I've missed out! WHEW!!!!
I read the 1st couple of pages of this thread, then started at the other end and read backwards. I've done that a few times on other longer heated threads.
So, I'm jumping in on this, uninvited.
We all know, to some degree, each other, especially after hanging around for a bit. I'm one of those guys that probably is too tolerant at times of things. That's a flaw I have. And, I'm 41 and probably not going to change on that now. BUT ...... I have a hard time buying into this idea that Scooter has pathological anything, and that even if he did, that the protocol for better living is through the mental health profession as against the faithful following of Christ. Tim, buddy, I try to engage you where you are, and I personally enjoy our own exchanges. Yet, there's a lot of merit to Scooter's challenge here to you. And, I accept that you deny Christ, and naturally you would deny the conclusions Scooter reaches. You've said that you've chosen only that which is good and praiseworthy and noble. But, you say you reject the core truth of the faith of the One who alone perfectly emobided those virtues and more -- that He died and rose again. Now, I don't condemn your choice. You and you alone will (or, if you're right and we're wrong, won't) account for it. As long as interaction happens here, though, you're coming from a perspective so out of phase with that of most people here that you're bound to feel these frequent disconnects as something more personal, something more direct and even sinister. I can't help that, and I don't if anyone can. And, to some extent, there is a sense of attack from you by some here. I don't think that is all that sinister although others seem to, and it may just be a function of the fact that you're not a believer. Don't know if anyone can help that, either. But, it is what it is --- a mismatch.
Now, IMO, mismatches are made in heaven, if you will. We can get all philosophical about it, and I enjoy that immensely, but you just get to a point where the rubber meets the road. You, my friend, have walked into a room of brighter and dimmer lights (I'm the dim one, in case you wonder
). And, I'd just suggest to you, flat out without apology, that you hate the light. But, you're not used to that. You are a deep thinker, a reader, a self-informed guy, someone who has done what most of us dream to do and that is be more learned in many things than we are. In your own mind, your own reality, there's a strong sense that "hey, this makes sense to me", and you've worked out a way to cope with it. And, so, you're enlightened. But, it is self-enlightenment. We don't really buy into that idea so much, that is, self-enlightenment. We believe that Jesus is the light, and that light shines in the darkness, and it is the light of men. It isn't just a doctrinal point or a proverb, but a reality to us much in the way that your working-out of things is a reality to you.
Here's the rubber-meets-the-road part: If you're right, and you are enlightened, what's the answer?? If WE who believe are right, and we are given God's light in Christ within us, what's the answer?? I can tell you what I understand it to be ---- the church. The answer is the church. The only body of people that exists in this reality, this world, this order of things, the only body of people who are actually equipped and shown how to live in the ways that you, in your fondest dreams, would hope could be for real, is the church. There's no other. We don't do it, but we're real just the same. And, the thing that gets me about this is that you are one of a handful of people who probably could help in a practical way to change the church in our own society from a group of self-centered protectors of truth against the world into a group of lovers of God who clear hurdles of humanity to dive into the greatest pool of hope that ever has been. Your own ability to scale through so much stuff, intellectually, is the work of a linguist, as I know you are. You could be a translator of the written word of Jesus' love plan into an actual lover of people as Jesus' plan demands. You could be just awesome at it.
But you have decided not to. And, there's no small amount of angst about that fact here. So, you know, keep coming at these people but you'll have to face up to the fact that responses like Scooter's to you are not going to go away. If it isn't here, you'll encounter it somewhere, eventually, because another fact is you can't get away from this no matter how hard you try. And, this isn't a plea to just stop and surrender. No, I won't patronize you that way. But, I will say simply and plainly as I know how that you are not going to find greater welcome for your working-out of things as a key to some entry into the community of those who follow Jesus. You'll find challenge. And, challenge gets kinda ugly. It isn't appetizing.
As for Dave C posting here ..... wow, that seems like a distant idea 10 pages later into this thread ..... I don't see the beef. Big whoop. I'm not a big devotional reader. He's done it for as long as I've been around. You'll notice that he gets views and no responses. You'll also notice, again, that Pastor Gary is the owner here and Dave C posting his devotionals on the general discussion forum is right because PG says so. And, them's the breaks.
Human government bears the same relation to hell as the church bears to heaven. (David Lipscomb, On Civil Government, 72).
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