I recently had the opportunity to
have a discussion with a United Methodist minister in the form of missives left
on a comment board of a blog. The nature
of the story we were engaged in this cyber interaction over is something that I
choose not to share because I found it to be secondary to a larger issue that
this Elder in full connection brought to the fore in his editorial. That is the issue of Biblical
“essentialness”. This obviously
intelligent, well-educated man, who seems to be earnest in his assertions, said
something that had me wondering if some in our denomination are in danger of
becoming Gnostics. (Or maybe my fear is
that some already are…)
I will not share his name as I
only want to discuss the merits of his arguments and not level personal attacks
or “call him out”. This is an excerpt
from his initial post… I will admit that it is not the entire comment because,
again, I do not want to focus on anything but the specific issue raised in this statement by Rev. A. (His other stances on other issues are for
separate discussion later.)
