From: REXLEX@fnalf.fnal.gov
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Into the highways and hedges
Date: 22 Jul 92 06:40:12 GMT
Organization: Fermilab

In article <Jul.21.03.58.32.1992.12218@dumas.rutgers.edu> masimo@netcom.com
(Michael Maas) writes:
>In article <Jul.10.02.59.38.1992.19449@dumas.rutgers.edu>
REXLEX@fnalf.fnal.gov writes:
>>In article <Jul.8.03.28.20.1992.24004@dumas.rutgers.edu>
>>lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Louie Crew) writes:
>>
>I regret that I am not able to respond to all of your post but truthfully
>I find much of it offensive and out of tune with the loving God that I join
>Jesus in calling "daddy" that I fear I would have found you standing with
>those men who so fatuously condemned the adulteress. 

I fear that nothing will come of this discussion as clh has noted.  But you
have based your view on synthetic reasoning. God's revealation is
propositional.  You may find what I say offensive, but understand this, there
is a justified righteous anger, and that is what I feel toward those who twist
the Scriptures to justify their sinful actions.  Sinful by Scriptural
definition.  

>In his interaction with the men he pointed out that it was wrong to condemn.

If you mean judge, then yes.  I do not judge.  However, evaluation is another
matter.  The Church elders must do this all the time.  If they are not allowed
to then how are they to act upon the false teachers that come in? This is my
contention, I believe that this idea of inclussion is a false teaching and it
must be irradicated.  Again, again and again, its "either/or" not "both/and." 


>That it is better to look at the offender empathetically and forgive and 
>correct.  

Here you have made a mistake.  Sympathetically, a resounding yes. 
Empathetically, a resounding no -based on the last verse of Rom 1.


>You are right,God's law is immutable. You are wrong if you believe that the
>substance of that law is anything other than Love. 

You need to study the attributes again.  Love does not rule over the other
attributes.  They all rule over each other.  God is love, but His love is
immutable, holy, truthful, eternal, righteous. Does He ever get mad,
anthropomorphically we say yes.  His wrath is against those who constantly
reject the illumination that is given to them.  This illumination is in part a
revelation of His character, His nature.  This never changes.  By your
statements, He over looks the sinful act of homosexuality, and loves the
individual. This is incorrect.  To say that He looks over the sinful act to
love the individual is vastly different.  Here is where you've made your
mistake.

>He probably will not. That is presumably not his purpose. But if they are 
>serious Christians they repent and try to do better at loving their God, 
>their neighbors, and themselves all the time anyway. 

By repent, do you admit, yes or no, that homosexuality is wrong as revealed by
God? 

>Certainly I can, Love is God!  There I have said it.  

Cute.  Here is the the text: "The one who does not love does not know God, for
God is love." (1 John 4:8)  In the Greek you *cannot* turn the sentence around
to say "love is God."  It is not allowed by its sentence structure.  When you
say "Love is God" you are trying to draw a circle around Him and that you can
not do.  THe Greek is specific and it is not without reason that the NT was
written in Koine Greek.  Where else can you parse a verb 52 different ways?  If
God's love is in harmony with His other attributes, which by difinition they
have to be, then God can love someone that is going to be sent to hell because
His justice, righteousness, holiness, truthfulness demand it. 
     You seem to think that you can make a confession of faith and then go sin
as you wish because "god loves me."  Your "God" is not the God of the OT & NT. 



REX>>This (relating to gays and lesbians)I have done in Atlanta and in Chicago,
both of which are major hubs. But this is what I have found to be
experientially true.  They want you (the church) to accept them as they are.  

>Why not, God does.  Another of Jesus great lessons to us was to love 
>unconditionally just as God does.

Christ did not "accept" those who He knew would not have a "change of heart." 
You trifle with this concept of the male-female imagery that God Himself
ordained.  It wasn't Adam & Steve in the garden because He did not create them
that way. Procreation is very much part of this. Being made in the image of God
has many implications that you obviously have not considered.  

>
>God is infinitely personal and God wants to meet us as the persons we are
>and work with us there.  We are not perfect but God is and wherever we are
>there God is waiting for us to open our hearts and minds and souls to him.
>Because God is infinitely personal he understands and values the nature
>of personhood.  Will God ask you to change?  Absolutely, but not as a 
>condition for his love.  Rather God will ask you to change as a result
>of his love.  Likewise, we can only ask one another to change through
>love. 

If I read this as a stand alone statement, I would agree with you, however, in
context of your previous statements I think you are trying to justify sin in
the life of a believer.

>The Gospel condemns no one.  We condemn ourselves by our own shortcomings.
>But these shortcoming have simply to do with our inability to accept the
>Love of God and our inability to love unconditionally as Jesus taught us to. 
>Gospel means good news and the good news is that God loves us and that God
>will help us to love one another.

As a fellow Christian I can love an individual who has come to Christ carrying
his homosexual sins.  However, when that individual refuses to acknowlege that
this lifestyle is sinful and to repent, turn from it, then I will do as Paul
did it I Cor. -"{I have decided} to deliver such a one to Satan for the
destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord
Jesus." (1 Cor. 5:5)  Harsh, I think not.  When my child wilfully disobeys, he
is disciplined.  

The man who is asked by another what he thinks of his work, is put to the
torture and is not obliged to speak the truth."  Samual Johnson

As iron sharpens iron, 
So one man sharpens the wits of another."  Prov 27:17

Nothing is more stimulating than 
friends who speak the truth in love."  Os Guinness

Rex
>