Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: johnw@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu (John Warren) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: I AM DISGUSTED! Message-ID: Date: 14 May 91 07:40:23 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Space Science Labs Lines: 53 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu [In response to a posting by Michael Bushnell, Paul Hudson discussed the practice of shunning: >The concept of shunning is a Biblical one. >In I Corinthians chapter 5, Paul discusses how the church whould deal >with a man who was having an incestuous relationship with his >stepmother or possibly his mother.... >Why should we do this [shunning, that is]. Well in my opinion, by >associating ourselves >with [immoral] people, we say to the world "this is what it means to be a >Christian." Thus we blaspheme the name of God and the name of Christ >with our witness. We can associate with sinners who are not >Christians. By removing the "leaven" from the church, we give the >non-Christians an example of how to live when they come into the >church. --clh] Where is faith? Paul said, in Romans 1 or 2, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the dynamite of God unto salvation." (The greek word for 'power' was dunamis, from which we get 'dynamite'.) It takes more faith to believe that anyone, even those who disagree with relatively peripheral parts of Biblical morality (e.g., regarding homosexuality), can be saved (i.e., made whole, more and more pleasing to God; an ongoing process, in this life; not just going to heaven when we die). Our duty? To preach Christ, and him crucified. Yes. To show how faithful God has been throughout human history, so that our faith may be strengthened. Yes. To be policemen for Jesus? No. I don't know why Paul told the Corinthians to 'deliver that man to Satan'. At best it was a tragic choice that Paul had to make, and only under extreme circumstances. And I think that sometimes such a tragic choice must be made. I don't consider the presence of an 'unrepentant' practicing homosexual in the church that extreme. "But what kind of witness is that?" The witness that says that we are all sinners saved by grace through faith. I'm not that afraid that non-Christians will get the wrong example of how to live when they look at a church full of sinners, even ones who disagree with nonessential parts of the Bible. I AM afraid of the witness that says we as Christians have to hold each other to a moral code of external behavior. "Do this, don't do that; then you're a Christian." Can't we trust God to change us by putting His life in us for our faith actions? > >Thank you. >Link Hudson John Warren ----------- "She never said nothing, there was nothing she wrote. She gone with the man in the long black coat." -- Dylan