AGREED

The church will bow as usual
Thursday, January 10, 2013

Dear Editor,
Isn’t it interesting how history can appear to repeat itself when looked at in general terms? Take the current hot air about the church’s acceptance of homosexuality. Those members of the church who think that the church will never bow to the homosexual lifestyle don’t know their church very well.

From the start, the church has always been bowing by accepting practices that it would never dream of. The church recently celebrated Christmas. How many church members know that Christmas is based on a pagan ritual that it at first rejected? In the Old Testament, disobedient children were ordered killed. I wonder which brave pastor would preach that today?
Even if we look at more recent times, we see the church bowing. The Mormon church did not allow black people to have leadership roles until fairly recently. Many other churches only started allowing women leaders in recent times.
Even in Jamaica, we see the church bowing. A friend of mine who used to work in the education ministry told me that there was a time our church-controlled schools would never have allowed teachers who had children out of wedlock into the classroom. Indeed, there was a time when the church scorned fornicators.
Now, in every instance, the church has bowed as a result of the sheer force of the new realities. Imagine, for instance, our Jamaican churches turning away all fornicators today. Most of them would be empty.
Churches in societies like ours can afford to maintain their scorn towards homosexuals, thanks to our society’s rejection of their lifestyle. However, with all the changes that are taking place around us, the permanency of this scorn is in doubt.
The church may have done a terrible job at proving the existence of God, but it is very good at “re-interpreting” scripture to accept new realities. If and when the majority decides to accept the homosexual lifestyle as normal, the church will bow, as it has always done.
Michael A Dingwall
[email protected]

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/results/The-church-will-bow-as-usual_13345450#ixzz2LufUd6yQ

Utter rubbish about God, church
Monday, February 25, 2013

Dear Editor,
I am somewhat amazed at the continuous rants by Mr Michael Dingwall and Mr Hilaire Sobers against anything that bears any semblance of God or the church.
The assertions by Mr Dingwall in his recent letter decrying the strength of the church’s resistance to pressure over the debate surrounding the acceptance of homosexuality, is quite absurd and pointless. He should bear in mind that whilst the church over the years has not been without faults, or in this case, sin, in many areas, it has been the single most powerful institution standing in the way of dictators and totalitarians. It has been the voice of morality and good family values which contribute to a healthy society. No state or agency anywhere in the world, with the exceptions of some Islamic countries, can deny this claim. The church has been vital in ensuring most of the freedoms we enjoy today, such as our privilege to be able to openly criticise them.
So to juxtapose the church as being weak and bowing to pressure in an instance is flawed thinking.
Both gentlemen over time have eloquently put forth arguments denouncing Christianity and its values, yet they fail to promulgate their own philosophy of what would be considered good moral principles and/or healthy lifestyles. Both gentlemen seem to be confused or downright idiotic in their own belief system, due to the fact that they spend a lot of time trying to denounce the existence of God, whether by reference to scientific research, which to date cannot be substantiated, or by way of so-called intellectual reasoning.
One of the problems with humanity is that it is very quick to dispel whatever it is ignorant of. Not knowing the facts does not mean they are not true. We cannot see the breath that we breathe, but yet it is the very life that we live. We cannot see our thoughts but we know they exist.
The greatest of inventions were merely beliefs at one stage. Alberto Santos-Dumont believed before actualising the aeroplane. Karl Benz conceptualised the motor car before inventing it. If either gentleman would have had a conversation with you about the possibilities of such inventions beforehand, you would have probably disregarded their ambitions and labelled them as delusional.
Now, I am not sure of how your thought processes work, but if I knew something not to be real, it would be futile of me to continue to try and prove that it isn’t. Einstein would probably attribute insanity to my very existence.
I challenge both Mr Dingwall and Mr Sobers to honestly say who is the fool in this picture: The one who says something is real and tries to prove it, or the one who knows that something is not real and tries to prove it.
After all “the fool does say in his heart there is no God” — Psalm 14:1.
Melvin Pennant (MAP)
[email protected]

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Utter-rubbish-about-God–church_13569125#ixzz2LueG8Rbn