the orthodox define the church by its fidelity to the whole Biblical message.My response:
Against a self-styled "orthodox" scorecard.
Couldn't disagree more.
I find the combative rhetoric and exceptionalist theology of the ACN and AAC reflective sometimes of pieces of scripture at times, but in contrast to my incomplete concept of "the whole Biblical message."
Jesus's message and an overarching theme in Scripture, to me, is:
Get over it (your rules, your tradition, your doctrines, your divisions and lines in the sand) and get on with it. Knock it off--turn yourself around, and love one another and love God.But I'm a liberal and a presumed theological and biblical illiterate. Sorry.
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Hi cp, read your attempts to converse with the folks at the blog you cited. There was just lots of sloganeering, name calling, and misrepresentations on their part. At least you tried to converse; they totally were uninterested.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that those folks did not attend convention speaks volumes to me. They cannot mix with the impure? I also was offended by the snarky comments to your observation that they were missed. They don't even want to try to get along.
At Bible study at Emmanuel today, we are tackling the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke. The focus of the story is not "Who is my neigbhor?" but rather, Jesus using the parable to say, "Who CANNOT be in my kingdom?" All of us would do well to attend to that message.
As an addendum to the above post, when Jesus asks the rhetorical question, who cannot be in God's kingdom, the answer is that the kingdom is all inclusive. Just wanted to clarify.
ReplyDeleteI have always found that when they say something like this: "the orthodox define the church by its fidelity to the whole Biblical message", that they really mean just certain parts that they like better. Especially parts that support their opinions and keep them comfortable. It's simply rhetorical bullshit.
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