From: REXLEX@fnalf.fnal.gov
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: On judging (a meta comment on the homosexuality discussion)
Date: 23 Jul 92 07:38:39 GMT
Organization: Fermilab

In article <Jul.22.01.53.00.1992.10874@dumas.rutgers.edu>
hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu writes:

     I know what you're trying to say, and you've said it well.  Often times
when issues such as this arise, I answer theologically.  It's not that my
theology is wrong, but sometimes theologically correct God-answers are not
necessarily the answer.  A crucial mistake has often been made here, and I
think we "fundamentalist" do it more often than most.  People have forgotten
that there are also spiritual, moral, and especially psychological dimensions.
     Theological answers, even though correct, can be unhelpful.  Theological
talk, as such, is only a verbal formula.  Like apresecription it needs to be
taken to be a cure, like a recipe it needs to be cooked to be be eaten, like a
check it needs to be cashed to be spent.  To the insentitive, theological talk
seems as redundant as a prescription to a man who thinks he is well or a recipe
to a man who is overfed or another check to a billionaire.  To the
over-sensitive, though, what matter is the cure and the meal and the money.
     And so I come back to this issue of doubt.  I don't want to go into all
the scriptural and the greek definitions of doubt, but let me say this.  Doubt
is not unbelief.  Rather, doubt is vasilating between unbelief and belief.  It
has, as the Chinese say, one foot in one boat, and another in another boat. 
Its not too stable a stance.  This is why answering dobt is not the same as
dispensing theological presecriptions.  when understanding doubt, there are a
couple of things to take into account.  1) A deficiency of faith has caused the
problem and 2) there is a need for the sufficiency of God to answer it. 
     The OT had laid special stress against disobeying, rather than doubting,
the Word of God.  But in the NT it is strongly against doubt itself and
stronger still against unbelief.  Now that God has revealed himself so fully in
Christ, the value of the stakes of salvation are higher, and there is less
excuse for lack of faith, that is the correct faith for there is a demonic
faith that leads to hell (Mt.7).
     Doubt does not necessarily or automatically mean the end of faith, for
doubt is "faith in two minds".  What destroys faith is the disobedience that
hardens into unbelief.  This is exactly where this whole issue sits.
    Ps. 32:1-4 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is
covered! How blessed is the man to whom the \Lord\ does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit! When I kept silent {about my sin}, my
body wasted away Through my groaning all day long. For day and night Thy hand
was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away {as} with the fever heat of
summer. Selah.
     Here is the test of sonship.  The NT confirms and expands.  One of the
truest tests of being a child of God is that when I am in the midst of sin, I
find no peace (not pleasure) in it.  I'm filled with regret, self condemnation,
loss of fellowship, and a feeling that "Thy hand was heavy upon me."  As you
have mentioned elsewhere, clh, the texts on homosexuality have been exegeted
and expounded, it isn't an issue of what the texts say.  Its an issue of
whether they apply to me and my situation, my society.  At least that is what i
have been hearing.  The problem is, in the area's that God choses to speak
didactically in propositional form, there is no room for comprimise. I can not
bend it to my situation, my culture, myself, for its reference point is the
infinite-eternal, not a finite point in time.
    Last nite, I had my skin pricked with a needle that was used to draw blood
from a human being that is dieing of AIDs.  I didn't blame this man who cried
after it happened, rather I hugged him and told him to be at peace (and then I
ran like hell and washed it with bleech etc.)  Am I scared, no, concerned, yes.
 I ask for no pity party, I knew that it might happen as I have seen it happen
exactly the same way to others.  I only mention it to say that I'm out there on
the battle front, and I'm telling you that when I speak on this subject, I'm
speaking as a vet.  It's not theory to me.
     Many have been led to Christ on their death bed,but too many haven't for
they will not admit that what they have done is wrong because of their pride
and the blindness to sin.  Its so evident that one doesn't need to read to
Bible to form an apologetical thesis.  
    Here I end this, and say that I will not enter into discussion on this
subject again willingly.  You know my views.  I'm saying that Mt 7 paints a
picture of those who have "faith" but are going to hell because they have not
examined it so as to think rightly about God. "What comes into our minds when
we think about God is the most important thing about us...A right concept of
God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living
as well."  A.W.Towzer

because He first loved us,
Rex