Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Lesbian/Gay PRIDE day, suggestions... Message-ID: Date: 23 Jun 91 04:23:01 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 46 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article kilroy@gboro.glassboro.edu (Dr Nancy's Sweetie) writes: > And this brings to mind an important question: why should Christian wish to > interfere in what non-Christians do? If non-Christians do things which you > consider sinful, but which do not involve any unwilling (or incompetent) > individuals, what is your place to speak? I guess it depends what you mean by "interfere". "Interfere" is not the same as "speak". I do think it would be entirely wrong if christians never say anything about sin to sinners, but I don't think we should "interfere" (which to me means doing something like wading into the parade in question with billy clubs or something like that). Consider perhaps Ezekiel 3:18-19: "When I [God] say unto the wicked, 'Thou shalt surely die'; and thou [Ezekiel] givest him not warning, nor speaketh to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, to save his life; he shall die in his iniquity; but thou has delivered thy soul." Things to note here is that we should tell the sinner about their sin so they will consider God's offer to save their life. We don't do it because we're a bunch of mean bastards who want to make the person feel miserable. There's also a new-testament passage that touches on this, by saying something along the lines of "How will a sinner repent if no one tells them what the real score is?" (okay, so that's a loose paraphrase, it's pretty late at night here...). Also, this particular passage is only interested in making sure the sinner is *told* of his or her sin. It isn't a call to beat the sinner until they hide their sin from us, or to get into shouting matches with them so we can go home smug about the fact that our side yelled louder than "the other" side. The objective is to give them information. For the original poster who was interested in suggestions, I'd suggest that any reaction to the parade would keep that objective in mind. Perhaps this passage does not directly apply to us, seeing it was a conversation between God and Ezekiel. I can't think of any passage where God tells someone to go into the world, and *not* tell anyone else about sin, and *not* care if other people have at least heard what God has taken the time to tell us. - - - - - - - - Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu