Thursday, May 31, 2012

Be What You Are, not what you are not!

The article was highlighted by a friend on Facebook.  Ontario's Premier, Dalton McGuinty, who styles himself as a Catholic, is promoting an amendment to a supposedly "anti-bullying" law which would require Catholic schools to permit the establishment of "Gay-Straight Alliances" on campus and under the school's auspices.  McGuinty cites this aberrant behavior, and the opinions behind it as a freedom of conscience, I can believe differently than others, issue.  What is actually reveals is that McGuinty does not understand what "being a Catholic" is or involves, or what Catholic doctrine is.

The Canadian Premier is a fine example of what is rampant in the Western Church today.  A significant segment of those who present themselves as Christians, Baptists, Lutherans,and so forth, are not what they pose as, or think that they are.  Too many don't know what their church bodies teach, and when they know they disagree and feel that such disagreement does not alter their status.

Their denominational bodies may not protest, but reality does.  One does not become a Lutheran, for example, by simply adopting the name and saying that they are such.  Even those who start as Lutherans cease to be such when they cling to and espouse teachings and values that are in contradistinction to the clear teaching of historic Lutheranism.  Entire church bodies have forfeited their character as Lutheran by proclaiming this or that which is contrary to the Scriptures and inconsistent with the Lutheran Confessions.  They continue to use the name, because their is no body on earth that honestly regulates such usage, but they are no longer Lutheran.  They are not, in some cases, even Christian any longer.

My appeal would be for honesty.  If you don't want to hold to the doctrines that have historically identified a belief system, then don't but surrender the good name of whatever it is that you once pretended to be, and find or invent your own name.

If you do not, then be prepared to be called out as a deceiver and a seducer and a hypocrite of the first order.  Claim the name that fits your confession and stop trying to claim a confession you no longer confess!