Prevailing Winds "For the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom . . ." 2 Cor. 3:17, TNIV

Christopher,

I didn’t say you were a Kinist. I said you regularly check in to Kinist websites like the rabidly ugly Spirit/Blood/Water. You provided further information in your comment below that I think condemns you.

You say they have “some good points” and “interesting information.” This is a site that Photoshops hook noses onto pictures of Jewish people, discusses at length their supposed depravity, calls for denying equality — civil, social, and ecclesiastical — to Blacks and Hispanics, and not by referring to them as “Blacks” and “Hispanics,” trust me, and refers to homosexuals in the most inflammatory terms possible while extolling the virtues of the most racist, hateful “Christian” theologians of the last century. It calls the “preservation of the white race” a Christian imperative, and doesn’t even bother to dress up its racism with pained, strained, euphemisms. Spirit/Blood/Water is irredeemingly polluted, unfit for the Church of Jesus Christ.

And so I think that any Christian offering even the most muted praise — frankly, any believer who offers anything short of scathing rebuke — is at least as dangerous as the Kinists themselves. I worry less about the Kinists’ effect on Church and society; I worry instead about the influence of those who would even make room for them in Christ’s Body.

As for calling you “vile,” please understand that I take zero pleasure in leveling such a rebuke. But you have behaved not just “intolerantly,” or “dishonestly” (the pseudonym thing), or even “maliciously.” You’ve shown yourself to be what my thesaurus adds as possible synonyms characteristics like “obscene, vulgar, disgusting and contemptible.” I think I’ve labeled you, by the display of fruit you’ve demonstrated, quite correctly. That’s nothing I find amusing or affirming.

This is all not without heartache. See, Christopher, while I genuinely appreciate your appeal to our “brotherhood/sisterhood” in Christ — and I truly thank you for extending that to me — I despair that I’m not sure we are. Not because I think you’ve fallen short, or aren’t good enough, or that I’m somehow too virtuous to be linked with you.

No. Hear this, and take it to heart: Apart from Christ, I am a “sister” only to liars, murderers, thieves, thugs, and temple prostitutes. I am part of the Body of Christ ONLY (completely, ineffably, unalterably) by his grace. I fall short distressingly often. You needn’t — and you don’t — trouble yourself ever wondering if I think you’re somehow measuring up.

Here’s, then, what leads me to tears when I pray for you. I don’t see fruit consistent with repentance in what you demonstrate. Granted, you don’t see it in me, I suppose, which makes your assertion of our brotherhood all the more meaningful to me. But what I see from you, Chris, is not love. I don’t hear humility. I don’t sense compassion for the lost. And, since I can’t follow you around 24 hours a day, I have to treat you based on what I see, and what I see makes me truly, humbly, in trembling and great sadness, wonder if you really do know Jesus. To paraphrase your closing remark about Kennedy, “let’s see the fruit, and tremble.”

You make me angry, yes. You offend me deeply, personally — not because you talk about me, but because you talk so contemptuously of the poor and the lost. But you also make me very, very sad. I choose to love you; I hate no one, and I have compassion for you. I long to be your true sister in Christ; I hope I am. Still, I pray earnestly for your soul . . . just in case, at this point, we’re not. And it’s not like you’re the weak link here. If you doubted my salvation, I hope you’d pray for me.

I’m not likely to post lengthy comments or respond with more than brief acknowledgment, but you are welcome to email me privately at the email every Vision 2020 reader knows is mine: kjajmix1@msn.com.

Until then, may we both go in grace.