Thursday, November 5, 2009

Do you "care enough"?

This, from Robert Gagnon, in connection with Maine's electoral vote to repeal the gay marriage law, and Sr. Donna Quinn's "outing" as a deathscort in Hinsdale:

"When Jesus rescued the woman caught in adultery from being stoned, he did so with a view to
encouraging her repentance. Put simply, dead people don’t repent. Jesus wanted to give the woman every last opportunity to repent so that she might inherit the kingdom of God. So he warned her: “Go and from now on no longer be sinning” (John 8:11). A similar statement is made by Jesus in John 5:14, where it is followed up with the remark: “lest something worse happen to you.”

That something worse is loss of eternal life through an unrepentant life. Whereas the Pharisees didn’t care if sexual sinners and persons who exploited the poor for material gain (first-century tax collectors) went to hell, Jesus cared enough to make them a focus of his ministry so that he might, through a proclamation of love and repentance, call them back to God’s kingdom (hence Mark’s summary of Jesus’ ministry: “The kingdom of God has drawn near; repent and believe the good news” [1:15]).

When the church calls to repentance those who engage in homosexual acts and does so lovingly, with a desire to reclaim lives for the kingdom of God, it carries out the work of its Lord."

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