The Answer to Wally's Question -- Mamusz' Restoration Forum

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Date Posted: 07:58:04 04/17/11 Sun
Author: George
Subject: The Answer to Wally's Question

The Answer to Wally's mournful question about why we couldn't have a lovefest on this forum and talk only of Jesus and "faithbuilding" subjects:

///////////////////////////////////////////////////Begin quote///////////////////////////////////
A MESSAGE OF PRIORITY
(Excerpts)

Jude 1-3

"The dreamer must grapple with reality and the builder must destroy some things before he can construct others. The messenger rejoices when he is called to deliver cheerful news, but he also must remain faithful when the news is somber. There are some messages which must take priority even if they are unpleasant."

[The author refers to Woodrow Wilson, who was noted for being an idealist in search of peace; yet the author points out that Wilson had to set aside his message of peace and ask the U.S. Congress to declare war.] "And so a great man of peace made a declaration of war in a message of priority.

***

"Nineteen hundred years ago a beloved, humble leader of the new faith called Christianity spoke in like manner about a message of priority. He wanted to write of the joy and peace which accompany the Christian experience. Instead he found himself thrust into an unpleasant war against heresy, apathy, and apostasy: 'I fully intended, dear friends, to write to you about our common salvation, but I feel compelled to make my letter to you an earnest appeal to put up a real fight for the faith which has been once for all committed to those who belong to Christ.' (Jude 3, Phillips).

"We experience Jude's pain as he expresses our agony also. Like the sacred writer of yesteryear, we to would like to speak constantly of the "common salvation" found in Jesus Christ. We would wish that our sermons, lectures, essays, lessons, admonitions, prayers, and even our daily conversation might be concerned only with the joy and peace of the redeemed."

***

"We would like to live the constant Utopia which Paul described to Timothy, so 'that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.' (1 Tim. 2:2)

"But there comes a time when a man must take respite of his nobler dreams and his exhortative themses. He must come down from the tower of truth to fight the insects gnawing at the foundation."
****

"It is our cherished desire to remain thus engaged, and to speak only of those aspectgs of the gospel which lift every believer out of the 'slough of despond.' Let us speak of the rapture of the redeemed, the fellowship of faith, the call of the committed, and the glory of God. For these virtues we gladly give our lives, and to the brighter songs we dedicate our voices. But Jude's interruption is our interrruption, and we find that an intermission must come and rather than being spent in comfort, it is spend in conflict. We, too, must oppose the evil in our time or become party to it."

***

"Without the label of gnosticism, the same theoogical and ethical opponents face us today. This is the evil, this is the enemy; this is the battle! a 'new' theology has arisen, discarding the vocabulary and validity of New Testament Christianity. A new dimension in audacity has been discovered as men testify that they have excelled Paul in interpretation and have been blessed with more revelation than John. A new breed of church members clamors after this fascinating dissection of the corpse of a 'dead' Bible. Although they have no credentials to verify them as divinely appointed pathologists, they feel confidently qualified to perform their autopsy within the very walls of the church Christ gave his life for."

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\End Quote\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

from CLOUDS WITHOUT WATER
by Bill R. Austin
Broadman Press
Nashville Tennessee
c. 1968
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-15850
pp. 13-17

Preface:
Like the sound of many rushing winds, maledictions are being pronounced against the church in every society of the world today. There is nothing new about the statements themselves, for they date from antiquity. the newness lies within the proclaimers.

In past generation, attacks upon orthodox Christian doctrine were made by atheists, infidels, unbelievers, corrupters, and vile and wicked men. Today, they are made by ministers, professors, scientists, authors, poets, and gentle church members. As unbelievable and shocking as it is, this is not an entirely new situation. Jude encountered the same "new theology," and he gives us the answer for our skeptical age as he answered the skeptics of the first century, whom he called "clouds without water."

The maledictions are the threats and criticisms made by GALA, and organizations like it, with the assistance of ministers such as those whose ordination remains in good standing in the Community of Christ and decaying Protestant institutions, saying that "the church must turn itself inside out to accomodate the lack of moral sense possessed by the general population, or there will be reckoning." I wonder who is going to do this reckoning, since these folks have already disconnected any concept of reckoning from their theology.
George

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