I’ve avoided any labels personally, and I’d never claim to be Emergent, but this “new mindset” really boils down to people deciding that simply accepting what their culture has told them to believe isn’t good enough.

The so-called “former traditional christian beliefs” were already a watered down version of bible interpretation. They were watered down with decades and centuries of cultural interpretations and assumptions that became accepted without question.

Many people involved in Emergent or “post-modern” movements in Christian communities have been engaged in setting aside ALL expectations and assumptions before coming to scripture, before coming before God and have engaged in trying to understand the Message again even if it doesn’t exactly match what our christian culture has declared it to be.

2nd Timothy 4:3 speaks of a time or times when people will gather teachers that what they want to hear and will wander off into myths.
I don’t believe that is happening because I believe it already happened some time ago. “Traditional Christian Beliefs” have tickled the ears of those in pews for a very long time and allowed them to feel better about themselves while they watched or even committed injustices all around them. Christians have become known for being intolerant, bigotted and self-righteous which is precisely the opposite of how Christ described Christians would be known. By their love.
If you dare to challenge them regarding this issue, many Christian communities will actually revel in their condition and claim that “the world” hates them because of their righteousness when the reality is the world hates them because they are behaving without love, they are behaving like arrogant jerks.

a nice piece of controversy here. I enjoy the wrestle, you should come hang out in the SK for a bit, we love the mentalwrestle..

I was raised in a very open home. My parents always taught me to be accepting of everybody no matter what. My personal religious beliefs were non-existant, as in I was an Athiest. I fell into the church rather unexpectantly. But the one thing I always struggled with was the church’s position on Homosexuality.

Despite the love I found for Jesus, I’ve found I can’t agree on everything that is written in the Good Book. I’ve never believed that Homosexuality is a trespass against God, simply based on the fact that it’s love. Love is the greatest gift that God has given us, no matter who we share this beautiful thing with, it was given to us by God.

I understand why it will take the church a long time to accept this. The church has been staunch about one man and one woman for the last approx. 2 Millenia, and the Jewish faith even longer before that.

It will take time, but eventually, it will happen.

That’s just it brother. We must learn that it is possible to disagree well. We all know the shitty witness we can be when we argue and bicker and exclude people over silly arguments. I think if we can learn to disagree well with each other at times then that can be a witness to a world that is watching.

Sorry to hear you have enemies within the Church bro, that’s a sad reflection of where we’re at.

I hope you don’t mind if I offer my two cents on one issue you raise:

“People who sin, people who intentionally sin and people who refuse to repent at all for things that you think are sin can still be attempting to follow Jesus.”

I wanted to focus on this comment specifically, especially the third part of it. I’m not sure how such a practice could be consistent with Jesus’ own teaching about church discipline, where refusal of repentance is precisely the grounds given for the church to treat the offender like “a Gentile and a tax collector”, or as Paul puts it, to “let him who has done this be removed from among you” and delivered “to Satan for the destruction of the flesh”.

I have a feeling, too, that there are some issues you would obviously not apply your general rule of acceptance to. I’m sure I could come up with examples, but I don’t think that’s necessary.

I think the fact is, if we are attempting to live as a Christian community, it cannot be absolutely “anything goes”, or else there is no sense calling it a “Christian” community. Indeed, I wonder if there even could be a “community” where absolutely any behaviour was permissible.

Someone else also commented on this section to me in person.

I am not trying to come off as encouraging non repentance, or sinning as if it’s a good thing.
However, I do think a Christian community has to make room for people who “sin” intentionally and unintentionally. More specifically and especially when there is a debate around the very sin that they are committing as to whether it’s even a sin or not. For instance, many Pentecostals I know believe that it is a sin to drink alcohol. I am ok with them having this viewpoint but only if they allow others to be in their community with them that drink. A level of tolerance I am maybe suggesting?

The verse you mentioned about the Gentile and the Tax Collector, I always wondered if Jesus was being facetious, since well aren’t we commanded to love and accept the tax collector and Gentile, and isn’t that who Jesus spent his time loving? I think I would side with Robert Capon on this story and suggest that Jesus was actually hinting to give people chance after chance 77×7 chances, not tossing them out after approaching them a few times.

I realize there has to be a standard or a line somewhere, but I wonder if the line is drawn at someone’s heart and not their feeble attempts at trying to have a good theology or stay righteous. However, I do think you raise some valid points, that I admit, I have not made much room for in my longing to be all accepting. I’ve had this argument many times with trying to keep people on leadership teams because their heart is there, even though their actions don’t always line up. I’m not sure what to do a lot of the times, but it sucks to “cast someone out.” How do we cast someone out lovingly and gracefully, and sometimes I wonder if Jesus would actually do it.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I’d like to add two more comments if I could…

Firstly, about Jesus, I have heard the “facetious” interpretation before, but I tend to think Jesus was saying “treat them as the common Jew treats tax-collectors and Gentiles”. A parallel example of this would be what Jesus tells his disciples to do with towns that refuse to heed his call to repentance:
“And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.” (Matt 10:11-15). Jesus does seem to be willing, at some point, to “write off” those who continually refuse to repent.

There is one qualification, though, and you implicitly bring it up in the 7×70 story. In a parallel in Luke he says “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent’, you must forgive him.” (Luke 17:3-4). The condition for forgiveness is repentance, always, but Jesus expects that as Christians we will always be ready to forgive those who do repent. I think this might be a good model to continue today…

Secondly, I wonder a bit what you mean when you suggest we should draw the line at someone’s heart and not their attempts to act. On the face of it, it seems impossible to practice, since the person’s heart is exactly what we can never judge (we don’t have access to it). But I don’t think that’s what you meant, since you seem to be talking about judging their heart to the degree it is revealed by their actions. So I think what you’re saying is considering what the person’s overall intent is, rather than excluding them simply because they screw up in particular circumstances. I think that’s a pretty healthy perspective (Paul seems to distinguish believers from unbelievers in Romans based on whether sin or righteousness “has dominion” in their lives), but it also seems functionally equivalent to judging people based on whether they are intending to get better or intentionally not repenting of their behaviour (basically, refusing to admit they are wrong at all).

I bring all this up to say: I don’t think it is fair to criticize the “conservatives” on the homosexuality issue for setting up standards of community behaviour, and picking unrepentant homosexual activity within the committed community (not those who are visitors or are completely outside the community, since as Paul says we’re not in the business of judging those in the outside world) as something beyond toleration. I don’t think it is fair because they are attempting to do what every community must do to remain a community (set standards of behaviour), and they are acting according to their conscience when they claim that God has ruled certain sexual behaviour out of bounds. It is one thing to criticize them for considering homosexuality a sin, but it’s another to criticize them for acting in accordance with that belief. For those communities, it would be a violation of their integrity to act otherwise.

But, as all fair debate partners should, I admit I could be wrong