Quote:
|
To rip it away at that moment suggests intentional cruelty and a desire to harm.
|
Not necessarily, I'm afraid. It's easy to demonise people but I don't believe that most people who would adhere to a rule like that are acting out of "intentional cruelty". What is in their heads is probably not "Let us hurt her! She deserves it!". It is probably more "She has sinned! We must be seen to maintain our holiness and cannot compromise with sin" - in other words, a tragic distortion of Paul's teaching on maintaining purity in the Church and a huge blind spot to Jesus' teaching on logs and specks and forgiving 70x7 times.
The reaction most likely originates in fear. Fear of the Law; fear of stepping outwith the bounds of what is percieved as "God's will"; fear of God's rejection (we are all guilty of underestimating God's love); fear of parting with the flock. The deacons in a situation like that, who may be in other situations loving and Christlike, are falling into the trap of upholding the law of man in the place of the law of God. Jesus had to contend with this all the time (Pharisees).
I can understand your position, Zerbie, but it would not work for me. Having made a committment to Jesus as brother and the Father as my father, that makes me sister to everyone else who has been adopted as Jesus' brother or sister and the Father's child. So I don't have the option to reject the church and sneer at them from a distance. They are my family, I am constrained to live with them, love them, and challenge them if I feel they are wrong. Dislocation is not an option.