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To: Talisker
I agree with you to some extent, but on the other extreme, the "Love Affair with Jesus" teaching is also partly responsible for a watered down message that has allowed liberals to co-opt traditionally conservative churches. As a church member, it is easier to vote new by-laws to change scripture's meaning and excuse your sin than it is accept your hypocrisy and deal with sin. "For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." (2nd Timothy 4:3, NIV) That is how the liberals co-opted many of the established protestant churches.

You can rebuke with love, in fact, correction is love; to allow someone to be held unaccountable offers them no reason to need God, that is a tenant of humanism. We cannot just un-write the passages that described Jesus' righteous anger at the temple, nor the assertive manner in which it was displayed. And yet, there was love in that action, his love for his people that the money changers and sacrificial animal dealers preyed upon, and the love for His Father in his despair at how they soiled His temple.

And we don't have to turn ourselves inside out with guilt to those who have been offered God's love, but refuse it. Christ told us to stay in the places that are worthy and give them peace, but to those who don't welcome you or listen, leave and shake the dust off your feet. there is no need for this angst that Christians heap upon themselves because chastised liberals co-opt scripture and say what bad Christians we are because we are judgmental and don't model Christ's love when we offer His message of salvation, but also His requirement of confession and repentance.

83 posted on 07/27/2016 10:50:41 PM PDT by cport (How can political capital be spent on a bunch of ingrates)
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To: cport

For the most part I agree with you, but I’m specifically not watering down the teachings here. For example, everyone knows Special Forces go through grueling training, with a lot of harshness. What’s not so known is that after the training starts the really nasty stuff is taught with a kind of gentleness and sensitivity - precisely because of how severe it is. Likewise it should be with the hard truths of Christianity, IMO. The Left sabotaged the teachings by watering them down and calling it love, instead of teaching that the hard stuff should be taught with love - totally different thing. The former creates cowardice, the latter creates courage.


84 posted on 07/27/2016 11:03:26 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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