(James 5:13-20)
Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest.
My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
No, that’s true: you didn’t explicitly call a retreat, or ask for explicit “Gospel-lite”... but you *did* say that those who called the author out for his “gay-friendly”, selfishness-laden article were running afoul of the Letter of St. James, and you *did* assume that the FReepers who were calling out the obvious selfishness-laden and politically-liberal-laden article had no interest in “calling back these sinners”... and I don’t see how you could assume that reasonably. I read and re-read their posts, and they said nothing except criticisms of the ARGUMENT and the (rather obvious) ATTITUDE and WORLDVIEW BEHIND the argument. One commenter said that such people were heading for hell, unless they repent (and what reasonable person could argue with that?).
Being admonished will NOT feel good to these people (or to anyone else); we can’t simply see someone get his nose out of joint (or imagine it) and somehow “induce” that the original commenter was being unkind, uncivil, unloving, in violation of James, etc. That’s why some other FReepers (and I, frankly) were starting to wonder whether you were confusing “love, gentleness, and kindless” (which are Godly and Biblical) with “being nice” (which is not).
You obviously mean well, FReind... and I agree with a good deal of what you say. But your suggestions that the other FReepers (to whom you responded earlier, re: James) were somehow in the wrong (or doing things improperly, or violating charity, kindness, etc.) were simply off-target, I think.