(no subject)

[chess]

The other day, our church was reading passages from James, and we hit James 2:13, and the last sentance of it struck me:

Mercy triumphs over judgement!

Yes, the exclamation mark is part of the NIV text. And I think it's a very difficult issue. What is the difference between discernment and judgement?

I discovered what my mother has against the Methodists; it's that they were the first to let homosexuals become priests.

Our church at home, sad to say, appears to be going from bad to worse. As part of their new partnership with New Frontiers International, who seemed fairly harmless (except for the Incident Of The Staged Tongues, where someone spontaneously interpreted a spontaneous speaking-in-tongues and then the person doing the talk 'interpreted' it entirely differently; I'm slightly biased towards the honesty of the first person because I actually know them), everyone has to do an eight-week course, one evening a week, called 'Visions and Values'. And they are not allowed to ask any questions which involve 'dissent'. Um. I mean, there are a couple of people in our church which are prone to shouting matches, but. They also seem to have entirely the same baggage of dodgy theology that our church has been carrying around for a while now (that all of people's sins / phobias / problems are caused by the sins of their direct and fairly recent ancestors / possession by evil spirits). But all of the other close alternatives either have rubbish music or are too tolerent of homosexuals for my parents' liking.

I have said, in the past, that it appeared to me, from quite a bit of research, that there was an extant prohibition on homosexual relations. I've read more widely on the subject, and it has not convinced me that it is not at least one of those grey areas one should not tread into unless one absolutely has to, but it has left me significantly less vehement in my disapproval. God is larger and more loving than we can imagine, after all.

And there are many more warnings not to judge others than there are not to be homosexual; and we are tasked to warn others there may be a problem, and point at the things that are said, but if they have made their peace with God and they are not directly harming themselves or the church, there seems to be no further responsibility to harass them into compliance with our interpretation of God's will.

(My original plan was one of those colour-banners in the traditional rainbow style with 'Mercy triumphs over judgement!' as a link to James 2:13 as the text. However, I thought a nice balanced and long-ish essay was less likely to make people explode incoherantly and more likely that I would have a cogent debate.)

Comments

[requiem-17-23.livejournal.com]

Yes!

And it's not just there, either! If you judge someone, you're implicitly saying you're better than them. "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone", John 8:7. And surely the very act of casting a stone is sin.

Certainly my reading of the Bible is that while we're here on Earth the idea is to be liberal, inclusive, nonjudgemental and understanding of others, while being what we consider a good example and providing advice on what we consider good if we are likely to be actually listened to. Did Jesus sit down with sinners in order to judge them, declare them miserable sinners and order them to repent? No, he did not. He set a good example.

[passage.livejournal.com]

I recommend Matthew 23 (any of a dozen passages would do the same job tho). Jesus doesn't tell the 'sinners' that they're sinners, they already know that. It would be like pointing out to drowning man that water in excess isn't neccessarily good for you - he already knows! What he needs is help getting out.

But with those who think themselves good enough to approach God on their own merits, with those who think they're not sinners Jesus is bitingly damming and judgemental.