Yes and no....
Submitted by Forgiven on 2002-07-15 18:10:55, Monday
In reply to CHRISTIANS? PLEASE! submitted by truth be told on 2002-07-14 22:41:05, Sunday
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the hard thing is that Christianity starts with the bad news that we have ALL messed up and need God to forgive us our sins; we aren't going to make it without his grace - but that grace IS available if we ask. Our rant above is true about sin to that extent - we (and that is us as all humans) are terrible sinners who are 'wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly' and 'and have no hope of Heaven unless they repent'. The crucial question is what can be expected once we have repented; 'if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and forgives us our sins and cleanses us from ALL unrighteousness'. It is the experience of those of us who are here that that 'cleansing' has not removed the sexual temptation towards boys. There is a line of theology that wants to argue that this is proof that we haven't really repented, but it's one I'm not prepared to accept. And once that line is rejected, we then have to live with the reality of a socially unacceptable element in our sexuality; we have to hide this element of ourselves from most people most of the time, the role of this forum is provide mutual support as we try to address some of the issues of living our lives with this challenge. Given that most churches don't provide meaningful support over any temptations, prefering to pretend that we are all perfect once we've 'prayed the prayer' it is perhaps not a surprise that our honesty in addressing our sexuality rouses some very negative responses - probably reflecting a lot of guilt on the part of the 'Pharisee' concerned. To summarise: all have sinned, all are offered forgiveness, and if we have sought forgiveness then we are forgiven, and are all equal at the foot of the cross. To rub our noses in our sin is thus rather bad theology 'I will remember their sins no more Jer 31 v34'. If God has forgotten our sins, who is anyone else to get excited about them. |
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