There exists tremendous fear of sliding down slowly and surely all the way to hell. It is a very powerful fear indeed and speaks volumes for the intellectual insecurity and unbelief of the proponenets. It speaks too of what we have reduced "Christian Ministry" to.

Nonetheles, many millions of us Christians seem to have decided that it’s safer to shut off our minds than to ultimately trust God and the blood of Jesus and the advocacy and help of the Holy Spirit to get us to heaven. Indeed it is even feared that God will suddenly change His mind, get angry, and consign us to hell or worse, to whatever netherworld is reserved for the backslidden.

Given that this fear is actively propagated by those who cynically use it as the main platform of their "ministries" I don’t think that discussions will be immediately fruitful, still, I do believe that we are obligated to engage in discussion, at least from the hope that fellowship can be established and perhaps even strengthened.

Increasingly I am coming to the conclusion, in my own eccentric style, that we are never in any position to make the believer vs. nonbeliever distinction. That privilege (if it exists at all) would have to be God’s.

Then, you also bring up the fascinating question of perspective. It is ordinarily difficult for us to be aware of the structure of our own biases, worldviews, and interactive patterns, while reading any text. To be able to change ones perspective, even theoretically-temporarily, does demand a certain amount of self awareness. It also demands that we develop a sensitivity to figuring out the same sort of things about the author’s, and other’s perpective. Examining a text from various angles, seeing how others with different sets of tools may view the text, and so on, would be very valuable if we were actually able to do this.

I suggest though that it’s a tall order, even for a scholar. The best that can be hoped for with the average sam is that I would inculcate a sensitivity to the fact that there are different legitimate perspectives ‘out there’ and that dialogue is needed for there to be understanding and that I must suspend my disbelief (in the other’s genuineness) and mu innate suspiciousness, at least until I reach a better understanding of how ‘they’ got to where they are at.

I might even, in the intervening period, pehaps find that the other also has struggles that I can identify with, and perhaps without my even wanting to, we may become friends who agree to disagree, but still uphold one another as we walk towards wherever God is taking us, together.

Live to serve : Serve to live