i was reading in the paper this morning about a woman who is suing her pastor/licensed secular therapist because when she confided in him about an affair she was having, he told the entire congregation and then told them all to shun her. he took this from matthew 18:15-17:
"if your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. if he listens to you, you have won your brother over. but if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector."
1. how is this woman's affair hurting your relationship with god?
2. treat him as you would a non-christian or one of those irs people - like dogs.
3. you know, even if the person does not turn from his sin, why do you have to shun him? can't you go on loving the sinner and not the sin, praying for him, showing him a good example? treating him like shit is not going to illustrate your christlike love very much. (although, it was christ who advocated this behavior, so who knows.)
4. since this whole thing doesn't even acknowledge that there are sisters and women in the world, that there are female christians, not just in the passage about them keeping their mouths shut in church but in general, maybe this doesn't apply to women. maybe she's allowed to sin as much as she wants because we are, of course, the weaker sex who brought sin into the world.
if god wants us to obey his rules so much, he could at least include us in the instructions.
sorry future priest, i know you will be angry with me, but these things piss me off. anyway, these are protestants.
1 comment:
i'm not angry.
1) what the woman and the man she had an affair with did was sinful
2)her pastor should not have done that
3) matthew 18:15-17, is a course of action which should be rarely used and only when necessary. this process is called excommunication. it's not meant to be mean but to have the person realize how serious that sin is and how bad they severed their relationship with God and His Body, the Church
4) love the sinner always, hate the sin always
5) you must remember that these texts were written in Greek and that linguistically they included all Christians in this case, as all are sinners.
6) you are included in the instructions, go back to the Gospels and see how well Jesus treated women, which was probably more scandalous than healing on the Sabbath
sign up for catechism classes at a Catholic parish sometime, even next semester...keep in touch, dude, God's blessings always
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