In Reply to: Re: Christology... posted by Unbeliever on November 12, 2002 at 20:54:18:
You're right. That verse cuts right to the heart of the issue.
However, since we are talking about what Berg espoused with his mouth (tho his heart may not have followed) there is a difference between "splitting hairs" and thinking deep, which I believe Ray is attempting to do. It's very likely that long after Berg had totally backslidden from a person example of a Christian, he still had a lot of residual teaching from his upbringing and earlier years.
I don't entirely agree with Ray's assessment that Berg was merely throwing out ideas. Some of his heresies were repeated throughout the years, so they weren't done for shock value alone. It was like the same out tune he kept playing. However, I do respect that Ray's obviously done a lot of thinking on these issues.
I think Berg was capable of talking the talk and knew Christian-ese lingo, but his heart was far from God. The Family knows what orthodox teaching is and tries to word their PR statements as closely as possible to reflect orthodox teaching, even though they know they believe otherwise. Berg of course knew all these things as well. If ever he wanted to sound orthodox, he could. But more often he chose to simply speak bluntly what he was thinking. The result were his many very deviant doctrines.