“Your judgmentalism is out of control.”
Your manner of discussion is on the level of a seventeen year old.
How do you determine whether someone is eligable to join your church? Do you not listen to the words they speak? Or do you not read the words that they write? Do you not have to make a determination of eligibility based on WORDS?
For membership eligibility purposes you must “CONFIRM” (to use your word) somebody’s salvation. And the only way to do it is by listening to the testimony they speak with their mouth, or by reading words that they write on paper.
That is, unless you claim a special gift of knowledge.
If you are an elder for your church, do you make determinations for membership based on feeligs, vibes, feel-good nonsense? What? I can only believe you make these determinations exactly the same way that we do. You ask people whether they are a Christian, and you ask them for a testimony, and you have to make a determination as to whether their testimony (is sound as to whether it) matches the Scriptures.
If that’s not the case, then I would have to suppose that just anyone at all can join your church, regardless of what they believe or what they practice.
You might think that because a man is a president of the USA that he particularly should be treated with a lower level of discrimination. Nope. Perhaps he should even be questioned more rigidly, since he has been foolong around for so long in the obviously wicked political domain.
Yes, we do ask for a written testimony of salvation. We ask that church members take a church membership class where we clarify church doctrines and expectations. We reserve membership to those we think earnestly have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
This is not a thread beginning with President Bush applying for church membership at either one of our churches. Personally, I cannot imagine that even the interpretations of this journalists would constitute a basis for rejecting President Bush for membership. If you and your church want to deny him membership— which he never applied for as far as I understand— then go ahead.
Keep this example in mind:
I think this Christian has every right to his opinion. I flat out think he is wrong. I don’t think it is even close.
As my tagline suggests, I am fed up with hateful Bush bashing. It comes from very sincere conservatives— including conservative Christians. Obviously it comes from hateful leftist reactionaries.
I think all the Bush haters actively confuse the intensity of the knowledge they have from the Media with some actuality of reliable judgement about who Bush is in his soul. I am saying— Back off. This has gotten way out of hand.
Secularists sincerely want to murder him and Christians sincerely want to send him to Hell. I don’t agree with either camp. I am confident that President Bush is a Christian. I am also confident that you are a Christian. But at the end of the day, I am not going to pretend to judge you on the matter. And yes, as an Elder I have passed judgment on the question for our church. That to me is a distinct matter from this thread. IF Bush were applying for Church membership, my personal sense of his statements were easily trump what a journalist said he said. I have never once been quoted accurately by a journalist.