Posted on 03/27/2007 10:09:04 AM PDT by NYer
While it would be one thing to invite an unmarried relative and her live-in boyfriend to stay overnight at one's home or to stay in their home as their guest, it is another thing to invite them to a family gathering, such as a picnic. After all, it is very common for a young persons to bring dates to family gatherings. I don't think that permitting someone's live-in boyfriend to accompany her to such a gathering constitutes approval of their union. On the other hand, making a big issue out of the whole thing by disinviting the boyfriend does not seem prudent.
There, fixed that.
So if open sodomy and fornication are not cause for shunning, where is the line drawn today among open minded Christians?
Sex on the living room floor in front of everybody? Offering everyone an after-dinner sharing of the bong? Having a sexual relation with your sibling? Abandonment of family to take up a life of pole-dancing and cocaine flings? Making a living as a hitman? Practicing "medicine" as an abortionist? Keeping workers at your business penned in like slaves? Beating your children and wife?
Surely there must be somethings which are still beyond the pale, and not an "opportunity to witness".
So if open sodomy and fornication are not cause for shunning, where is the line drawn today among open minded Christians?
Sex on the living room floor in front of everybody? Offering everyone an after-dinner sharing of the bong? Having a sexual relation with your sibling? Abandonment of family to take up a life of pole-dancing and cocaine flings? Making a living as a hitman? Practicing "medicine" as an abortionist? Keeping workers at your business penned in like slaves? Beating your children and wife?
Surely there must be somethings which are still beyond the pale, and not an "opportunity to witness".
So if open sodomy and fornication are not cause for shunning, where is the line drawn today among open minded Christians?
Sex on the living room floor in front of everybody? Offering everyone an after-dinner sharing of the bong? Having a sexual relation with your sibling? Abandonment of family to take up a life of pole-dancing and cocaine flings? Making a living as a hitman? Practicing "medicine" as an abortionist? Keeping workers at your business penned in like slaves? Beating your children and wife?
Surely there must be somethings which are still beyond the pale, and not an "opportunity to witness".
So many people do not understand the Gospel about judgement.
Christ did not say "don't judge". He said, if you judge, be prepared to be judged by the same standard you are using; and that before you judge, first clean-up your own life (St. Matthew 7.1-5). He also said "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge just judgment." (St. John 7.24)
Christ's message is to live justly and judge justly, so that you can discriminate between right and wrong and thus be a light of right behavior to the world. Too many people are eager to judge others, but are not just with themselves. They condemn the sodomite, but wallow in fornication and adultery.
But if we did not judge, we could never apply this advice: "By their fruits you shall know them." (St. Matthew 7.16)
What you say makes sense to me.
But that isn't what was said, was it?
The message was not "Begone, you sinners." It was "You are welcome to come over, but we refuse to recognize your trial marraige to your lover, therefore they are not welcome to join us until they move out of your house, because we refuse to pretend that you are a normal couple entitled to the respect a normal couple deserves."
It is the same message that should be given to divorced people. As individuals, it is fine to have them over. But it is wrong to pretend they are married and invite them as a couple, when they are really adulterers living in sin. All that recognizing divorcee-adulterers and people living in concubinage, and sodomites living together as legitimate relationships does is harden these people in their sin by deluding them into thinking they have done something socially acceptable, and not just acceptable, but praiseworthy and good.
Did Christ have any association with sinners?
Short answer, no.
Long answer, yes, with two conditions - (1) the woman have her marriage annulled, if possible, so that she is actually qualified to be married, (2) the couple promise to raise their children as Catholics.
Exactly - a faily event - now open your eyes - you are pretending they are a family when they are not. Its like inviting a parapalgeic to play tackle football - its something they are not suited for, and it will only get them hurt worse in the end, no matter how much earnest desire and good will they have to be included.
Because it makes everyone pretend that serious social sins are really nothing, and spreads the acceptance of these sins.
Once divorced and remarried people are socially acceptable, for example, its not such a big deal to get divorced and remarried yourself.
Not intolerance, but intolerance of sin.
This isn't a matter of condemning someone for a singular act, but refusing to accept a habitual sin someone has no intention of repenting or changing from.
But no one said exclude sinners!
They said do not dignify social sin (that is a sin committed habitually by two people) with social acceptance.
Would you do the accounting for an abortion clinic? How about the tax accounting for a live-in or homosexual couple? Aren't both just as a bad of sins for yourself - to be an accomplice to the habitual mortal sins of others?
Don't commit liberal-speak! She is a human being, not a "gay" (that's an adjective). She happens to also be a human who commits a habitual mortal sin - oral sodomy. But that doesn't not make her anything but human.
There is no such thing as gay, straight, homosexual, or heterosexual. There are humans who are inclined to various temptations (kleptomania, nymphomania, for example), and there are humans who commit sins by giving in to those temptations.
What is the point of your question?
Everyone has associations with sinners, because all have sinned. Some however, choose to turn a blind eye to sin and ignore the fact that their brothers and sisters are rushing headlong towards eternal death in hell, others desire its correction in them.
Yes, precisely. It lends credence to their lifestyle.
"Because it makes everyone pretend that serious social sins are really nothing, and spreads the acceptance of these sins.
Yes, precisely. It lends credence to their lifestyle."
Right, whatever. It's great to be so judgmental, be sure to mention that in your next confessions.
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