In a comment on another thread I was rebuked for honestly answering a question. The rebuker said the following when I questioned the tone of his responses.
"“I was rebuking you in the name of Christ our Lord because of how wrong that answer appeared to be.”
I'll throw out his words and let folks decide if this is actually a biblical rebuke in the "name of Christ our Lord".
I'll be blunt with you here: it's this sort of verbal vomit that makes folk sickened by your sort of Christian. This repeated arrogant and sanctimonious excrement that you spew from your mouth sometimes is not becoming an adult Christian or adult human.
"Well, I'm relying upon God while YOU are relying on your own pitiful reason," is just bullshit of the most rotten and diabolical sort.
“…, but that sort of arrogance will turn the conversation right off. It is not worthy of those called by God. It isn't even worthy of just a normal adult.”
“Trying to suggest otherwise is a sign of mental diarrhea and you are better than that,…”
“This is more of the arrogant mouth shit that some less mature (or just vainly arrogant) Christians spew instead of actual responses. Just to reiterate: I'm not at all interested in dealing this sort of spiritual and mental diarrhea-of-the-mouth-and-mind,…”
“Would you like to answer the real question or do you prefer your vomitous crud approach?”
” As it is, I'm beginning to wonder if it's just beyond your skill set.“
“Each time that someone suggests "well, I (hoity toity, wonderful ME) rely upon the Holy Spirit, NOT my reason, while YOU merely rely upon your flawed reason..." each time someone suggests that sort of verbal vomit, they are exposing their arrogance and hypocrisy and all-around plain goofiness, not to mention a bit of diabolical divisiveness. Stop it.”
“…you give a bullshit answer that implies YOU begin with the Spirit of God, but I/we only rely upon our reason. That is NOT of grace, it is NOT respectful. It is slimy and diabolical and excrement-filled. It is not the sort of behavior that becomes Christians.”
“I'll continue in Christian conversation respectfully IF that is the level on which you wish to correspond. But I must insist no more of this brain rot.”
“"Or is the case that each time you have a yearning, you assume that it's the Holy Spirit leading you and you really rely upon emotions and whims to help make those decisions?"
“As well as the notion that you have the ability to explain to me what you mean.”
“I DO think it is an important question/point to make, although I've begun to doubt that you have the discerning powers to see why.”
Here was one of my responses to these rebukes "in the name of Christ our Lord"
“Please don't take offense, but I have absolutely no idea what role the Holy Spirit plays for you in these kinds of things. Therefore I can only speak for myself in how I approach things. If you think that humble reliance on the Holy Spirit is arrogant, then I can only apologize. I have no other answer to give you, and I won't be bullied or insulted into saying so. If you want respectful Christian conversation, perhaps bullying insulting attacks are a poor way to go about it. You can disagree with my approach to letting the Holy Spirit guide me, but to assault me for honestly and humbly sharing such is neither Christian, adult, or conducive to respectful conversation. Your choice, I'll close with this.”
Finally we got here.
“I'll add that one of my spiritual gifts is discernment, I guess you could stretch the definition of spiritual gift to try to force it to make your point. Having said that, I've answered this multiple times, I will not engage in any further discussion on this topic. I get it, you don't like my answer, so let it go.”
To which the rebuker answered at 9/16/11 9:15 AM
"“I've let it go, Craig.”
Yet at 9/23/11 7:55 PM, we get the following (after several earlier comments demonstrating that this was clearly not "let go"
“My question to you: When you are striving to interpret a passage SEEKING the HS leading, what else do you rely upon besides your reason to sort it out?
And, related, and still unanswered...
What does that look/feel like to you, being "guided by the HS?" How is that different than striving by God's grace to use your reason to sort things out/discern meaning?"
OK folks, you make the call
UPDATE
This gentleman took umbrage at the following.
"It IS my position because it IS the Biblical position."
He responded by saying that the commenter was "Conflating his hunch with God's Word."
Leaving aside the obvious that the commenter was not "Conflating his hunch with God's Word".
I then asked the following question.
"So it is a problem for you when someone identifies the Biblical position and conforms their position to the Bible." In fairness, had I used a question mark instead of a period my question might have been better received. Nonetheless, this is the response I got.
"again, I rebuke this verbal vomit in the Name of Jesus Christ the Lord. Get over yourself and quit uttering this bullshit out of your mouth. It only makes your breath stink."
This from someone who values "Grace, grace, grace..."
Update #2
Still more grace.
