T.V. Commercial: United Church of Christ

We should show the error of their ways, after we take a hard look at the log in our own eyes and remove it.

 

We should show the error of their ways, after we take a hard look at the log in our own eyes and remove it. </font>[/QUOTE]No doubt.

Ok, I watched the commercial...not fond of it, but I didn't see two men holding hands and shouldering up against each other in the larger picture of the UCC group. The two women, ok got that one.

But come on people...does your church only want those who consider themselves righteous in the pews on Sundays?

How many of you consider yourselves better than those who practice homosexuality, or adultery, or lie, etc.? How many of you are of better stature and more righteous than those who are caught up in the world of sin?

Not to sound so dramatic, but a lot of posts I've seen here have really sounded just like the Pharisee of olden times.

So question: For those of you who are disgusted or made sick by anothers sins, (because it seems from reading your posts that you are somehow above sin), how do you imagine those who are lost should hear how they can change their sinful lives? Should they be changed and made righteous in your opinion before they're allowed to visit your church?

 

Is it YOUR sole responsibility to show these sinners their errors? I've always been under the impression that it was God who showed them the "error of their ways", by His word and by His mercy.

I must have missed the study on "self righteous showing sinners their errors". Perhaps someone can offer me a link that will enable me to buy the cassette or DVD that I may also gain this important baptist doctrinal teaching.

 

Christ came to heal the sick, but many churches today are hospitals that only have room for the healthy.

 

I'm guessing from reading on here that the church my wife and I attend would be frowned upon, because we welcome anyone that wishes to come and learn about Gods love, saving grace, and forgiveness for sin.

Our pastor preaches the word of God and ruffles feathers of some of our members and visitors alike, because sometimes we need to be reminded that we're sinful people, saved by the love and grace of our Lord Jesus, and not over and above any better than those who are lost.

 

May God bless the work of you and your church.

 

No, I'm not joking. Budgets are moral documents. The fact of the matter is that you must be educated in order to move forward and out of poverty in this society. When you cut education funding, which really only affects those that can't afford education, because the wealthy will get their education anyway, you are telling the poor that they don't matter. To marginlize and oppress the poor with policies that make it close to impossible for them to move out of poverty, you are grieving the heart of God. Reading the book of Amos will makes this very clear.

Do you mean recommend? If so, no that would not be what I would recommend.

 

You have your reasons for your remarks above, but in this case I believe the reasoning to be wrong.

If anyone read chandler's post, you find a correct reasoning. Naturally I say this as I agree with Him. He and I approach problems facing the denomination/s where Christians do dwell, differently, but I believe we both see apostasy has reared its ugly head to a much higher level. In other words this “secret” time that we are living in will again see a split in the church/s just as they came out of the mother church, due to apostasy. Now just about all of these babies have grown up, and the Christians in them know something is wrong. If a splitting does not occur, we’re out of here, for Christ’s kingdom up there will be full. Time then for God to get on dealing again directly with His people, and it won’t be a pretty sight. The nations will pay; the earth, and also Satan will be taken care of.

If the Baptists churches aren’t careful, the same thing can happen to us. I know some Christians have already left. Don’t really know if they “bailed” to quickly, but in a few years we will know.

In this world we all live in, we should try our best to live as Christians. He has left us down here to be a light. We are to shine that light on sin. Homosexuality is a sin, and is committed by a willful act, an act accepted by the person’s mind that comes from the heart. We are what we believe.

Is the Baptist church to now say in our mind this is a good thing. We will allow this specific sin/sinner into our mist.If we do it is not from our heart. If it is then we are already in apostasy. We are to be as wise as serpents, or we will be “duped”, finding too late our mistake. ”Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away, II Timothy 3:5. If the person says, “Gee, I’m going to do my best to whip this, that just ain’t good enough. That one is denying the Power of the Holy Spirit. We must get back to the Bible and understand what we are to believe; we can do nothing within our own Power.

Of course the light is to be seen in our church and us. Our church should be a safe haven for those seeking shelter from the troubled waters. Yes, come join into our church to hear truth. But we will not put the welcome mat out for the movement of the agenda of the homosexual to enter our church on their terms, accept me because I am a homosexual. If the homosexual wishes to come into the congregation of my church, then they are to contact the church and have Preacher, teacher or knowledgeable member preach to that person the gospel of Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, and that means they surrender to Him, and stop their sin, for that sin cannot be there when Christ Jesus comes in the heart to baptize. If they refuse, saying they’ll give it a shot, we are to say, “there are other churches that will accept you on your terms, but we will not. Request denied. “We will pray for you, asking that God’s will be done.”

 

go2church

Just because I do not like punishment, does not make punishement a sin.

My two cents worth ...

 

I agree with your post ituttut....I do have one question though.

In the last paragraph you stated that a homosexual that wants to come to a church should contact the church and have the pastor, teacher, etc. preach the gospel of Christ to them.

