A Revisionist and a Desert father

"A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying. "You are mad, you are not like us!" Abba Anthony

Engaged in conversation with someone who was telling me that those who chose not to interpret (or ignore) the Bible as they did was a threat to the progress of the Church. They had the answers to church growth as they saw it, it went like this, "No wonder people are leaving the church. People don't want to be told that they are living the wrong way or that their choices are wrong, they want to be accepted!"

My response was something along the lines of, "But what of the areas where lifestyles, attitudes, actions and thoughts are at variance with what the Bible says or the Church (universal) has taught, what do you do then?"

The answer was (apparently) obvious. I was to embrace them and avoid condemning them because of my ideas and attitudes. Unless Church becomes more welcoming, more accepting, more 'like' the people we seek to embrace, it will die. Oddly, I thought that the very opposite was true and that unless we remained counter-cultural and stood up, and against, those things in us and others which separate us from Christ, the Church was doomed.

Oddly, just in case people think we're talking about THAT issue, this discussion was not about homosexuality but about something completely different (and not only irrelevant to the conversation but also perhaps identifying and so will be passed by, it's the principle not the focus that is in question here). This person truly believed that to ignore the Bible standards was to embrace people and bring them into relationship with the believers where they were. I had to agree that it might do that, but it would still leave a chasm between them and God.

Apparently this wouldn't be the case because God wasn't interested in the acts, only the heart and therefore, even though we might do stuff that God said was wrong, He'd be happy and welcome us into the halls of heaven. We are all sinners and sin doesn't separate us from God, all that matters is that we acknowledge Him and live 'good' lives.

I asked about sanctification, holiness and the 'no one comes to the Father except through Christ' bit and discovered that all get into heaven anyway because jesus died for everyone and so all are made acceptable. The rules and the living certain ways was merely invented by people who wanted to be 'holier than thou' and we needed to revise what we believed and how we delivered it.

Suffice to say that we disagreed at just about every step of the road. I saw a need to be constant, they saw a need to change so people could be 'honest to themselves and live as they felt was right', regardless of what the book said.

I saw denial and discipline, they saw being a peace with oneself and being happy.

I saw people doing whatever they wanted, listening to words that tickled their ears and permissioned them to do as they desired, in response my companion merely said, "People like you are mad!'

Perhaps the time Abba Anthony was talking about is already with us?

Pax