{"id":9046,"date":"2006-02-27T19:11:01","date_gmt":"2006-02-28T02:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/02\/27\/i-cannot-stand-against-my-friends.html"},"modified":"2006-02-27T19:11:01","modified_gmt":"2006-02-28T02:11:01","slug":"i_cannot_stand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/02\/27\/i_cannot_stand.html","title":{"rendered":"“I cannot stand against my friends”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Real Live Preacher on the biggest doctrinal issue facing Christian churches in the US<\/a> (and elsewhere).<\/p>\n

You want to know how it happened? I\u2019ll tell you how it happened. I got tired. I couldn\u2019t do it anymore. I fought an inward battle with orthodoxy for years and tried to figure out what the Bible has to say about this. I took six years of Greek, hoping the original language of the New Testament might shed some light. I got a Bachelor\u2019s degree in religious studies and a Master of Divinity. I read everything I could find and talked to everyone I respected. But in the end, it all came down to this – I could not be orthodox in this matter. I could not. So I gave up and gave in. And the minute I did I felt a flood of cool relief, like water after forty days in the desert.<\/p>\n

The moment of choice came, and I chose to stand with my friends. That\u2019s the deal. That\u2019s the way it happened. I wish I could tell you that my rigorous study finally unlocked the secrets of the New Testament\u2019s scant witness on this matter, but it never did. For twenty years I asked this question of the Bible and never got a clear answer. Finally, I realized that I could wait on the Bible no longer.<\/p>\n

I had to choose my place in the middle of uncertainty, ambiguity, and doubt. I had to make a choice. I had to stand on one side or the other. The bottom line is, I don\u2019t give a damn what you think the Bible says. I\u2019m not going to stand against my friends on this. I can\u2019t. I cannot. I am unable to stand against them and not collapse from sorrow and despair.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the (very good) Lewes Smedes interview<\/a> that swayed him.<\/p>\n

On the table that day was the church’s long standing policy of excluding a certain class of Christian people from its inner circle. These were people who confessed their love for God and their faith in Jesus as their Savior and lived exemplary Christian lives in every way. Except one. And that one exception was serious enough to disqualify them for membership. It had to do with their marriages. They had been married once, then divorced, married again to someone else, and were committed to keeping their covenant with each other this time. That was the rub. Odd as it may have seemed to an outsider, precisely because these people stayed faithful to their marriages, they were, in the church’s eyes, implicitly committed to sin and for that reason alone were excluded from the circle of grace.<\/p>\n

The church believed that by excluding them it was simply obeying the word of the Lord. For the Lord had said, in terms that seemed as clear as mineral water, that people who stayed married to anyone other than their first spouse (if, to be sure, he or she were still living) were devoted to a life of continuous adultery.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Very good stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Real Live Preacher on the biggest doctrinal issue facing Christian churches in the US (and elsewhere). You want to know how it happened? I\u2019ll tell you how it happened. I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":131726,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/10\/05\/the-republicans-hit-post-instead-of-draft.html","url_meta":{"origin":9046,"position":0},"title":"The Republicans hit POST instead of DRAFT","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 5-Oct-16 12:33am","format":false,"excerpt":"And so gave us, on the GOP.com site, before it even happened, their victory lap page on how Mike Pence mopped the floor with Tim Kaine during the debate ... which hadn't happened yet.\"The consensus was clear after the dust settled, Mike Pence was the clear winner of the debate.\"(Psssst\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134655,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/11\/never-happened-never-will-happen-9-11-trials-gitmo.html","url_meta":{"origin":9046,"position":1},"title":"The never-happened, never-will-happen 9-11 trials at Gitmo","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 11-Sep-17 8:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"There are a number of men at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay who are there for their alleged roles in the 9-11 attacks. They have yet to stand trial -- and, I suspect, never actually will. The Gitmo prisoners in general -- and these, specifically -- are a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/gitmo-courtrooms.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6050,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/06\/02\/formal_communic.html","url_meta":{"origin":9046,"position":2},"title":"Formal communications","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 2-Jun-04 9:18am","format":false,"excerpt":"The formal letter from Bishop O'Neill to the clergy of Colorado has been transcribed by someone and put online. It provides the best \"official\" explanation of what happened, what the...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28531,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/11\/proud-to-be-an-episcopalian.html","url_meta":{"origin":9046,"position":3},"title":"Proud to be an Episcopalian","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 11-Jul-12 7:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"While it's not formally [whisper] marriage [\/whisper] by name, it's something very important. \u00a0And it's certainly not a matter on which the church has \"turned on a dime\" but has given quite a bit of time in consideration and discernment (and plenty for those who simply cannot stand it to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41190,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/02\/25\/facebook-gets-out-of-the-email-biz.html","url_meta":{"origin":9046,"position":4},"title":"Facebook gets out of the email biz","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Feb-14 6:11am","format":false,"excerpt":"Way back in 2010, Facebook took over the world of email. Leveraging their massive social network's pervasiveness, they gave all their members an @facebook.com email address and set it as the default contact address for everyone's account.Within months, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, AOL, and even Gmail had dwindled to mere trickles\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2261,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/19\/thursday_threes.html","url_meta":{"origin":9046,"position":5},"title":"Thursday Threesome","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 19-Jul-02 7:05am","format":false,"excerpt":"A day late and a dither short. Onesome. 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