Quote:
Originally Posted by bearbear
Cigarette smoking is one thing, but whatabout sins that involve hurting your brother or sister deeply? If this brother went and set up a money laundering operation to defraud saints of money would that be okay?
I guess at what point do we draw the line? What if Ron Kangas pulled out a machine gun and started mowing all the FTTA grads down during the winter training? Could we still accept him as a child of God and brother in Christ if he didn't repent and continued his murderous rampage?
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Interesting question. The easy answer (easy to write from a place with less than one or two gun deaths per year) is, there is no line. In theory, we should let the law handle the machine-gunner, but we need to keep loving the guy, still accept him, forgive him 77 times 7 or whatever that number was...and I don't mean, his 540th victim or rampage we say, OK, that's enough, you crossed a line buddy, you're out! 77 times 7 is pretty much infinite forgiveness, no matter what.
I'm aware it's very easy to preach forgiveness when the crime is remote from you, or hypothetical. Still, I believe it's a powerful message and one which can also prevent us becoming too judgmental.