Is that BEFORE they visit the church, in your opinion?

In other words, are you saying that they should contact the church and ask for permission to visit? Or is your opinion that they can come to church to hear the gospel, and in that there's hope that they will acknowledge their sinful state, and turn from that and repent.

I just wanted to make sure I understood your post clearly.

I will say this, I'm not in agreement with the UCC beliefs. I don't believe a church should welcome people as members who are openly gay with no concern about repentence, nor adulterers, etc...I was just commenting on some of the malicious posts that were being thrown around in this thread concerning the UCC stand.

 

We should show the error of their ways, after we take a hard look at the log in our own eyes and remove it. </font>[/QUOTE]Are you saing that you, and/or the rest of us, are homosexual?

 

Did you write that, or is a quote from karl Marx?

Aside from arguments over the proper source of funding for education, do I understand you to say that budgets should only ever be increased?

And does it follow that the bigger the increase the more righteous the act?

So, we would be the most holy possible if the government would just confiscate our homes and 100% of our wealth and build millions of schools and buy mountains of textbooks, and make each of a paid educator?

These are the logical conslusions of your argument that it is inherently sinful (as sinful as sodomy, no less) to make a budget cut in education.

 

No.

Judge yourself with the standard you use before you judge others. It is only when we see our own sinfulness that we can have the humility, love and gentleness required to approach our brothers' sin.

It isn't saying that the speck and the log are the same sin.

 

Christ's antagonists throughout the gospels were not "apostate" sinners, but self-righteous religious conservatives of his day.

He has many words for both groups. Words of grace for the apostate sinners and words of condemnation for the self-righteous religious conservatives.

Grace is always followed by "Go and sin no more", not preceded by it. Grace is preceded and followed by an attitude of repentance.

Just an fyi that I consider myself to be religious and conservative and at times self-righteous, deserving of humbling reproof from Christ.

[ March 22, 2005, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: Gold Dragon ]

 

I reject your ridiculous statement that only budget increases can be moral, I never said that. Therefore the rest of what you said is based on a faulty premise and need not be addressed. Yes, a budget cut can be morally correct. Say if you cut the funding for abortion and capital punishment.

Budgets reveal the priorities of an organization. You cannot say "no child left behind" and then cut the funding that would leave no child left behind. Obviously education is not as big a priority as we had been lead to believe in this abministration.

Obviously not everything we spend money on is equally important. We have to establish the things that are the highest priority, now we can debate the order of those priorities but don't make my words say what you KNOW they do not say!

I guess there could be another thread about how to fund education, where it should come from, who should pay, etc... we have a dork governor here in Texas trying to fund education with slot-machines and he is a Republican!

 

Right. So, why do you assume that anyone who speaks truth and warnings about homosexuality has not taken his own sins seriously? And, in your list of what is required to "approach our brother's sin", as you say, why do you not also include courage, conviction, honesty, and a hatred for sin?

 

Aside, again, from the argument of where money should come from to fund education, I'm amazed that you find it moral to spend money that doesn't exist, piling up debts of TRILLIONS of dollars. And, again, that you find relative spending levels to be inherently sinful or not.

It's like saying "it's good to buy a bible, so it's better to buy a thousand of them". Doesn't it all depend on whether you need a Bible and how you will use it, and whether you have enough money to afford it? Isn't it the same for education?

 

I never did.

Because those can be had without seeing the log in your own eye. The Pharisees were already very good at those thing. Jesus' words were directed at what they weren't good so good at.

 

Good point, Gold Dragon, excellent point.

I still object, though, to the way folks seem to jump to the conclustion that anyone speaking against any sin more serious than jaywalking must be a pharisee.

Heaven knows we have too many Pharisees, and that we must guard against becoming one ourselves; yet at the same time it seems to me that there are at least as many who want to ignore or condone sin, as evidenced by the actions of some in the mainline denominations like the UCC.

 

And the way we can help each other not be like the Pharisees is to remind each other of Jesus' words about them.

I agree, we should not ignore or condone sin for the sake of political correctness. While some UCC churches and individuals have done so with homosexuality, that doesn't change the fact that conservatives have often gone to the other extreme to the Pharisaic way.

The UCC ad may imply that they condone homosexuality, but explicitly, it is only saying that homosexuals are unwelcome in some churches but welcome in theirs. Just looking at the explicit message, I think they are much more in line with Christ than many conservative churches on this matter (if your church is welcoming, don't be offended because I'm not talking about your church). An implicit message (if intended) of saying that homosexual sex is not a sin, is not in line with Christ.

Like Baptists, the UCC uses a congregational style of church governance so each individual UCC church probably has a slightly different position on whether homosexual sex is a sin ranging from very liberal positions to very conservative ones, although generally it is probably closer to a liberal leaning position.