Author Topic: Social Gospel  (Read 10892 times)

peter_speckhard

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Re: Social Gospel
« Reply #75 on: August 05, 2020, 09:32:50 PM »
Do the lurkers care, Peter?
Yes. At least the ones I know of do. Considering that upwards of 90% (literally) of the unpleasantness in this forum involves you complaining about someone or someone complaining about you specifically by name, I don’t think you’re the guy to steer things toward a more pleasant forum.

readselerttoo

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Re: Social Gospel
« Reply #76 on: August 05, 2020, 10:14:42 PM »
This issue about NOT making distinctions between the ways and means of living under nomos should be critical to a church that wants to be clear about what the unique Christian Gospel is; and to form an exclusive bond to what Christ calls us to and that is to get the message out about his death and resurrection for sinners (who btw have no hope as they are by themselves or within their political caucuses as they are) and the value that this Gospel inherently contains for others in the divine relationship it establishes. The Gospel is contradistinctive to nomological fairness (and even if there was such as thing as nomological forgiveness it would work as it is defined and understood by the IRS! ie. there is no such animal as defined under Christ's type of forgiveness) in that Someone who no longer is imprisoned to the fate of death now lives to change others because His death was for others and His death has exchanged out our death for His life (He has been raised, right?)  What all this means is that if we do not make distinctions between fairness which inherently places us in a position of making claims for ourselves ie. self-interest issues and that btw is an addiional contradistinction to the unique Christian Gospel, the unique Gospel has no place to express its treasure chest of goodies!  The unique-ness about the Gospel is that Jesus Christ has taken your sin, indebtedness, and death and has put it to death right within His death.  By doing so a proverbial "I" has been united to a biography of One over whom death no longer has dominion.  This should be extremely important (and joyful!) enough for the Church that it would move it to cast off the ways and means of prioritizing political issues for the sake of announcing to others what has arrived in terms of who this living Jesus is for others.  In the faith relationship with Christ we dimly see the coming great distinction between what it means to live under the ways and means of fairness (the law, yes God's law: God's nomos) vs. the ways and means of the One who has shown us ungratefuls great mercy through his own death for others a product of unfairness in parte, in that his unjust suffering and death actually changed sinners in His forgiveness of their sins.  Some expressions of the Body of Christ (I'm thinking of the ELCA, esp. its national public voice) need to get out of the business of social advocacy or change its official agenda of theory and practice on it and become more intentional about what God has specifically commanded it to do and preach.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2020, 10:20:32 PM by readselerttoo »

readselerttoo

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Re: Social Gospel
« Reply #77 on: August 05, 2020, 10:23:01 PM »
Terminology matters. It offers flavor and nuance, and often carries freight of a larger mental framework. When someone talks about the "proletariat" I know something about where they're coming from, even if someone else using the term "blue-collar" might be referring to the very same thing. If someone says the "herstory" of BLM is interesting, they are referring to the very same events and telling of those events as someone else would be referring to with the word "history." But the former clues the listener/reader into a mindset.

Social justice can mean many things, obviously. But in its mainstream usage in the major media, it does not refer to doing God's will or even anything religious. So why use the term and then labor to disentangle yourself from all the other people who use the term? Either embrace the neo-Marxist, group identity politics of the social justice warriors, or reject it and stop speaking in their lingo.


Will you stop using the word "God," because it means something different when non-Christians use it? Or when it's used by the Masons. Can you not believe that when a Lutheran Christian uses "social justice," they might be using it in a different way than a Marxist?

Actually Pr. Speckhard gets to use his terms as he uses them because it is he who is using them and not others or for others.

readselerttoo

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Re: Social Gospel
« Reply #78 on: August 05, 2020, 10:26:36 PM »
Do the lurkers care, Peter?
I actually prefer it when you don’t engage with some of us here.
Maybe it would’ve been more pleasant to let the lurkers make their own analysis of what Brian or myself or anyone else here says.

Oh we do make our own analysis of what goes on here esp. with you; and, for me, sometimes Pr. Stoffregen.  That is a fact and I'm testifying to it right now.

readselerttoo

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Re: Social Gospel
« Reply #79 on: August 05, 2020, 10:27:46 PM »
Do the lurkers care, Peter?
Yes. At least the ones I know of do. Considering that upwards of 90% (literally) of the unpleasantness in this forum involves you complaining about someone or someone complaining about you specifically by name, I don’t think you’re the guy to steer things toward a more pleasant forum.

...ain't that the truth!

RPG

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Re: Social Gospel
« Reply #80 on: August 05, 2020, 10:39:00 PM »
Brian, I already know that your cat's breath smells like cat food. You don't need to keep posting it.


Bonus points for invoking Ralph Wiggum.  ;D
The Rev. Ryan P. Gage
Eureka, SD