"I'm sorry if you truly are so unaware as to not realize what an ass you're sounding like. Embrace grace. Don't ask stupid questions. Are you saying that you truly don't know you're being a graceless ass?"
Does anyone else find "embrace grace" in this context to be at least a tiny bit ironic?
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11 comments:
In a different post we also got this "rebuke in the name of Christ our Lord"
"You ARE the same blinded-by-your-culture, brainless demonizing sort of grade school Christian as the others in your crowd. I'm sorry to hear that. I thought you were more mature than that."
It seems like these "rebukes" are from another spirit than the Holy Spirit. I thought you were very tactful.
Glenn,
Well said, thanks.
I just got chided because I haven't been showing "Grace, grace, grace..."
Ironic, I thought.
To be fair, there were other places where I responded in a less tactful manner as well.
Craig,
Yes, and there have been times I have done the same when pressed to the limit, however neither you nor I have reached the levels of the one you are demonstrating here!
Glenn,
Thanks.
My brother Craig, in the Bible, we find it is not always necessary, when rebuking someone, to saying "I rebuke thee in the name of Christ." In the Bible, we also see that it is not always necessary to even be polite when rebuking someone. I'm sure you can agree that Jesus saying, "BLIND GUIDES! FOOLS!" would not have been received any better by the religious hypocrites of his day than when religious hypocrites get rebuked today.
Can we agree on those two points? (ie, that it is not necessary to be polite and it is not necessary to say "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus...")
I will also point out that you are leaving out much more than you are including in this exchange between us.
I would hope you could be honest enough to agree that for years, I have been especially polite to my many detractors, including but not limited to you, and have done so in the face of relentless childish name-calling and word-twisting and misrepresentation of my position. Agreed?
Glenn...
however neither you nor I have reached the levels of the one you are demonstrating here!
This is one of the things that's really screwed up with conservative Christianity, it seems to me: You can slander people, you can twist their words, you can make false accusations and misrepresent their positions, you can EVEN REJECT THEIR CHRISTIANITY! and all those uses of words is okay, but let somebody get gruff with another believer, let them call their false words "Hell-ish" or "Vomit" (and false words ARE hellish and vomitous), and the religious right thinks that they have been screwed in the ass!
Your sense of outrage is all out of rational, sensible, Christian proportion. You get upset about coarse words and rebukes when they righteously come your way, but you slander, gossip and call that which is of God, NOT of God.
I'll remind you of what JESUS said when the religious hypocrites of his day made false charges against him...
when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.”
Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand...
“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven
Owch. "NOT forgiven." I would NOT want to be in that accuser's position.
I'd tread carefully there, my brothers and consider removing the planks before you complain about a brother's speck.
Dan,
To say you have been slandered by me is a bald-faced lie, playing the victim card when your false teaching has been exposed for what it is. I reject your Christianity because you worship a false Christ and a false God who think homosexual behavior and same-sex fake marriages are all fine and dandy, while the God of the Bible calls homosexual behavior an abomination, and the God of the Bible says marriage is between a man and a woman.
Your claim of gossip about you is also a bald-faced lie.
You quote Scripture like throwing out confetti, yet you don’t apply any of it to yourself. In fact, you don't even KNOW what it says, or else you DENY what it plainly says.
Dan,
I'm going to leave your two comments but want to point out a couple of things.
1. While I did leave out much in the conversation, every word that I have posted here is a direct quote from you and is in a reasonable amount of context.
2. If one is rebuking someone else, it seems like there is some minimum threshold which would include an actual rebuke. Or one could try speak the truth in love also.
3. For the most part you and I have avoided the sorts of nastiness that all too often marks these kinds of exchanges. However as anyone can see, you chose to respond in a way this is quite out of character for you. I responded to your comments, deal with it.
4. You have given examples here where Jesus rebukes the pharisees and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The problems here are obvious. You're not Jesus (nor do you speak with anywhere near the authority of Jesus), and I'm not a Pharisee. Further, are you seriously accusing Glen of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Again, this is way above your pay grade.
It would really be helpful if you were to limit your comments to what people actually say.
Dan,
to be fair, if you actually read this entire thread you might have noticed this comment.
"To be fair, there were other places where I responded in a less tactful manner as well.
September 25, 2011 8:23 PM"
In case you are not sure what I meant, it is me acknowledging that there were instances where I crossed the line in my responses to you.
Also, I'm guessing that Glen (who I was responding to) either read the thread this came from or was astute enough to find the thread in order to gather more context.
If it would make you feel better, you may post the link(s) to the threads in question so that anyone with any questions can make their own judgments.
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