Okay...I'm no longer PCUSA, so I should probably keep my nose out of this. But I was startled by the PUPpies challenge to the GAPJC. However, I believe that a pattern being displayed is actually cross-denominational. It's what Dr. Albert Mohler has termed relative moral relativism.
I think Dr. Achtemeier is confused about who are the friends to whom he owes his highest allegiance. He wants to fight for his friends - that's part of what the getting together and dialogging is about - becoming friends. The PCUSA seems convinced that anybody can cross their principles so long as they have friends on the other side. It's the natural result of believing that propositional truth is in reality prepositional truth (whom you're with, whom you're against - rather than hath God said...).
What I mean by this is the silly notion that all of your allegiances and philosophicotheopolitical commitments are a result of the "folks ya run with" and not well-thought out convictions. For a large part of the populace, it is true that bad company corrupts good morals - thus, getting a broader view of the world can help mitigate those inimical forces that keep us ignorant and bigoted. Exposure to different view points, understanding where people are coming from, etc. is of great service in disposing of human bias.
(The same works in reverse - we can become skewed by the company we keep. I remember falling in with a KJV-only group in my early college days. It didn't last, but for about two months I was convinced that the NIV was sending people tah HAY-uhl!!! I got over that - though I still think the NRSV stands for the Nebbish Revisional Substandard Version.)
However, to continually mistake well thought out ethical / theological / political positions for ignorant and/or malicious bias is perhaps the capital obstruction to talking to "the left" on the issue of homosexuality. It's not bias...it's biblical. Fight the battle there and nowhere else.
As for who should take precedence in our allegiances? Jesus, the Word written, and the company of saints who have died to get it to us take precedence...not some people that you met in the last 30 years and worked with on a committee for 5. You're going to live in accountability to Jesus for all eternity, so make now count.
I think Dr. Achtemeier is confused about who are the friends to whom he owes his highest allegiance. He wants to fight for his friends - that's part of what the getting together and dialogging is about - becoming friends. The PCUSA seems convinced that anybody can cross their principles so long as they have friends on the other side. It's the natural result of believing that propositional truth is in reality prepositional truth (whom you're with, whom you're against - rather than hath God said...).
What I mean by this is the silly notion that all of your allegiances and philosophicotheopolitical commitments are a result of the "folks ya run with" and not well-thought out convictions. For a large part of the populace, it is true that bad company corrupts good morals - thus, getting a broader view of the world can help mitigate those inimical forces that keep us ignorant and bigoted. Exposure to different view points, understanding where people are coming from, etc. is of great service in disposing of human bias.
(The same works in reverse - we can become skewed by the company we keep. I remember falling in with a KJV-only group in my early college days. It didn't last, but for about two months I was convinced that the NIV was sending people tah HAY-uhl!!! I got over that - though I still think the NRSV stands for the Nebbish Revisional Substandard Version.)
However, to continually mistake well thought out ethical / theological / political positions for ignorant and/or malicious bias is perhaps the capital obstruction to talking to "the left" on the issue of homosexuality. It's not bias...it's biblical. Fight the battle there and nowhere else.
As for who should take precedence in our allegiances? Jesus, the Word written, and the company of saints who have died to get it to us take precedence...not some people that you met in the last 30 years and worked with on a committee for 5. You're going to live in accountability to Jesus for all eternity, so make now count.
h/t Toby
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