I never cease to be amazed at the talent of the young kids in my 'hood. Several of them got together recently trying to do their best impression of emergent guru Brian McLaren! Check it out . . .
All those mean conservative Evangelical Christians just keep hurting Brian's feelings. And Brian doesn't want to hurt anybody's feelings or cause division with anybody . . . except maybe God!
Boo Hoo Brian. What about how God feels about the issue? What about loving gay people enough to warn them of their peril? By dodging the question you are actually giving false comfort and approval to people who are under the wrath of God . . . oh yeah, that's something else you don't believe in!
Go On To Part 3
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3 comments:
On the surface Brian's comments seem to make a very good point, that is until he gets to his last statements when he indicates "acceptance doesn't equal approval". The problem Brian and many Emergents have is that they'll say this type of thing, but then totally fail to speak of their disapproval of homosexual behavior; he/they don't want to offend homosexual. As such, the problem with the homosexual community then becomes the one who does the "cutting off" as Brian suggest; if the hetero or conservative or fundamental community will not "affirm" which simply means endorse, homosexual behavior, it is the homosexuals who become militant. I've journeyed into and out of The Emergent Village over a period of years, and one of my reason for coming out of The Emergent Village is exactly what Brian is doing here; he's wanting to keep "the conversation" going (which he's done for nearly a decade now) but seems unable to come to a biblical resolution on how to approach things like homosexuality. Jesus could look at a person's sinful behaior and tell them to "go and sin no more" and still love them. I would think that Christians could do the same, and Brian could do the same; but don't expect THAT to come from the homosexual community.
To any closeted LGBT folks out there:
There is nothing wrong with your sexuality, any shame you feel is just a cultural thing, you can let it go and be loved for who you are.
What Brian is doing is creating a straw man argument, then positing a solution to it via the hegelian dialect. In other words, he creates this war between two opposites, the liberals and the fundamentalists, then he suggests a solution which the two should agree on...Thesis Anithesis Hypothesis.
Unfortunately what these new Hegelian masters tend to do is a bait and switch. Because the solution they offer is really only a temporary truce during which time people tend to work out that they have been had because the solution doesn't actually solve their original problem. It creates a false problem and then posits a solution for that.
It's all essentially a fantasy. Brian thinks acceptance is different from approval, yet Jesus tells us we are accepted in teh beloved. Which means that christians are accepted in Christ. What is not accepted is sin, and since homosexuality, adultery, and a whole bunch of other things are sins, we are expected to deal with those the way Paul suggested. Reckon yourselves dead to sin, be crucified with Christ etc. You can't have it both ways, which is what people like Brian want in order to have the most votes at election time.
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