Your mom is about my age. Religious teaching was not a part of my public school education either.Originally Posted by AKDoug
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Your mom is about my age. Religious teaching was not a part of my public school education either.
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It seems we mostly agree, but I'm gonna re-emphasize that most folks, but not all, need a strong belief system, including a group of like-minded others, to have a solid & effective set of values, morals, & ethics. A lot of believers who are in a group of fellow believers fail, and a greater number will fail without the belief & group support. It's human nature and not limited to religion. Like struggling with addiction, an addict will either kick the habit or not, but the majority will have a greater chance of success in a support group of fellow addicts trying to kick the habit.
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I'm all in favor of people getting whatever emotional support they need from whatever source is best suited to them in order to maintain an effective set of values, morals, and ethics. Certainly some people struggle with that more than others.
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I went to elementary school in a small Kansas community. We said the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord's Prayer each morning.
Every Friday we had either fish, mac and cheese and peanut butter sandwiches, or something else that was non-offensive to the Catholics. Which was surprising, because I think all the Catholic kids attended Parochial School.
This would have been in the 1960 to 1967 time frame.
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President... - Theodore Roosevelt, Lincoln and Free Speech, Metropolitan Magazine, Volume 47, Number 6, May 1918.
Every Communist must grasp the truth. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party Mao Zedong, 6 November, 1938 - speech to the Communist Patry of China's sixth Central Committee
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Tom: This is the scripture that we discussed in Sunday School this morning, it was a great discussion with everyone involved:
Matthew 13:24-30 - The Parable of the Weeds
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”
As I see it, in this parable God is the farmer, the wheat and the weeds are God's children, and the enemy is Satan.
Our general interpretation was that God is the winnower, not man. So we shouldn't hold ourselves separate from anyone.
It is germane for me to mention that I attend a Mennonite Church and that many of my Sunday School classmates are folks who left the Amish Church, chief among those reasons was the Amish practice of shunning. This is one of the reasons the discussion was so spirited.
The question was asked, in the context of the verse 'Can a weed become wheat?' 'Yes it can, God can do all things, it is his will not ours.'
The important thing it seems in these matters is to 'Let go and let God.' That doesn't mean the cake maker was wrong in refusing to make a cake celebrating a gay wedding. Quite the contrary. He told them that he thought they were in sin and explained that he would help them in any other way. He didn't say 'Your gay, go away.'
Sometimes we forget that the Bible is the story of God's Love for the people he created in his image. He wants us to be in fellowship with him, he wants to bring us all home to him, but he gave us freewill, it is our choice.
We need to let God be the judge.
Last edited by 26 Inf; 06-10-18 at 14:52.
Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President... - Theodore Roosevelt, Lincoln and Free Speech, Metropolitan Magazine, Volume 47, Number 6, May 1918.
Every Communist must grasp the truth. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party Mao Zedong, 6 November, 1938 - speech to the Communist Patry of China's sixth Central Committee
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One of my earliest memories of grade school was saying the pledge of allegiance in kindergarten every morning. And I always liked the fish sticks on Fridays.
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The reason that ‘God’ is important is that it gives an objectivity and universality to laws and mores of a society. Rights (endowed by the creator) can’t be taken away by man. With out the objective and true standard, you can have all kinds of shenanigans with rights- just look at the left and their assault and redefinition of what our ‘rights’ are.
Before something like the concept of objective reality you had the concept of God. They kind of fill the same role- and that is why the left attacks objectivity and even the concept of reality all together- just as they attack the concept of God. They want to paint God as irrational. Problem is, God can’t be irrational. He has to be right, otherwise he isn’t God, and if he were wrong, he’d just make himself right. (Heck, even Q can do that trick on STNG.). (You can kind of understand why even the unified executive theory and Trump’s latest rants on obstruction, indictments and pardons drives the left nuts.)
You get rid of religion, you get rid of god, and ideas like inalienable and natural law get thrown out for some Hobbesian relative and transactional value system. No wonder they like the concept of pick your gender and agrievement group.
The Second Amendment ACKNOWLEDGES our right to own and bear arms that are in common use that can be used for lawful purposes. The arms can be restricted ONLY if subject to historical analogue from the founding era or is dangerous (unsafe) AND unusual.
It's that simple.
