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Originally Posted by Xplosive
Hazed for not confessing Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? Wow....thats just as bad as early Christians being KILLED for not confessing that Jesus Christ was NOT Lord and Savior. I dont know what Christian GLO is doing that but that is totally not Christ-like. Although Wolfman, could you put the last paragraph in laymen terms, im trying to understand what you're saying...lol
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Sorry. In the early church the greatest issue was regarding the inclusion of Gentiles as equals and not simply as Jewish converts (thus second class Jewish Christians), so that the church is the Jew-Gentile people of God in Christ. (Per Galatians,if we have one God, we have one people of God in Christ.) Paul's energy and effort went into establishing Jew-Gentile churches and the central issue he addresses in the aforementioned books revolves around giving a theological rationale and practical strategies for this in a Jewish and Gentile world with increasing sociopolitical tensions--which led to the Jewish revolt in 70A.D.--which fell along ethnic/religious/socioeconomic lines. For Paul,this was the central implication of the Gospel, as in Galatians and Ephesians, and the substructure of Romans; and figures very highly in the Corinthian Correspondance. Paul chose Timothy,a person of mixed Jewish-Gentile heritage to be his aide and a church planter;this was an intentional choice--a very controversial one for Jewish Christians in Palestine!--;namely Paul's "diversity program," but one Paul knew would be right for the spread of the Gospel of the kingdom in the eastern Mediterranean. But as history would have it, Paul's vision and work failed in the subsequent generations; just as many places experienced "white flight" when desegregation occurred, and many white conservative Christians left the public schools in the South to form private "Christian" schools & academies, there was "Jewish Christian" flight in the early church and the movement eventually became a Gentile phenomenon. So, this is the irony for me: I see this phenomenon replicated amongst the so-called "Christian" GLOs also.That's the point I was trying to make:To be authentically Christian is to be multicultural, if that's what the group is professing itself to be. That's a witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ; that's what Paul would say.
