From: ajw@cbnews.cb.att.com (andrew.j.whitman)
Subject: Re: Mike Warnke
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 14:03:53 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.071202.14928@schaefer.math.wisc.edu> mckinzie@schaefer.math.wisc.edu (Mark McKinzie) writes:

(in response to the idea that Christians are often attracted to those
who have experienced dramatic conversions, a la Mike Warnke):

>I'm going to get toasted for this one.  Oh well. It is my duty to try....
>(i.e. nothing personal if I offend you -- I just feel I MUST say that
>which follows.)
 
>Just like a person who was under the influence of hard drugs for years,
>suddenly deciding they've seen THE WAY?  No one asks them (I know -- I've
>been there) to explain how they know it is real and whether they really
>understand what they have committed themselves to etc.....  

Emotionalism plays a part in many conversions.  People get convicted of
sin, make a tearful repentance, and resolve to follow Jesus.  Two days
later they're back to their old, sinful ways.  

To counteract this phenomenon, many Christians feel that it is *very*
important to share with new believers the cost of what it means to
be a Christian.  Jesus said that the way to eternal life is narrow,
and that it involves taking up a cross every day and following Him.
*That's* what people commit themselves to when they choose to call
Jesus their Lord and Savior.  There *are* people who undergo 
dramatic conversions.  But once they believe, those people are 
neither more nor less likely to continue to follow Jesus than
someone who repented of his or her wanton ways and life of degradation 
at age 5.  Every day offers a hundred choices.  And a lot of the choices 
are hard.  I try to communicate that to people who have just made a 
commitment of faith because I want people to understand that, although 
the rewards are great, the cost is nothing less than everything you
have.  I know a lot of other people who try to communicate that 
too.  I'm sorry if your experience has been different.

>IMHO this
>attitude is a natural result of the pseudo-Christian desire to hide from
>the secular world.  [I AM THE WAY; ergo every other way is not of me,
>and hence evil.]  If everything secular is evil, then EVERYONE who is 
>troubled who seeks the Christian Way is automatically in the right, 
>regardless of their motives (or inability to have rational motives);

I live in the world.  I don't hide from it.  And I find a lot of
value in the world that I live in.  But I try not to adopt the values
and underlying assumptions of the world that I live in.  Some of the
things that I fight against are the ideas that may self-worth comes
from what I look like, how much money I make, what I do for a living,
where I live, and how much power I can wield.  

I think you'd actually find very few people here who believe that
everything secular is evil.  God made the world, and I think he
did a pretty good job.  I find all manner of "secular" things 
in my world that bless me tremendously - people, music, books, art, 
mountains, oceans, computers, basketball hoops, disposable diapers,
Woody Allen movies, microwave ovens, and on and on.  Within the
context of that sometimes blessed, sometimes cursed world, though,
Jesus makes a radical claim.  He claims to be the way, the truth,
and the life, and, even more than that, he claims that no one
can experience these things apart from Him.  You either believe
that or you don't.  Jesus doesn't claim that everything apart
from him is evil.  He does claim that it is impossible to come
to know God the Father apart from Him.  

You seem to be confused about the nature of the "rightness" that
Christians can experience.  Christians cannot save themselves,
and in that sense it's appropriate to say that when a person
repents and trusts in Jesus as Lord and Savior, then that 
person is "in the right" with God.   But that doesn't mean that
all future behavior is automatically considered to be "right."
The first kind of "right" has to do with legal standing -
Christians are declared to be guilty, but forgiven anyway.
The prison sentence is cancelled.  The second kind of "right" has
to do with day-to-day living, and Christians are expected to
obey God and love his commandments.  

That's why this whole controversy with Mike Warnke is important.
Christians *cannot* do whatever they want to do, regardless of
their actions or their motives.  One of the things that Christians
cannot do is lie, and when Christians do this, it damages their
witness and brings the gospel into disrepute.  When Christians
lie, and particularly when Christian leaders base their entire
ministry on a lie, non-Christians look at the evidence and call
the Christians hypocrites.  And they're absolutely justified in 
doing so.  And that's why the idea that Christians are "automatically 
in the right" needs to be refuted.  Of course they're not automatically 
in the right.  Christians blow it all the time.  Repentance doesn't
stop once a person has made a confession of faith.  And from what
I've read in this particular situation, I hope it doesn't stop in
Mike Warnke's case either.  Fortunately, forgiveness doesn't
stop either.

>and naturally they NEED to be brought into MY FLOCK in their righteous
>fligt from evil.

Nope, at least not if you mean "my flock" to be "my church" or "my
denomination."  I really haven't seen much of that expressed in
this newsgroup.  But if you're interpreting "my flock" in the
more general sense of "the Christian Church," then yep, that's
what Christians believe.  Christianity has this annoying habit
of being exclusionary.  I don't mind telling you that that kept
me away from Christianity for a long time.  Jesus himself said
that his exclusive claims to the truth would be a stumbling block
for many.  Here's hoping that you hurdle rather than stumble
over the block.

>HE is the way; kindly refrain from sharing your way to HIM; I'll happily
>find one that is right for me and my troubles.

Thanks for your views, Mark.

>Respectfully yours,

Likewise.

>Mark McKinzie          	|    We just won't eat on Sunday
>mckinzie@math.wisc.edu 	|    Got to buy him a limousine
>UW Dept. of Mathematics	|    Somewhere to live, somewhere to pray. 
>Madison, WI 53706      	|               -RJD, "TV Crimes"-

Andy Whitman
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio
att!cblpn!ajw  or
ajw@cblpn.att.com