Letter to the editor
Daily Press
Thank you Mr. Cash for your letter of October 12 (Doing good isn’t enough). May I call your attention to one sentence in your letter, “Sin as defined in the Bible… will end in eternal damnation”. Please excuse my ignorance but where does the Bible say that, either in the Old or in the New Testaments? The trick is to separate what we humans think about the Bible from what the Bible actually says to us. I am an expert in neither but it would seem that this biblical observation needs to be questioned.
My Bible says that we have all sinned, ( chosen our own way ) in this life and that we all are going to pass from this life totally alone. The certainty of death reigns over us all. The Bible speaks often about death but “eternal damnation”? If the two are equivalent we are all in trouble. Your fellow readers are bothered most because this eternal damnation thing seems to always fit the other guy best. When pressed on the biblical fine points Rev. Chandler will recite the universality of the sin question but his banner headlines expose a specialized disdain for the gay community. One would hope that this is not the case.
Could it be that this eternal damnation thing is largely a construct of the Church to get people through the doors and money in the plate? One would hope not but Church history documents it’s possibility or probability. Within the pages of the Bible is truth and help for “our” sin problem but the Church has made it so difficult to find. Jesus walked through the countryside doing Good. The selfless life style is the divine expectation designed by God for all of us and all of us resist the imperative. My Bible defines sin as selfishness not necessarily sexual preference.
There are selfish folk playing golf on Sunday and there are selfish folk sitting in the church pew. To God and to the Bible one’s earthly circumstances seem to matter little, what matters is a gut felt mysterious crazy wireless connection with our maker designer. Please God, forgive my selfishness, search my heart and make me better than I am. At the moment of death, with this faith we shall pass from life with one real friend. Should you or yours miss the connection here on earth, there will be other opportunities in the hereafter. God will be God! Check it out in the Bible.
g.goslaw
