renouncing such immoral pleasures in order to follow the moral path to God. As each passage progresses, the narrator tells of his past and his new thinking in the present, and ends by praising God for His mercy. Throughout the passages, several dichotomies exist

In the Antebellum time period, there were four voices that carefully discussed and showed their beliefs of sex to the society. One of the voices was known as Evangelical Christianity. Christian ministers and Lyman Beecher’s, strong ideas and passionate efforts were shown to try and get society to follow their ideas of sex. In their eyes, lust was known to be a deadly sin during the Nineteenth Century (Horowitz, 8). In order for them to control society members, they expressed and advocated that if one goes against the Christian view of sex and lacks morality, then he or she will be lead to the devil (Beecher, 45). Evangelical Christianity supporters such as Lyman Beecher believed in using the church, Bible, law and institutions to control how individuals acted upon sex as well as how sex was seen in society as

The concept of suffering plays an important role in Christianity, regarding such matters as moral conduct, spiritual advancement and ultimate destiny. Indeed an emphasis on suffering pervades the Gospel of Mark where, it can be argued, we are shown how to "journey through suffering" (Ditzel 2001) in the image of the "Suffering Son of Man" (Mark 8:32), Jesus Christ. Although theologians have suggested that Mark was written to strengthen the resolve of the early Christian community (Halpern 2002, Mayerfeld 2005), the underlying moral is not lost on a modern reader grappling with multifarious challenges regarding faith in the face of suffering. In his article "A Christian Response to Suffering", William Marravee (1987) describes suffering

Even in the Internet, there are lots of sites of anti-Christianity. The sites talk about slanders toward churches and Christians. However, they do not talk any bad things about Jesus. So from this, we can know that the perspective of the world towards Christianity is based on churches and believers, how we act. Which means, if we believe in Jesus and serve Him in a right way, there is a hope in this world as Christians.