In Reply to: i would agree.. posted by ray on July 12, 2004 at 10:41:16:
You are right. If I had taken more time to word things more carefully, this is closer to what I intended to say.
When we join a faith community (a church or covenant fellowship of some sort), we give that faith community a degree of spiritual authority over us. TF is a "high demand" faith community insasmuch as membership implies a nearly complete submission to external spiritual authority. I believe this is a major error in TFs belief system that has lead to the abuse of children, the sexual coersion and rape of members, suicides, the criminal defrauding of donors & members, and just about every other evil TF has perpetrated.
Spiritual authority is given by the individual believer to the community and its leaders (pastors, prophets, priests, whatever). Spiritual authority over another human being is not a God-given right, anointing, or gift of some sort that another person receives independent of my consent.
The Roman Pope has no spiritual authority over me because I do not choose to give it to him. He may claim he has been divinely appointed as the earthly head of the body of Christ; to that I can only say this: I cannot in good faith make my covenant with God in your fellowship. I would say exactly the same thing to David Brandt Berg and Karen Zerby: You may claim all the God-given authority you want as THE chosen Endtime Prophets, but I grant your claims no authority whatsoever over my walk with God.
The objective rightness or wrongness of the Catholic Christian covenant with God is not mine to judge beyond I know to be right or wrong for me as an individual believer. I would never claim that the Pope is The Antichrist, as some people do. I would only say that for me, presonally, it would be an act of antichrist to submit to the Pope's spiritual authority.
The objective rightness or wrongness of TFs Christian covenant also is not mine to judge beyond whatever human laws they violate. It is wrong to teach that God condones sex with children because the majority of civilized humans have passed laws that prohibit this behavior. Whether it is ultimately, objectively wrong according to God's laws--all I can say is this: I see no point in arguing about it with someone who does not submit to the authority of God's laws as I understand them.
I am saying the same thing about judgments on homosexual love. In some Christians' covenant relationship with God--in their understanding of scriptural authority, moral law, and the traditions of their particular faith community--homosexual love is clearly wrong and sinful. I do not belong to such a faith community and choose not to submit to the authority some believers have given their particular understanding of scripture and interpretation of Christian tradition.
Therefore, for such Christians to judge my walk with God as "sinful" is to arrogate an authority over my conscience that only I can grant them. If such people choose to believe their interpretation of scripture grants them an objective authority on which to judge the adequacy of my walk with God, I say, You are free to believe whatever you wish as long as you don't infringe on my right to walk with God according to my conscience.
And to those people I also say this: We live in a country where the laws of the various faith communities and religious traditions are kept separate from the laws of the state. This is a principle for which I am willing to fight, because when I loose the most basic rights of self-determination, I have lost the freedom to choose whom I will love and how I will love them. To the extent I am capable of unconditional love, such love can only come from an unconstrained freedom to choose.