Over at The Ooze...

...I read something I'd like to comment on. "An Important Lesson from Albert Ellis" by Mark Karris.

Quote:

Love also speaks the truth and maybe Christ would speak the truth to some people today. Would Christ say something like this:

"Woe to all of you moral police, to all of you guilt motivators, and to all of you so called Christians who put heavy burdens upon God's people. Woe to you who try to take the Holy Spirit's place in the life of the believer and project your own neurosis and guilt upon them and try to make them like you. You think you are doing the Lord's work but you contribute to a person's misery and bring death unlike Christ who came to bring life. You are so concerned about your definition of "holiness" and about people's dress, clothing, language, and other external factors that you miss the heart of the gospel. Look at you, look at how unhappy you are. Where is your joy? The only joy you get is when you point out flaws in other people to make yourself feel better. Maybe Christ, in today's language, would call you a bunch of hypocritical bastards. A bunch of assholes whose father is the devil."

End Quote.

I think that's a very good way of putting it. The other day I spent some time reflecting on people's expectations. I used to believe that only certain conservative or cessationist denominations (one of which I attended for several years) had the above-described problem. Not so. I have been in a denomination that speaks grace to and teaches freedom in the Holy Spirit, and yet it seems we don't trust the Holy Spirit to do His job adequately, because we are constantly attempting to impose OUR values and standards on other believers.

I certainly can understand a biblical argument against choosing to: send my children to public school, drink wine with dinner, go to "secular" concerts, have cable TV, eat meat, pierce-tattoo-or-otherwise-modify my body, dye my hair, wear cut-off jeans, use contraceptives or fill-in-the-blank. However, I could find a biblical argument for why such things are acceptable or permissible, too. In that case, shouldn't we allow the power of the Holy Spirit to be the inner witness that is His job description? If you are uncomfortable with any of the things I have mentioned, I would assume your discomfort is something the Holy Spirit has imparted to you. Likewise, if I find any of those things to be permissible in my own faith journey, so you should assume that I have taken up with the Lord. Which is not to say that the Lord is necessarily in agreement with my choice; however, that is between the Lord and I.

In the end, I am only responsible for MY OWN salvation. If I choose to do something that you find unacceptable, you are not the one who has to answer for it at the Gate.