Seems we get the 'tell them their sinners" part really well but keep forgetting that we are all sinners and even those who have been saved are still faulty mortals with sinful predilections...even Paul, who we know was saved and who had met the risen Jesus couldn't shake that human bit...
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
We all still have our sinful natures and practice some sort of sinful acts - whether we want to admit it or not....that is why I take some of my swats at those who get all foamy-mouthed over the sins of others. There is so much we are powerless over and the quality of those who preach to us, and who reign over them in a religious hierarchy, is one of them once the "establishment" has reached a certain size and entropy.
It's why I left the Catholic Church many years ago and why I finally eschewed the main religions and went non-denominational - preaching straight from the Bible, w/o all the "specialized religious gobbledygook" which varies greatly among the Christian religions. If those at my church seem to be slipping, and the elders/advisors cannot bring it into line,I can find another church.
I know my worthiness for Heaven is everything to do with God and nothing to do with me except that I accept the wonderful gift of His Son, Jesus Christ...no church/priest/or anyone else, can change that..rely on Him instead of earthly things and it will all work out in the end.
Sorry again for the original, or any perceived swats in this diatribe (none were intended), just wanted to explain why i get "acerbic" from time to time when a religious group goes on the warpath.
I’m not acknowledging I’m without sin. We’re all sinners. I’m not telling any church of whatever sect not to accept sinners within them (or they’d be empty). The issue here is far more frightening and disturbing than anything else: the acceptance and worship of sin and sinful behavior and the telling of parishioners of the same.
A Christian church that adheres to “the word” would tell their parishioners to repent and go forth and sin no more, just as Jesus told us to do. But we have something far more evil and sinister: lying to the parishioners that not only is the sinful behavior OK, but is something to be championed/worshipped, held up as even holy. Radical activists have gone sect by sect using every imaginable tactic to push this Satanic agenda. I went to a United Methodist Church and then Episcopal growing up, and both have now fully embraced this deviant agenda.
I have been equally alarmed watching the “Mother” sect, Catholicism, be thoroughly captured by Sodomites who infest the church like a malignant cancer, and prey upon not only the young innocents, but also parishioners, young clerics and even each other. It’s been turned into a sex predator cult.
My central point for participating in this particular thread was to condemn this particular church for falling to the trendy world by deciding to honor the legacy of this misguided young soul her took her own life was to stop condemning this sin and tell others like her from now on that it’s fine and dandy to be sinful and live a sinful lifestyle. This is outright lying to parishioners and leading them down the primrose path of “tolerance” straight to hell. This isn’t Christian, it’s evil. It must be condemned and it must be stopped.