This Still Happens In 2007

[Bullwinkle]

This stuff still happens in 2007? Where do they find prosecutors like this? This guy threatened to "make their lives disappear with the stroke of a pen."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20218937/site/newsweek/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlates...936088,00.html

[bishoph]

Sadly, yes it still happens! Until the church takes a true stand against racism it will endure. The church has a mandate to rebuke the world of sin, but it cannot rebuke a sin which it holds dear. On any Sunday morning in America you can clearly see the racial divide of our nation.

This will not change with "token" members on either side, it must be a true love and welcome from the head all the way down manifested by having people of different ethnic backgrounds in real positions of leadership so that every race feels wanted, respected, and welcome.

Originally Posted by bishoph

Sadly, yes it still happens! Until the church takes a true stand against racism it will endure. The church has a mandate to rebuke the world of sin, but it cannot rebuke a sin which it holds dear. On any Sunday morning in America you can clearly see the racial divide of our nation.

This will not change with "token" members on either side, it must be a true love and welcome form the head all the way down manifested by having people of different ethnic backgrounds in real positions of leadership so that every race feels wanted, respected, and welcome.

you really think something as hardcoded into our nature as dislike of that which isn't like us is going to go away because some preachers pound the pulpit over it??? Dream on, brother...

Why do you think the class of 25 kindergarteners make fun of the one kid with glasses or the one kid who's overweight or the one kid who does anything else different from the majority??? Because people are naturally prejudiced against anything that is different than they are, whether the difference be race, gender, class, sexual orientation, or anything else you could possibly come up with.... Its what people do, its how we work, its hardwired in our DNA and in our nature...

It will never go away...

What needs to happen is it needs to be minimalized to the point that extreme acts of racism such as this don't happen... You stop the dislike of others (for whatever reason) at lame kindergarden teasing, so it dosn't turn into hanging nooses from oak trees and prosecuting the black kids but not the white ones or beating some gay kid up and tying him to a fence and leaving him to die...

[Digging4Truth]

Originally Posted by redeemedcynic84

you really think something as hardcoded into our nature as dislike of that which isn't like us is going to go away because some preachers pound the pulpit over it??? Dream on, brother...

Why do you think the class of 25 kindergarteners make fun of the one kid with glasses or the one kid who's overweight or the one kid who does anything else different from the majority??? Because people are naturally prejudiced against anything that is different than they are, whether the difference be race, gender, class, sexual orientation, or anything else you could possibly come up with.... Its what people do, its how we work, its hardwired in our DNA and in our nature...

It will never go away...

What needs to happen is it needs to be minimalized to the point that extreme acts of racism such as this don't happen... You stop the dislike of others (for whatever reason) at lame kindergarden teasing, so it dosn't turn into hanging nooses from oak trees and prosecuting the black kids but not the white ones or beating some gay kid up and tying him to a fence and leaving him to die...

I believe that the new creature can be free of this. But somewhere there is an operational link missing between the receiving of the Holy Ghost and the application of the power that comes with it. Because of this we have people filled with enough power to become a brand new creature or decades and yet nothing changes but their clothing and hairstyle.

Let me be sure and agree with you, though, that pounding the pulpit doesn't change anyones nature.

[bishoph]

Originally Posted by redeemedcynic84

you really think something as hardcoded into our nature as dislike of that which isn't like us is going to go away because some preachers pound the pulpit over it??? Dream on, brother...

Why do you think the class of 25 kindergarteners make fun of the one kid with glasses or the one kid who's overweight or the one kid who does anything else different from the majority??? Because people are naturally prejudiced against anything that is different than they are, whether the difference be race, gender, class, sexual orientation, or anything else you could possibly come up with.... Its what people do, its how we work, its hardwired in our DNA and in our nature...

It will never go away...

What needs to happen is it needs to be minimalized to the point that extreme acts of racism such as this don't happen... You stop the dislike of others (for whatever reason) at lame kindergarden teasing, so it dosn't turn into hanging nooses from oak trees and prosecuting the black kids but not the white ones or beating some gay kid up and tying him to a fence and leaving him to die...

My friend you obviously missed the heart of what I said. Preachers pounding the pulpit does very little, however, leadership that is visible and on purpose does a whole lot. A preacher can preach acceptance and diversity all he wants to, but until he lives it, it will produce very little change.

Secondly with your statement you are denying the transforming power of the Holy Ghost. When a person is filled with the Holy Ghost it will create a willingness in them to change when confronted with an issue. Peter was still a racist after having been filled with the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, however, it was that Holy Ghost that gave hime the power to change when confronted by God.

If an individual has recieved the Holy Ghost and attends a racist mentality church, he/she will still embrace that thinking until it is comfronted.

