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Discussion Forum : General Topics : What should be a christians mentality towards unbeliever friends in and arround his\her enviornment?

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Compton
Member



Joined: 2005/2/24
Posts: 2732


 Re:

Welcome ajforjesus,

Sorry for asking if you were Chandras. There's been some reincarnation around here recently. Still, we shouldn't have presumed to even raise the issue. Forgive us for not giving you a warmer wlecome.

----------------------------------------------------

I also appreciate that kingsson addressed your question. Actually I think your question is an important and timely one. With so much talk about being 'culturally relevant' and 'socially engaged', I feel your question is an urgent consideration for us today. Broadly stated, " how does one love and embrace the world like God does (John 3:16) without becoming a worldly person (1 John 2:15–17)?"

Well, whatever options we consider open to us, I've personally come to the conclusion that true fellowship with unbelieving people is ultimately not possible. We can be loving, compassionate, respectful, understanding, and friendly...but we can't expect the kind of reciprocal mutual respect and understanding in return that true friendship and intimacy is based upon.

I would like to recommend an interesting book if you are inclined to look into it: Robert Gundry's " Jesus the Word According to John the Sectarian". The author struck a cord with me because he believes that the early church could be, in many ways, downright anti-social in it's relation to the world! I admit I find this a refreshing breeze of clarity compared to the seeker-sensitive fog that the evangelical church is currently lost in.

Let me quote a few paragraphs from a reviewer that sums up Gundry's point of view well. Bare with me here...I am seeking to address your question by first adressing the broader issue I feel your question is rooted in.

Is North American evangelicalism sick? New Testament scholar Robert Gundry thinks so, and in his most recent book, Jesus the Word According to John the Sectarian,1 Gundry offers some stern advice and strong medicine to rehabilitate the patient. The deterioration he laments is most severe among those whom he calls “the elites,” that is, “the well-educated, the cultured, the economically and socially upscale” (xiv), as opposed to our fundamentalist forebears at the turn of the century who were marginalized from and perhaps by mainstream culture.... The antidote that we need, says Gundry, is a strong dose of the Gospel of John, which as he understands it has a strongly sectarian character to it."

(Time out for my own sidebar here: Sectarian is a word I've grown to appreciate in the past few years. I think, for all the talk coming out of emergent and seeker-sensitive church's about returning to 'ancient authentic Christianity", history shows that the actual ancient church was in fact a society set apart from society...something post-modern Christianity is unwilling to be. Back to the book review...)

Gundry thinks that the sectarian character of John has a timely message for today's evangelical elites of North America.

When you read the Gospel of John, says Gundry, what you discover is a very sectarian message about Jesus the Word... In postmodern terms, Jesus's message about Himself is an unapologetic, full scale, metanarrative. He makes absolute, unconditional and uncompromising claims upon those who hear Him, both then and now.

Why does Gundry construe John's Jesus as a sectarian message? What does he mean? Jesus's words about Himself are simple and clear; they are also extraordinary. In John's Gospel, those who believe “get it” and understand the message, while unbelievers do not. John creates a sharp divide between those in the light and those in the dark, believers and unbelievers, children of the Father and children of Satan. “John,” writes Gundry, “is using the antilanguage characteristic of sectarians. They define themselves over against the world, unbelievers, the nonelect. They form themselves into an antisociety that uses an antilanguage” In other words, John, and John's Jesus, is a separatist, a sort of proto-fundamentalist who because of His message necessarily lives at the margins of culture and society.

In John, for example, the “world” is almost always used in a negative sense (cf. 1:10, 29), Jesus never eats with “sinners” as He does in the three synoptics, He reveals Himself to his (sectarian) followers but not to the world (14:22), and—how can it be?!—He even says that He prays for His followers but He does not pray for the world (17:6, 9). This sectarian anti-worldliness points His followers and hearers to some sort of otherworldliness: “The one who loves his life will lose it, while the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (12:25). Thus, the Jesus of John, says Gundry, “is unalterably counter cultural and sectarian” (p. 63).

Evangelical elites in North America, on the other hand, have become worldly. We have done the opposite of what John describes. We have cuddled up to the world, accommodated ourselves to it, embraced it, soft pedaled the hard sayings of John, and smoothed over its sharp edges. Whereas John the sectarian shouted the Word without apology, we whisper it ever so politely from the centers of society (74).

