Remnant Network - 17

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!