anger or pity?

A young pastor of a very small church was recently involved in a funeral for a family member of one of his parishioners, and on his website, he declared for the general public regarding the deceased man that..."there was no clear profession of faith in Christ."

I really don't know whether to be sad for this pastor or mad at him. He certainly wouldn't care one way or the other, I assure you. I feel confident that when he receives anything short of praise, he likely counts it as confirmation that he is being faithful....since the truth hurts, don't ya know.

For some Christians, if you fail to subscribe to every jot and tittle of their very specific doctrines, you will be placed on a scale...depending on their mood...somewhere between (a) a rightfully damned fool and (z) a nice person who had no clear profession of faith in Christ. Both ends and all points in between run a very high risk of burning in hell for all eternity according to some Christians.

Let me warn you clearly though, in case you encounter this pastor or others like him...you cannot be counted as having a clear profession of faith in Christ just because you, (1) are baptized in the name of the Trinity, (2) regularly partake of the Eucharist, (3) are very active for a very long time in serving your local church and community, and (4) never formally or informally apostatize. On the contrary, if you meet these four requirements, you may just be among the hundreds and hundreds of millions of Christians who are very nice people in very serious danger of eternal hellfire. Not in serious danger because of demonstrably departing from Christianity, but because you can't put your hand on this particular very small church's constitution and swear to uphold every comma and space at just the right locations in the text.