Gundry argues that this evangelical erosion has taken place in both key theological tenets, but also in our lifestyles. We de-emphasize or avoid altogether John's doctrine of eternal punishment and divine judgment, we allow social and political engagement to usurp evangelism, while our interest in being seeker-sensitive is really a dumbing down of the Gospel message into a psychological massage (78). In our lifestyles he points not to former fundamentalist taboos like drinking and dancing, but to larger issues like “materialism, pleasure-seeking, indiscriminate enjoyment of salacious and violent entertainment, immodesty of dress, voyeurism (cf. internet pornography), sexual laxity, and divorce” (77–78). We have moved from “vibrant sectarianism to torpid institutionalism” (91).3

In Gundry's mind, what we need is a return to John's sectarian emphasis on separation from the world (cf. 1 John 2:15–17). This return to a sort of fundamentalism, he argues (93–94)
would be culturally engaged with the world enough to be critical rather than so culturally secluded as to be mute, morally separate from the world but not spatially cloistered from it, and unashamedly expressive of historic Christian essentials but not quarrelsome over nonessentials. "

Again I apologize if this seemed a bit tedius, but I feel it adresses the issue your important question is rooted in.

Thank you so much for waiting on us to catch up to your question.

Blessings,

MC


_________________
Mike Compton

 2007/12/4 1:48Profile
enid
Member



Joined: 2006/5/22
Posts: 2680
Nottingham, England

 Re:

Sorry to have to ask this. You have said you are not chandras, but you have not said who you are, which country you live in, if you are married or not, have children or not.

Are you a pastor, preacher, evangelist, layperson?

Do you have secular employment, do you work for yourself?

See, your first post was just a question, as was your third post.

Second post said you were not chandras, but then chandras changed his name to ruthies, so if you say you are not chandras, I have to question that.

Sorry I have to ask, but the cynic in me just won't die.

God bless.

 2007/12/4 8:00Profile
kingsson
Member



Joined: 2007/11/26
Posts: 17
Omaha, Nebraska, USA

 Re:

My bad! Sorry, Krispy... Just realize that to a Brit, we are all Yanks. Not my fault and not much I can do about it! I spent over 7 years over there (in England) and had many southern friends who chafed just as you are! So just consider that perhaps it's just us northerners who don't understand cricket, then you don't have to be included in that remark! :-)


_________________
Jim Poulson

 2007/12/4 9:20Profile
ajforjesus
Member



Joined: 2007/12/3
Posts: 8


 Re:

Reply to Enid and the rest of the guys.

Hi i am Ajith from India. Sorry to be late to give my intro but ths is the first time i am discussing in the forum and i thought people just discuss and dont introduce themselves in this process. I am not married. I am just a simple man or lets say in Our lords terms (son of man); and by Gods grace would be like to continue the same even if he entrust me any of such roles in the future. I work for a bpo company. Thats aout me.

Thanks.

 2007/12/5 23:16Profile
ajforjesus
Member



Joined: 2007/12/3
Posts: 8


 Re:

Thank you Compton. No problem in asking my identity. I am going thru your post and will reply soon. Thanks.

 2007/12/5 23:25Profile









 Re:

ajforjesus... sorry for thinking you were someone else. There was a person who visited this forum just recently who would start a thread just as you did, with one sentence or a question, but would never actually get involved in the conversation. After awhile it began to look like they were merely interested in "stirring the pot" so to speak. They were eventually banned.

Your original post sounded very much like the way that person would begin a thread... and then it took you awhile to respond, so some of us kinda jump to conclusions.

Again... I apologize for doing that. :-)

Krispy

 2007/12/6 7:27
ajforjesus
Member



Joined: 2007/12/3
Posts: 8


 Re:

k thats ok krispy. you have done nothing too much that you need to appologize. thats ok. i will not be able to be online all the time cos i browse from my office. so one or two posts a day is what is do.

 2007/12/7 2:16Profile
ajforjesus
Member



Joined: 2007/12/3
Posts: 8


 Re:

I pretty much agree with what compton posted. We lost the marking line (dividing line) between the church and the world. In the days of the John and Peter and all; it was distinctively known what the church is like and how the world is different from it. But today majority of churches solved in world that they dont have any power over the world or sin or anything but at the same time the number of meetings and preachers and messages have increased all the more.

 2007/12/7 2:27Profile
ajforjesus
Member



Joined: 2007/12/3
Posts: 8


 Re:

What do you guys think have factored this result?

 2007/12/7 2:29Profile
ginnyrose
Member



Joined: 2004/7/7
Posts: 7534
Mississippi

 Re:

Quote:
What do you guys think have factored this result?

People get weary fighting. Happens all the time. So, the oppressor witnesses this and his methods of aggression change because he no longer feels threatened. Since the static is not apparent, the aggressor, i.e. the worldly person, works to get an agreement from his former challenger. The sinner wants to be approved by the more conservative Christian because he feels like this is essential for his own peace. The Christian, on the other hand, would misunderstand this friendliness as a consession on the part of the worldy person and then relaxes. This is a ploy the enemy uses to wear down the godly. And it works. It is in the best interest of those who desire godliness to be aware of the tactics of the enemy and be prepared to flee from any serious interaction.

Compton, the piece you shared has a lot of food for thought. Thanks for sharing it.

My thoughts....and would love to hear others'.

ginnyrose


_________________
Sandra Miller

 2007/12/7 5:37Profile





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