I was reading about the poor and tragic events that occurred in Pennsylvania where a deranged man shot and killed three women in a fitness class. One of the statements reported from his blog was the following:
"Maybe soon, I will see God and Jesus. At least that is what I was told. Eternal life does NOT depend on works. If it did, we will all be in hell."
That must be the most extreme understanding of the difference between Faith and Faith & Works I have ever seen. As most people know, the Catholic Church believes it is Faith & Works that are required for Christians to live their lives according to God's teachings and, after the split by Luther, the Protestants determined only Faith was required for salvation.
Almost all Protestants I know take their Faith and convert it into Works (missionary work, evangelical work, bible studies, prison ministries), they just don't call it that. However, this disturbed murdered took something so completely out of context, ignoring reliance on Jesus, on loving your enemies, on loving your neighbor, on offering your sacrifices to God, on carrying your own cross... it's sad that someone could have misinterpreted something so obvious to most Christians and used it to ease the weight of his own evil actions.
The older I get the more I realize that context is often more important than the content.
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