Originally Posted by bishoph

My friend you obviously missed the heart of what I said. Preachers pounding the pulpit does very little, however, leadership that is visible and on purpose does a whole lot. A preacher can preach acceptance and diversity all he wants to, but until he lives it, it will produce very little change.

Secondly with your statement you are denying the transforming power of the Holy Ghost. When a person is filled with the Holy Ghost it will create a willingness in them to change when confronted with an issue. Peter was still a racist after having been filled with the holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, however, it was that Holy Ghost that gave hime the power to change when confronted by God.

If an individual has recieved the Holy Ghost and attends a racist mentality church, he/she will still embrace that thinking until it is comfronted.

what are you talking about?? According to us, a minor fraction of a community has the holy ghost... such a small fraction that it is almost meaningless...

Our ministers can preach things over our pulpits 'til they are blue in the fact and the spirit can move upon those in our churches all it wants, it isn't going to change the world until the world gets the spirit... a few hundred out of 50,000 (to take the city I live in as an example) is nice that they don't have racism, but it wouldn't change the racism of the 50,000...

Yeah, the individuals who have recieved the Holy Ghost can change, and that's great, but that's 20,000,000 people worldwide out of 7.5 billion and a ton less than 20,000,000 in the US out of 300+ million who aren't racist when pretty much everyone else, on some level, is (and most of us are a little bit, too)... Great, now what?

God can only help those who want to be helped... Now we could take the messages of people like Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other preachers who preach tolerance and church organizations who preach against racism... But, see, to see God in what they do we'd have to admit that thier gospel isn't evil and they aren't all going to hell...

and, well, if they're gospel is gonna get them to heaven what's the point of us being different??? Why all the pounding of our pulpits agianst trinitarians and against everyone else if they're following God still??

OH WAIT!! We dislike trinitarians and we preach against them for the same reasons that psycho white supremacists preach against black people, we dislike them because they are different than we are... We just find justification for it becuase we think they have false doctrine...

Like I said, it is in human nature to dislike the other, and we haven't beaten human nature yet... and niether has the world...

The Holy Ghost can transform us, yeah, but we have to want it...

[RevDWW]

Ignorance has no expiration date!

[bishoph]

It is interesting that we always want to approach topics from a "world" view but seldom want to address our world first. And the reality is that I will never effect change in the world at large until I have been willing to address change in my personal world.

If as you purpose (and I agree) that most of us possess some level of prejudice, we will never be able to help anyone else untill we confront the enemy within. But the first step has to be taken.

Secondly if 12 men could "turn the world upside down" with the Gospel I think 20,000,000 could effect real change in our world if we would trade our personal agendas for God's agenda and reach our world.

Lastly don't generalize all of us as disliking trinitarians and preaching against them. I have never preached against a trinitarian, and in fact have won many of them and baptized them in Jesus name. I take a stand against false doctrine not people. And just because someone does something "good" such as Dr. M.L. King does not make their doctrine right any more than running dow the middle of the road makes me a car.

Originally Posted by bishoph

It is interesting that we always want to approach topics from a "world" view but seldom want to address our world first. And the reality is that I will never effect change in the world at large until I have been willing to address change in my personal world.

If as you purpose (and I agree) that most of us possess some level of prejudice, we will never be able to help anyone else untill we confront the enemy within. But the first step has to be taken.

Secondly if 12 men could "turn the world upside down" with the Gospel I think 20,000,000 could effect real change in our world if we would trade our personal agendas for God's agenda and reach our world.

Lastly don't generalize all of us as disliking trinitarians and preaching against them. I have never preached against a trinitarian, and in fact have won many of them and baptized them in Jesus name. I take a stand against false doctrine not people. And just because someone does something "good" such as Dr. M.L. King does not make their doctrine right any more than running dow the middle of the road makes me a car.

First, I want to apologize if it sounded like I meant all of us... I was simply meaning to say that there is more than enough prejudice on our door step, too, even if all of us aren't prejudice (simply look at my conversation last night where a brother ON THIS BOARD was saying some messed up stuff about someone who they didn't even know his name, his beliefs, or anything else simply because he assumed that they were trinitarian (but had no facts to back up his assumption)).

and, 12 men did turn the world upside down, but they didn't stop Rome from being prejudiced... They didn't change the world in that suddenly the world got all happy and wonderful... They changed lives, the made souls saved and got them to heaven, and that is definately a world-changer, but the prejudice and hate that existed in Roman society was still there... just like we can do what we can, and it might help a little bit, but, unfortunately, there is only so much we can do and the prejudice and hate in our society is still gonna be there no matter how much we do "turn this world upside down" simply because people who reject us (and thus reject God) aren't going to change...

[tamor]

Originally Posted by RevDWW

Ignorance has no expiration date!

Ooh, I like this. It's up there with "you can't fix stupid"....