Liberals do not worship "inclusion" as a philosophy, except as an alternative to harm.
When reading orthodox blogs, you'll find a lot of ridicule about "inclusion." They will attempt to diminish the radical power of "love thy neighbor." They caricature the liberal understanding of love by conflating it with the "anything goes" gospel.
They are rght - sometimes. Liberals do err on the "anything if it doesn't harm another" side, and lose sight of the teleological framework in Christianity - that the end is important and frames how we live now. I admit that, in an unphilosophical moment, I might have argued such. And it is a pretty good basis for a liberal democracy.
But, ye liberals, if someone ridicules "inclusion" you may bring up Samaritans; you may bring up the Maobites, and you may bring up the rules of hospitality. I advise, however, not to play the game.
Instead remind them that we don't worship inclusion. Instead, it is simply a practical way of bringing people to God. Surely, God invites us into his love. This is what we mean by inclusion.
"Inclusion" is a tactic. It is not a religion.
Good point. I preached a sermon along those same lines once, using a baseball bat as a prop. The basic gist was that most people who like baseball were invited into the game by someone close to them, and shouldn't we invite people to hear the gospel the same way we invite them to participate in baseball.
Posted by: Reverend Ref | Aug 19, 2004 at 12:43 PM
Love the image. I'm going to borrow it!
Posted by: John | Aug 19, 2004 at 01:14 PM
I know it can be a dirty word among you progressives, but it seems like what your talking about is often referred to as evangelism.
Posted by: redeemed | Aug 19, 2004 at 02:14 PM
I do like the word evangelism. However, it has become a word synonymous with being mean and dim in some circles. They don't know the original Greek nor its humanistic roots [that's biblical humanism, I mean].
Posted by: John | Aug 19, 2004 at 02:49 PM
kinda like "born again" huh?
Posted by: redeemed | Aug 19, 2004 at 03:11 PM
From what I learnt from the book “A short history of interpretation of the bible", the term born again is not found in all versions of the bible. I did check on it.
The NSRV calls it "born from above". Does this difference matter a lot? The book seemed to imply that. Could you answer this Fr.Wilkins? I am a little confused here.
And on a side note, I do not like people who accost me with the “Are you born again" question? Not because I am a liberal, cos while growing up in India, I never did know the words liberal or conservative. It just seems impolite of someone, to ask a stranger if he was born again. In India the people who asked such a question were usually from the Assembly of God. The people from my denomination, which has links to the Anglican Church never did ask me this question. It does seem strange that only a subset of Christians seemed to ask me this question.
This is why I am puzzled if the difference in wording between the NSRV and the NIV, does matter?
Posted by: samuel | Aug 24, 2004 at 09:11 PM
Father Wilkins
Thank you for the clarification.
Posted by: Samuel | Aug 27, 2004 at 08:29 AM