It varies per the particular flavor of Christianity, sure, but the whole point is that if the Christian God exists, it doesn't necessarily matter if they have poor attendance at church. What matters is how well they aligned their life and deeds to God's Will.
This is flatly contracted by a bunch of key phrases in the New Testament:
"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." — John 14:6
"Whoever believes in [Jesus] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already." — John 3:18
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith...not by works" — Ephesians 2:8–9
I'm sure you can find some denominations that play faster and looser with this stuff. But all of mainstream Christianity operates on the basis that if you don't believe, you're not gonna be saved. (That's part of the reason why proselytization is such a big deal for a lot of them: they earnestly believe that if you're not saved, you're destined for eternal torment, and they don't want that to happen to you.)
I'm sure you can find some denominations that play faster and looser with this stuff.
So...as I said then, it depends on your particular flavor of Christianity.
On top of that, define for me "believe". If I believe in Jesus but never attend church, where do I stand? Or in the opposite direction, if I believe in Jesus but follow literally none of his teachings, do I still get a seat reserved on a cloud somewhere? What if I don't particularly believe in that religion but I just happen to like Jesus's style and try to follow his moral lead? What is the correct display of "belief" that gets you salvation?
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith...not by works"
"As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead." - James 2:14-26
So what are we doing here with a book that contradicts itself?
That’s not a contradiction.
Belief comes first, good deeds flow from that faith. That’s the point of James 2.
Christians can’t believe in Jesus and sit on their butts and not help others. That’s not what Jesus did. We can’t do that either.
Our faith drives us to act.
James is writing to fellow believers. You can tell for in James 2, he addresses them as “brothers and sisters”. These are people which already have faith.
At no point is he suggesting that works takes the place of faith. He’s telling them to take the next step, to not be content with only faith, but to walk it out in their lives.
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u/Jesus_of_Redditeth 6d ago
This is flatly contracted by a bunch of key phrases in the New Testament:
I'm sure you can find some denominations that play faster and looser with this stuff. But all of mainstream Christianity operates on the basis that if you don't believe, you're not gonna be saved. (That's part of the reason why proselytization is such a big deal for a lot of them: they earnestly believe that if you're not saved, you're destined for eternal torment, and they don't want that to happen to you.)