License is essentially "If you love me, then you can't tell me what to do". Or alternatively "I do nothing but rebuke you all of the time because I love you". It's not balanced or relational.
License is essentially "If you love me, then you can't tell me what to do". Or alternatively "I do nothing but rebuke you all of the time because I love you". It's not balanced or relational.
The second was my guess - a nag.Originally Posted by Todd Erickson
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:18
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. 1 John 4:18a
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I have observed that some people (even on NazNet!) see ethics as a continuum, with love on one extreme and justice on the other. Thus the 'sweet spot' for right living would be a point of tension between love and justice. When some new group or author talks about loving a group of people to whom the church typically prefers to mete out justice, it sets off alarm bells among those who see love and justice as a dichotomy.
Another way to say it is that if we live out of balance (in their view), erring on the side of love, we will find ourselves ignoring abominations like homosexuality or tolerating things that God hates like divorce. This is the predominant ethic taught within evangelical Christianity, so a simple Google search should yield many heartbreaking examples of those who live in this false dichotomy and inflict it on others.
I believe that God's justice is love. God's justice is mercy.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us wthout end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
- C.S. LewisPost Thanks / Like - 2 Thanks, 0 Laughing
What a great discussion: I tried the concepts of this post out on the Tuesday morning men's breakfast here in Nampa. Mostly traditional, retired, College Church Nazarenes. Their initial response was to vehemently side with holiness as a personal journey. "What matters is our personal relationship with God." "We alone are responsible for our own salvation/holiness." I then tried out a few ideas of my own about corporate holiness, then pointed out how College Church is making an effort to encourage the congregation to employ an outward application of holiness. It was a fun conversation and ended with a small attitude change....Thanx for your input.
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