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Putting aside for a moment the concept of free-will for the sake of this discussion (I don't think the concept of free-will is even remotely biblical). And also putting aside the stunning revelation that you attend an Anabaptist (Mennonite) church which from my up close and personal dealings with is "non-violent" to the point that the Mennonites I knew would never think of using any violence to defend their lives. So, I find it fascinating, that you are a member of a forum that promotes firearms, self defense and justified violence. I would love to hear how you work all this out.
To the rest of your post, I would say that we need to take the whole counsel of God as our guide. Yes, there will be wheat and tares (weeds) within the church, and since we aren't God, seeing the heart, really can't ultimately tell who's who. I agree that we aren't to go about willy nilly plucking out what we consider to be weeds (unbelievers) and casting them out. I do believe in the biblical doctrine of progressive sanctification, that every believer is truly at different points of sanctification progressing toward being conformed to the image of Christ. I also believe in the doctrine of church discipline wherein those in the congregation who are caught up in some gross, possibly scandalous sin are to be lovingly brought to repentance. Matt 18 is instructive concerning this. Like I said before, excommunication is of the last resort in bringing a brother or sister back to their senses concerning the commandments of God. Just so you know in our Presbyterian church, those that are excommunicated are still allowed to attend worship, to worship God and to hear the preaching. We would not shun them completely like some cults would, but we would not have familiar fellowship with them until they repent.
As for judging, I would say that the teaching is not to judge hypocritically. We are called to judge righteously. As an example we are to be aware of and reject false teachers, we are to judge between right doctrine and false doctrine. we are not to partake in the sins of others, I could go on. We make judgments everyday about all sorts of things including, sometimes, who we are going to associate with.
As for our church, anyone is welcome to come and join us for worship, no one is turned away as long as they behave themselves. My pastor has made himself available to many people as time allows. I'm willing to talk to anyone about the gospel and theology (except when my sinful fear of men overtakes me), I generally love to talk about theology, truly.
And lastly, the problem with the whole gay Christian concept is that it says that being gay or thinking gay or having same sex attraction is not sinful...it is and every iteration of the church has always said as much for millennia. It is only recently that this concept has gain traction through the teachings of false teachers. If a gay person decided to come to our church we would lovingly instruct him in the proper expression of godly sexuality. Just like when I started to believe and among the many godly things I was taught, was godly sexuality...I was quite the fornicator among my many sins. I am thoroughly convinced that there is an ongoing attempt to destroy the church in every age through the introduction of false doctrine and false practice. The gay Christian doctrine is just the latest in that attempt. Look at what has happen to any number of denominations...PCUSA, some iterations of the Mennonites, Episcopalian, Romanism, United Church of Christ and and it's starting to attack the PCA and SBC. Some of these denoms are borderline sex cults now. I didn't say, somebody else did, "your gay, go away". I pointed out that that wasn't the issue.
As for God's love for people, it's not as simple as God loves everyone. Read Psalms 5 and 11, Roman 9. My view is that, in that people are made in God's image and they are His creatures He loves them, in that they are enemies of Christ, He hates them. Also read Psalm 139, especially the last half.
I could say more but I'll leave it at that for now.
Last edited by TomMcC; 06-10-18 at 16:13.
Senior Member
Oh, right. I forgot where Jesus specified that a gay person couldn't accept him as their Lord and Savior. My bad.
Your fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible bears a striking resemblance to the way Wahhabi imams interpret the Koran.
Mark 7 ring a bell? That whole "don't judge others or you too will be judged"? If you're going to harp on scripture don't cherry pick.
Senior Member
Again you misunderstand. Any sinner can come to Jesus if they are willing. BUT that sinner must repent if he or she truly comes. Homosexuality is condemned by God in every place it is discussed in the scriptures as sin, a violation of God's law and is worthy of His judgement. The problem with the gay Christian concept is that it says that gay thinking, gay practice, or same sex attraction isn't sin. There is a solution for that sin, being reborn by the Spirit to believe in and obey Christ. As for Mark 7, I've modified my post now. I went and read it and I don't see anything about judging there, many other things, but not that specifically. So how are you relating Mark 7 to my "fundamentalism"?
Ultimately, every scripture that speaks of homosexuality condemns it as sin. The gay Christian concept identifies it as good. They are grievously wrong.
Your comparing me to some horrible iman is just abuse and slander.
By the way, did you read my post to 26 Inf?
Last edited by TomMcC; 06-10-18 at 18:07.
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