Subject: Is there middle ground? |
Bible Note: Hank: I must say that I am disappointed with what I read in your post. You are about the last person I would have suspected to imply that theology has no connection to encouragement and the path of righteousness. What were Christians debating about before Arminius? Pick up any worthwhile book on church history and you will learn that they were debating other important things. Things like the Trinity, justification by faith alone, etc. While I do not hold that the C/A debate is one of salvific importance, I do think that it is one of great importance as to how the Christian views God's operation and relationship to humanity, which does indeed have a huge impact on the conduct, assurance, and evangelism of believers. Again, if you want to talk about something else, please start a thread! Give us something else to talk about. I am more than happy to move on, but the only posts that merit/require a discussion these days relate to issues of God's sovereignty in the affairs of human beings. Incidentally, I do have a bigger agenda than the C/A debate. While I certainly disagree with Tim on a lot of his interpretation, I also recognize that he is not biblically ignorant. What distresses ME most is the amount of posting that goes on here from believers who state their unreasoned and unfounded opinions based on one or two pet verses taken out of context, while ignoring the rest of the Bible which interprets those verses. Biblical illiteracy in the church is inexcusable, considering those who have died for the sake of actually letting individual Christians have a Bible in their own language to read and study. Many "real witnesses," as you put it, are still on the spiritual milk decades after they should be meat-eaters. I was on a university campus listening to an open-air preacher the other day who couldn't rationally defend Christianity against the charge that Jews shouldn't be evangelized because the Bible says that they are "God's people" already. Last summer, I heard a VBS teacher inform the kids that Jesus would never tell anyone that they were going to Hell. It is the lack of edcucational, theological training that most non-confessional churches demonstrate which leads to such falsehood being propagated even in "evangelical" churches today. Debate may make us uncomfortable, and on a forum like this it may seem that with each newcomer the debate gets re-hashed. However, it is simply wrong to say that differences in theology are not important. And I can be the first instance you can cite as having been dramatically changed by embracing the view I now hold. --Joe! |