{"id":363,"date":"2004-07-20T19:08:28","date_gmt":"2004-07-20T19:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=363"},"modified":"2004-07-20T19:08:28","modified_gmt":"2004-07-20T19:08:28","slug":"good_stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=363","title":{"rendered":"good stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was reading Kendall Harmon’s blog this morning and the post he included from an article by Dan Savage<\/a>. The responses to an article were many and furious. This is a response to “Jackie” from John Wilkins<\/a> that I particularly like. It isn’t necessary to know the context or what Jackie wrote, I don’t believe. Anyway, here is John’s post:
\n
\nJackie asks: \u00c2\u201cYou don\u00c2\u2019t seek to counsel non-Christians from a biblical standard? If someone is not a Christian, this makes unacceptable behavior acceptable?\u00c2\u201d Jackie – if you are arguing with someone who says, \u00c2\u201cI think the bible is a set of myths, and that its holiness codes are ridiculous, and that the bible is inconsistent, encourages Genocide, and makes utterly false claims about the future\u00c2\u201d then it\u00c2\u2019s very hard to argue from the bible. At that point it is the job of the priest or Christian to argue why the bible is credible – and not from the position \u00c2\u201cbecause God says it is so.\u00c2\u201d That simply brings you into circular reasoning. It almost makes God into a tyrant.
\nBrother, I wonder if we have two different ways of dealing with life. I live without needing to be certain that I know what God wants. I have a pretty good understanding from scripture, the traditions, common sense, civil law and experience. Savage may be right, but it makes me a bit uncomfortable. I know that I wouldn\u00c2\u2019t recommend such relationships because I think they can break hearts. I think, also, Savage knows this which is why he claims to be \u00c2\u201cdefacto\u00c2\u201d monogamous – he doesn\u00c2\u2019t believe in monogamy, but it works out that way.
\nStrangely, this is precisely why scripture and the fathers are correct about monogamy. In an egalitarian society where women have some freedom and rights, monogamy is better. It restricts, while not eliminating, desire for the benefit of individual hearts. It requires some mutual sacrifice.
\nGranted, perhaps we, as Christians, need someone like Dan to repent for his sins. For who? For God? God will take care of Dan. He doesn\u00c2\u2019t need to repent for me. But personally, I find it strangely affirming that even though he doesn\u00c2\u2019t need, desire, or believe in monogamy, he\u00c2\u2019s decided that the general form, the general principle, the spirit behind it works. Perhaps you would rather that he sid, \u00c2\u201cwell, we have orgies and sleep around a lot and have as much casual sex as we can.\u00c2\u201d That would, at least, reaffirm the stereotype.
\nI don\u00c2\u2019t think the bible was meant to be used as the foundation for argument. It was meant to be a foundation for a bringing people in relationship to God.
\nI was asked to answer Beacon\u00c2\u2019s question. Of course I believe that the Holy Bible is the Word of God. I think it contains all things necessary to salvation.
\nHowever, I do not think that the Holy Bible is inerrant. I think that the Word of God was written through human beings, and that human beings are fallen. Let me repeat:
\nHuman beings use words to communicate.
\nHuman beings are fallen.
\nOne aspect of being fallen is misunderstanding or being misunderstood.
\nGod used human beings, and their form of communication [language], to speak to humanity.
\nHuman beings, in their fallenness [while doing the best that they could] cannot get things perfect [save Jesus, who was not fallen].
\nNeither did they need to get things perfect, for perfection is found in God.
\nMy second point is that IN SCRIPTURE the word of God is Jesus Christ, the living God, of which one aspect of his nature is that he is perfectly free. God is not the words of the bible – only insofar as we see the spirit of Jesus Christ. This is the biblically \/ scripturally correct view – that Jesus, is the word of God.
\nI have heard a couple interesting things: that in fact God is not free to change his nature; God is not free to change his mind – even though scripture illustrates that He does. Noone has addressed the meaning of the stories where God does change his mind. Like liberals, \u00c2\u201cOrthodox\u00c2\u201d believers choose those parts of scripture that satisfy their theology while ignoring the \u00c2\u201cplain teaching\u00c2\u201d of other parts.
\nThe problem is not with God, who may be, in some sense changeless, eternal and certain. It is with his medium, human beings, and words, which always conceal and reveal, which never get things perfect, but are usually good enough, and contain, at least, what is necessary to be saved. Fortunately, being certain, absolute, rigid, doctrinare, is not what is necessary. Merely the Word of God.
\nWhich is Jesus, the one Holy and Living God.
\nComment by John Wilkins<\/a> \u00c2\u2014 7\/19\/2004 @ 10:26 am<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading Kendall Harmon’s blog this morning and the post he included from an article by Dan Savage. The responses to an article were many and furious. This is a response to “Jackie” from John Wilkins that I particularly … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglican"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}