So very true. Obviously, dear brother in Christ, that sort of thing is simply evidence that the parties involved may very well have lost their First Love.... Ironically: for "tradition-bound institutions" of the Christian type were originally organized to serve, protect, and promulgate the First Love — God the Father, His only-begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit, signifying the divine love both within the Trinity, and between the Trinity and mankind.
Yet as you note, there is a "foul element in human nature" — which operates almost like the law of gravity — that just "naturally" tends to manifest this sort of falling away from the First Love....
You wrote:
Nevertheless we are wise to use our mirrors exhaustively—and to ask Holy Spirit for HIS SEARCH LIGHT ON OUR deceitfully wicked hearts before playing Don Quixote with the windmills.I so agree. As far as the tendency for corruption is concerned — which we ALL inherit from fallen Adam — we are ALL of us in the same boat. Mortal Christians, of course, are not exempt from the consequences of Adam's original sin.... We ourselves can do nothing about this. Only the Blood of Jesus Christ can release us from this miserable condition of human nature.
You wrote:
...there really ARE CHRISTIANS WHO LOVE JESUS on all sides of these issues. We COULD spend a BIT MORE TIME acting and sounding like it.Here I take you to mean that regardless of denominational affiliation/creedal differences, a Christian is a CHRISTIAN; and we all should try to treat each other with Christian charity, not sticks and brickbats. [That would be nice. :^)]
It seems to me we should always try to remember the parable of "motes" and "beams".... And also the clear warning: Judge not, lest ye shall be judged.
In the end, only God alone truly knows His own. That judgment has nothing to do with mere human opinion, according to whatever criteria you or I or anybody else might wish to apply....
Thank you, thank you, for Luke 18:13:
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.And so I pray: May God be merciful to me, a sinner.
And may He bless you, dear brother, for your wise and truly illuminating essay/post!
Your kind and humbling words touch me more deeply than I can well respond to.
THANKS TONS.
BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD.
BLESSED BE THE WORD OF THE LORD.
BLESSED BE THE WAYS OF THE LORD.
BLESSED BE THOSE WHO LOVE THE LORD.
HIS KINGDOM COME, HIS WILL BE DONE IN ALL OUR HEARTS AND LIVES AND ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.
Thank you for your beautiful testimony, dearest sister in Christ!