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Old 10-22-2007, 12:16 PM
Schmitty 87 Schmitty 87 is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2006
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Default Re: what do christians say about chinese people

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Splendour you aren't seeing the big picture here. you are listing all these historical attempts to evangelize Chinese people but the fact is due to cultural/government influences, not as many people are able to come across Christianity as someone from North America would. So how is it fair that some people get born into a country like USA where it's easy to come across Christianity, compared to say someone born in North Korea where they don't have a single church?

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There's a lot of ways to answer this question.

Many Christians believe in universal salvation. Christ died to save us all, not only those who were raised and remained Christian. The question is only troublesome assuming that non-Christians are immediately damned (or disadvantaged in any way), and many Christians don't take that assumption.

Other Christians, more in line with someone like Calvin, might say that we need to be careful with our human notions of "fairness." It's the idea of epistemic humility. God makes things good. God makes things fair. Contrast that with Aquinas' (and others of course) idea that God is good and fair, etc. etc. So ya, some Christians would acknowledge that some people may be damned without ever hearing a word of the gospels. Tough cookies. I imagine the conversation going something like this (book of Job type [censored]):

Chinese person: "But I never even heard your name!"
God: "Tough break buddy to hell you go."
Chinese person: "But that's not FAIR!"
God: "Hey where were you when I created the world? How bout when I made mankind? gtfo."

And other Christians might sorta ignore the issue altogether, deferring judgment to God. Some people might call that a cop-out, but I think it makes sense. It's one of those things we can't hope to answer definitively, so it might be better to just cross that bridge when we come to it.

My personal opinion? I hope we all go back to where we came from, be it the ground or space or wherever else. If that's not how it works I don't think I'll be in a position to complain however.
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