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From: purtell@reed.UUCP (Lady Godiva)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Assumed evil in non-christians and assumed good in christians
Message-ID: <1740@reed.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 28-Jul-85 18:28:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: reed.1740
Posted: Sun Jul 28 18:28:56 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 02:38:58 EDT
References: <1707@reed.UUCP> <2153@pucc-h>
Reply-To: purtell@reed.UUCP (Lady Godiva)
Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Lines: 51

In article <2153@pucc-h> aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) writes:
>Somewhat wandering response to purtell@reed.UUCP (Lady Godiva):
>
>I'm not sure what to think of those who are loving and accepting people more
>or less by nature, i.e. without any explicit relationship to Christ, such
>as your musician friends, other than to say that loving and accepting can be
>a good deal of work, so if they do not have a reliable source of love and
>acceptance to refuel them, they may have a difficult time continuing in their
>ability to love and accept.  But on the other hand, "Everyone who loves has
>been born of God and knows God" [I John 4:7b].  Could it be that these
>musicians are indeed touched by the love of God without naming it?  As
>Frederick Buechner points out, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life,
>and no one comes to the Father but through Him -- not through believing a
>certain flavor of doctrines, nor through doing a bunch of good deeds, but
>through Christ -- and a Christian is just someone who has a dim, half-baked
>idea of whom to thank.  [Approximate quote from a book called (are you ready
>for this?) "Wishful Thinking" -- written by a Christian!  I'll have to read
>the whole thing someday soon.]  

    I cannot really comment on whether or not they all have a "reliable
source of love". Two whom I got very close to though seem to be very
different in this respect. One is very happily married and his wife is a
wonderful woman. Probably a good reliable source of love. The other
never has been married, and we talked about how unhappy he is and how
mixed-up he feels, yet they were equally warm and accepting of me. 
   Could it be that they are touched by the love of God without naming
it? I certainly think that God also uses people who aren't necessarily
believers. On the other hand, I've never heard that definition of
Christian that you give above. I'm not sure what I think of it.

>>   On a slightly different topic,... although these people are very happy
>> with their jobs, a lot of them don't seem to be happy people.
>
>>     elizabeth g. purtell (Lady Godiva)
>
>Hmmm....  Since you have stated in net.singles that you are an "aggressive"
>woman (in the sense of taking initiatives, e.g. with men), I wonder if you
>might actually have lived up to your nickname at some time!  :-)

    Uh, I'm not quite certain how to take this Jeff. (Yes - I did notice
the ":-)") I mean, what does it have to do with the quote from me that
you preceded it with? I didn't have to take initiatives with these
people for the most part (although there was one exception, and I was
very glad that I did take the initiative) since they were all pretty
friendly on their own.

   cheers -

   elizabeth g. purtell

   (Lady Godiva)