Re: Some interesting points have been made!
 

No, this has nothing to do with "membership", this has to do with baptismal.

Baptismal is the outward sign that you are inwardly accepting the law that God has put down. Membership is administrative. Baptismal is spiritual.

Frat,

“Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward" (1 Peter 2:18).

"Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ" (Ephesians 6:5).

(A slave must be obedient to his master, even if he is unjust.)


and...

“And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money” (Exodus 21:20-21).

(It's okay to beat a slave so long so long as they don't die.)

and...

“Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again; Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things” (Titus 2:9-10).

(The proper behavior of slaves.)

Re: Re: Some interesting points have been made!
 

Hmmm, ok.

--------------------------
*EDITTED**

After reading a lot of posts of here, I can certainly understand why a lot of people are cynical of us church folks and of organized religion!

Re: Re: Re: Some interesting points have been made!
 

I don't know if you were referring to my post. Since you quoted me, I'll assume that you were.


Maybe I need to clarify. When I posted earlier today, I was running late for a final.


At my church (I only can only speak for my church, which is a large church), membership is handle by an auxilary. The pastor isn't involved. We open the doors of the church, those interested parties come down to the altar. They are paired one on one with a "counselor". This counselor completes paperwork by asking questions. Then the interested party is given info to read, and advised about the new member classes. New member classes are taught by one of our associate pastors.

If a pimp, a prostitue, a child molester, and homosexual come down the aisle when the doors of the church are opened, they get paired with a counselor. If they don't tell the counselor that they are a pimp, a prostitute, a child molester, or a homosexual, the counselor is not gonna perform a background check on them. Whatever their story, the counselor takes them at their word. New members class is where they are brought into the body of the church. That is where they are introduced to the different ministries that our church offers, and the associate pastor can talk to them one on one.

Many, many people who come down when the doors of the church are opened never attend new member class. Many people never get brought in to the body of the church. Many never offer their talents or skills by volunteering on an auxilary. Their names are on the church's books, but they don't attend church, or try to contribute to God's kingdom. They got mad when the Pastor preached about adultery; fornication; homosexuality; lottery...whatever. They've never been back. Or they come every week, just to say, "I belong to such and such church" or to put on their "Christian face".

That is why I said membership is administrative. Because many names are on the books, but the seats in the church are empty.

My issue with this whole situation is the Pastor KNEW. He knew this couple was made up of two homosexual men who conducted themselves as a couple, the way a man and woman would conduct themselves. He knew they were living together. And still, he, a man of God, agreed to participate in a spiritual ritual that symbolizes the sinner being washed clean and made new, the way John the Baptist washed Jesus, because he/she has decided to repent and turn from his/her wicked ways.

THAT IS NOT RIGHT.

If a pastor baptised two men, and didn't know they were living together in a homosexual relationship, that's a whole different story. You can not be held accountable for what you don't know. But this pastor knew, and decided to do what he wanted to do, anyway.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Some interesting points have been made!
 

Thanks Miss Mocha. I can honestly say that I see where you're coming from.

To all:

Has anyone heard anything else/new about this church and their new members?

hermeneutics in the Black Church
 

Some may remember the discussion on A Phi A ave. about the state of the black church. In that discussion, I mentioned that Dr. Jeremiah Wright noted that 90% of the clergy in the "Black Church" today are not seminary trained. I think this is showing forth in our discussion thus far. From my discussions with pastors over the years since I have been teaching Sunday school classes, I have found that there is a lack of understanding about hermeneutics (biblical interpretation) that is crippling the relevance of the Black Church in the 21st century. I attend two Bible studies a week, one at my watch care church here in Columbia, MO and one with other graduate students at a "white Church" headed by a youth minster with a M. Div. from Candler Theological Seminary in Atlanta, GA (at Emory U.). The pastor of the watchcare church has attended seminary, but didn't recieve an advanced degree, yet. The biggest difference in the two is that the 2nd minister brings resources to the Bible study that "demystify" many of these passages by placing them in cultural and historical contexts that enable the students to ascertain the applicable truth that keeps the Bible's words relevant (my "PC" way of saying "make sense"). The 1st minister , while very thoughful, comes out of the normal black church tradition. He was "called" at an early age, been "preachin' " every since, and just recently decided that he needed to get a seminary education to help inform his preaching. Nothing is necessarily wrong with this, but you will find that many of our black "called" preachers will go to seminary and hear things such as what Reiki so astutely mentioned about Sodom and Gomorrah and think that the seminary is wrong and then leave, just because something that the seminary taught may go against what they have learned in their own church. They then say that they (the ministers that left the seminary) are more of a believer than those in the seminary because they don't "question" the Bible, they "trust" it, as if questioning the Bible is somehow not trusting in God. In my earlier (too long, sorry) post I mentioned a phrase "religion right". What I meant by that was that seeking truth and righteousness should involve the total man; heart, mind, and soul. Too often, we as believers think that thinking and having faith are polar opposites, when in reality, they are both necessary in the quest for truth and understanding. Last Sunday school class, we discussed the impetus of the word "faith" and it involved both knowing and trusting God, this meant that you encountered the claims of "the word" and you know them and agree with God about them (homologous-to confess). The agreeing involves a submission to the will of God. Knowing the word is not necessarily just being able to quote scriptures, but having an intimate understanding of the Truth in the scriptures. This understanding involves knowing certain facts about the text. These facts should include (but are not limited to) the following:

1. Knowing the way the language the original text is written in and how it is translated,
2. Knowing what the audience and the speaker understood about the subject at the time,
3. Knowing what type of literature is being quoted-is it a poem, a song, a historical account, wisdom literature (practical teachings not necessarily to be applied as doctrinal), is it doctrinal?
4. Understanding how the Truth lesson of the text can be applied in our culture and time.

