Are grace, forgiveness and redemptive action ever trumped by a defense of righteousness?
I mean do we, the church, have a mandate to up hold a standard of truth and right living, that can at some point deny people access to the redemptive power of Christ’s love in action?
2 comments:
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. (Mat 23:13-14)" TNIV
An issue like this came up at our congregational meeting this past weekend. One long-time charter member commented on the amount of flesh being displayed by some of the women in our church. There was a rather brief discussion that ensued. One comment was that we needed to be open to sharing the gospel with everyone, no matter how they dress, the "come as you are" theology. To which someone pointed out that we were failing to reach the more conservative old colony Mennonites by having people dressed inappropriately. The "come as you are" theology was quickly ammended to read, "come as you are, but go away changed". What strikes me as sad is that the majority of the skimpy clothes wearers are adults my age, who have grown up in the church. Good questions Dale. What we don't need is some kind of dress-code for church. We need to irradicate the me-centric church and focus it on the us and them.
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