Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)
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Wedding
photographers don't believe me when I first tell 'em, "I have no
rules. It's not my wedding and I'm not paying you. The bride makes
the rules; but if I were you, I'd also check with the bride's mom."
Some wisdom comes
from experience.
Apparently,
wedding photographers have collided with too many clergywomen/men with
excessive, unreasonable, myopic, picayune, egotistical, and traditional more
than theological control needs over the years.
Shocking.
Matthew 15 and 23
keep coming to mind.
Anyway, I'll
never forget one of my first session meetings in McMurray, Pennsylvania.
A proverbial
church lady with a hairstyle appropriate for the 40s and reeking of perfume
that could knock over a bull at 40 paces tilted her head and said with a nauseatingly saccharine
smile of insincerity, "We know you have your first wedding here on
Saturday, Dr. Kopp, and it's important for you to know we do not allow flash
pictures during the service. We expect you, before the service begins, to
announce that to everyone."
Amused more than
surprised, for I'd been around long enough to know how the idolatrously inane
often inhibits the Christocentrically important according to the book in most
of today's churches, I responded with an equally nauseatingly saccharine
smile of insincerity, "I don't recall reading anything from our Lord in
the Bible about flash photography; sooooooo
I guess it's more a matter of our personal prejudices than
Christian principles. As your undershepherd
to the Good Shepherd, my responsibility is to differentiate between our
personal prejudices and God's will as personified in Jesus and prescribed in
Holy Scripture. While I see no Biblical principles at play here apart
from some hyperbolic understanding of decorum and reverence that, again, seem
more personally prejudicial than Biblical and
feel, from my own personally prejudicial perspective, some would
consider me to be rude to commence such a festive occasion with such a
pejorative rubric, I acknowledge your concern and, if it is the will of the session, I will
introduce you or another elder before the call to worship to make that
announcement."
Though my
response probably concluded any chumminess avec that elder, she dropped her
head without comment; and, without any additional commentary on the topic that
could hardly be considered consequential to the rise or fall of the kingdom, we
moved to the next item on the docket.
My daddy provided
this counsel years before: "You must learn how to tell people to go to
hell in a way that they're looking forward to the trip."
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C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce:
"Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil
but from other good."
Continuing,
"I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue
consists in being put back on the right road. A wrong sum can be put
right; but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh
from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it
cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it."
Concluding,
"It is still 'either-or.' If we insist on keeping hell...we shall
not see heaven. If we accept heaven, we shall not be able to retain even
the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of hell."
Matthew 15 and 23
keep coming to mind.
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Mainline
denominations along with most sideline ones are "irretrievably
apostate under current management."
Again, and I may
be wrong, there are three ways to respond.
An elated embrace of the
apostasies by those who never really wanted to follow Jesus by the book.
Exiting
faithfully by those who want to follow Jesus by the book.
Remaining
faithfully as part of the faithful remnant by those who want to follow Jesus by
the book and have not given up the fight in a Wallace, Hamilton, Luther,
Calvin, Bonhoeffer, King, and...kinda way.
What kinda
pictures are we presenting/taking?
Are our
ministries about prejudices or principles?
How do we respond
to wrong/bad/evil?
Are we elated,
exiting, or remaining?
WWJD?
Did Jesus ever
embrace wrong/bad/evil with elation...or even accommodation which is kinda
the same thing in a results kinda way?
Did Jesus ever
exit or back away from collisions with wrong/bad/evil?
Did Jesus
remain...until it/He was...finished?
Matthew 15 and 23
keep coming to mind.
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Blessings and Love!
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