The way many of the scriptures and ideas from the Bible have been used by some people on this thread shows a lack of Bible study, but plenty of Bible reading. For example, someone quoted the familiar phrase from John 1 "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God" as a reason why they don't question the authority of the Bible. This demonstrates an assumption that in the beginning was the Bible, which is not what this passage is stating. That word "word" in that passage comes from the Greek word "logos" which means "ideas" or , for people at that time a "logic" under which the universe is created or patterned. When John goes on to state that the Word "became flesh " , he is not saying that Jesus was the Bible in the flesh, but that Jesus was the Truth of God (Logic of God) in the Flesh, a person with the Divine understanding. Besides, there was no Bible written down until the early part of the 1st millenium and it was not cannonized until the 11th century AD, long after any of the original writers had died. So it would be irresponsible to think that the King James version of the Bible was sitting "in the Beginning" with God and Jesus, in fact, this is just not true. There are so many other things that are evidenced by the way people are using scriptures here that I won't go into them (PM me, if you like). I think we need to really start studying Christianity, rather than just reading and reciting Bible passages before we make the claims that many people are making.

P.S. No one has yet to answer my question about how the Bible teaches us that Jesus died for sins and not abominations? Honestly, that just doesn't make since to me.

:confused:

Blackwatch!!!!!!

Its rather personal, but I have known too many people to die of aids who were very close to me. People that I didn't know were gay until they became sick, people in the choir who came down with "pneumonia". Some were kind of soft, but I never thought that they were on the other side. Long story

Re: hermeneutics in the Black Church
 

Brother, you are very right for the most part on understanding the Bible in its totality, but just as one can be guilty of not knowing enough, we can be just as guilty for thinking too much. Just because some intellectual at a high-faluting seminary says something, doesn't make his rendering the final, authoritative truth. I happen to believe that the way DELPH quoted I John was absolutely correct. Anyway, people are going way overboard and far afield to try to skirt a very BLACK and WHITE issue. The Bible does not equivocate on this issue. There is no gray area. Only where those who try to force secular humanism into GODs Word.

Lastly, no one said that Jesus died for sins only and not abominations. God clearly makes distinctions and offers up differing penalties for certain offenses to him. I don't think Delph or Miss Mocha come off as simple minded, backward Christians because they trust the word. REIKI's post about Sodom does nothing to dismiss anything related to the article. What Miss Mocha and DELPH address is what is pertinent to the article. Everything else is just deception.

Re: Re: My 06 Cents...
 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by REIKI
[i]Genesis 19 :: New International Version (NIV)

To the best of my knowledge, and I am no professed theologian, Sodom had more spiritual issues going on than homosexuality. Other interpretations of this passage conclude that the people of Sodom were proud (which is a rejection of God), and did not use their wealth to help the poor and needy. As a result, they became haughty, and their lifestyles became immoral. Therefore they were destroyed. Unless you dig deeper and analyze these scriptures within the context of non-dogmatic historical accounts as well, you can bend the Bible to prove or disprove any personal or popularly accepted theory.


Reiki,

Again, I don't understand where you're going with all of this. I never said that God destroyed the city of Sodom simply because of homosexuality. If you read all of my post, you would see that I stated that they were living proudly in their wickedness.

Furthermore, we can go back and forth until the rooster crows and still get nowhere. But one thing is for sure, I know exactly where my faith lies. One more thing, you said: Amazing how we tend to apply scripture to everyone but ourselves. What were you talking about anyway? I have no problems accepting the Word and applying it to my life. I was brought up in a family that would call a round table discussion at the snap of a finger to discuss faults. However, the debate was GRAND!

Doggy, thanks for having my back and you can PM me...

I hear you. That is part of what is ironic to me about this thread. Most of the people whom I have known who died from AIDS, and we subsequently found out they were Gay, were people I knew from my church or other churches.

And when you think of some of our most notable Gospel recording artists, it's the same thing. I'll never forget how shocked I was to find out about James Cleveland.

And my brother-in-law who lives in San Francisco once told me that he would never join Love Alive Church because it was a haven for "those faggots." Well come to find out that he has AIDS and has finally come out to the family that he has always been Gay.

I have also found that many people who talk the worse about homosexuals do so to cover up their own sexuality.

And just for the record, the only reason I have brought up AIDS is that it is what caused the "outing" of so many people. So before someone says that AIDS is God's way of showing his displeasure with homosexuality (which I have heard too many times,) I trust that we all understand that it is no longer considered a "Gay disease."

Pink has been my favorite color ever since I can remember (for a long time that is). I'm in here to chat not trying to perp any org or give the idea that I'm interested in any. Pink, as I said earlier, is my favorite color.

My question - what does this have to do with the topic at hand.

Thanks

TOO FUNNY!
 

Does it have to deal with the topic at hand? NOPE, this is Greekchat...you ought to know THAT by now.

LMAO