In Reply to: Re: Heresy? posted by CB on March 27, 2007 at 21:06:34:
CB...Having spent my childhood and adolescens in Berlin, I think I can safely say, that I was quite a pluralist...I didn't want to tell anybody how he/she should behave & live their life, as long as it didn't infringe much on the freedom of others & violated their basic rights.
That pluralism I also carried over into TF, who, by means of the law of love tried also to find/give a remedy for the specific needs of people.
I forgot the name of the letter...may be sodomy & it was @ the late seventies or early eighties, where we read that letter.It was so "bottlebreaking", rather panickcausing, that it took lots to remain calm later & find a way out.
I still remember the day (by the way, I whad witnessed/talked to various gays on the streets), when in the front of the Munic trainstation a young man (I think still older than me) asked me, whether he could "have some sort of advantage of me", that's the way I just put it & inside me there was raging a war of trying to show pity & being kind & "Christian"...after all I didn't want to be responsible for him not getting saved...that was my frame of mind in those days.
I think I kept hearing those words, when in doubt don't etc...anyway, I was evasive & said, I would have to think & pray about it & he could give me a ring.In those days we were a bit more tolerant in giving phonenumbers, but I really shrunk, when he called, the time appointed & with some hohumming, I said I had decided in declining his request.
It was an awful feeling & my mind & heart quite a battleground.The good thing was, that I did learn
in TF to pray (something I appreciated greatly coming from the Buddhistic way of thinking) & about that discomforting troubling situation I had
prayed desperately.
I mention that, cause I always wanted to be nice to people, not that they would think bad of me or Jesus.
I now realise more then ever before, that you can't please everybody & be everbody's darling & sometimes you p.ss on somebodys "love"-parade so to speak.I don't feel bad about it.I also don't have anymore this attitude: all is relative...it's up to you etc. etc. that's the cheap way out.
It's uncomfortable to confront things/people & Paul was at times "might" alone...without friends...but not without the Lord.That's what I see more & more, do I want to gain the approval of people & their fickle friendship or do I want to stay true to convictions, coming from the Word of God.
I like what Paul say in 1.Cor. 5 about the man who had the wife of his father as mate (companion?)...
Most commentaries I read so far, indicate, that it didn't happen to be his mother, but rather his stepmother...anyway...Paul said that he decided in prayer ,in mind to unitedly deliver such an one unto judgement...into the hands of Satan...to destroy the flesh, that his spirit might be saved.
That's quite a statement & I take that as an encouragement & hope, that that is what in the end many misguided ones do profit from.
You ask me about Jesus & why He didn't say more about this & that...I mean, He said plenty about the right way to live in a hetereosexual realationship & in marriage. Washing His precious feet with tears, wiping them with her hair & kissing His feet is incredibly "intimate"...for me the borderline though & the end of all other fancy fantasies...& it wasn't a disciple (male) who did it...a kiss as greeting, giving water/washing the feet, he would have also accepted from the Pharisee...Jesus didn't "complain"/remark about it, because He loved it so from men, rather, the Pharisee wasn't the nicest host possible/imagenible....further John 4...one of my favourite chapters....the woman at the well...quite desperately looking for love in relationships...John 8 the adulteress...isn't that quite a lot...telling his disciple John...this is your mother & to her this is your son...caring for one another...& because of the hardness of the heart Mose allowed the Isrealites to divorce...
forgiveness etc. is the far more better way.
Just because you won't find everything described in the NT (Gospels), it doesn't mean, that there isn't enough outlining to settle a more serious matter by the standard of the Word.
Finally, I wouldn't mingle politics & religion, but the Bible has enough to say about treating the poor the right way...plus nothing too good about the rich (it's easier for a"camel" (I heard, that's rather a thick rope?!).....than for a rich...) or James "tirade" against the rich...
Well, at times if prachers have a "dream"...they find themselves shot...I have a book about the
modern day persecution & martyrs (by the meaning of blood) & there happen to be quite a lot...especially in South America it used to be,
think of the liberation theology etc.
On the other hand, many preachers don't want to loose neither life nor a good payed job...that's where I am quite in disagreement anyway: the payed clergy...but I'll end here for now