Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: djdaneh@pacbell.com (Dan'l DanehyOakes) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: I am looking for a little help on my road Message-ID: Date: 12 Jun 91 02:47:45 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA Lines: 53 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article mroz@ug.cs.dal.ca (Martin Mroz) writes: > One fine day you are walking down one of the main streets in your city >and a ragged looking man comes up to me and says, "Hello, (here he uses you own name, for example:) Elliott, my name is Jesus Christ." > Would you believe this man? How would you know if it was or was not >Jesus Christ standing in front of you? "By their fruits shall ye know them." That's not much to go on, is it? The proper answer, I think, is to hold a state of non-judgement. Accept that you have a man here who may or may not be Jesus Christ. Listen to what he says. If he asks you for something that is not clearly evil or against what the Jesus We All Know And Love taught and commanded, do it for him: "as you have done for each of these little ones," etc.; if he isn't Jesus Christ and he isn't evil, he must be mad and deserving of your help. If he's evil, eventually he'll make an evil request of you and you can go from there. (Note: I'm making a assumption here, which is that anyone who consciously impersonates Jesus with intent to decieve is de facto evil. If you don't agree with this, we can discuss it offline.) The only problem, then, is discerning a madman who sincerely believes he's Jesus from the real thing. Presume he doesn't work any miracles. I'm not sure the distinction needs to be made. For our purposes, we're assuming that everything he's asking of you is in line with what Jesus Himself might ask of you. Well: Jesus was not "sane" in the wisdom of this world. Maintain the spirit of service, and do all things for the sake of _caritas_; the rest will follow. The problem becomes far more complex, of course, when you've got more than one. ("Two men say they're Jesus/one of 'em must be wrong/there's a protest singer singing a protest song.../...the other one's on hunger strike, he's dying by degrees/how come Jesus gets Industrial Disease?" -- Dire Straits) That is the situation in the real world as we know it today. We have several organizations claiming to speak with Jesus' voice, to be the Mystical Body of Christ. I find myself wondering if this is not the real source of your dilemma; are you trying to determine how to react to the particular Church that has spoken to you and called you to the ministry? If so, bubbie, you're on your own. I'm still struggling with the thousand Voices of God. He asks "How does it feel to be such a freak?" And he laughs as he hands you a bone, Yes, something is happening here And you don't know what it is Do you, Mr. Jones? -- Bob Dylan The Roach