Thanks

1.  Truman's conviction that there may be "other pathways" to salvation is in keeping with post-modern thinking which seeks to exclude any philosophy that claims to have a lock on objective truth.  Jesus' statement in John 14:6 is offensive to those who say that all truth is relative.

 

2.  Unity is important in the church (sorry Reep).  The problem with unity as it is expressed and emphasized in our denomination is that it is unity for its own sake.  Truman is right when he says that our insistence for unity at all costs "has sought to eliminate dissent before it even got started, for fear of disrupting the harmony of the church."  However, his statement, "Unity, for me, means understanding that the best we can ever do is find ways to love one another, in spite of our differences," leads me to believe that he doesn't really understand biblical unity as expressed in Eph. 4: 11-16.  Here Paul writes the church in Ephesus that all believers are to be equipped for works of service (ministry) for the body of Christ, "until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God...then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming."  Unity is a maturity of knowledge and faith in the Son of God.  We fail to reach that unity when we deny that what Jesus said about Himself is true.

 

3.  Truman states that "the Bible is not an essential to faith for Moravians."  The Bible is one of the ways that God has chosen to reveal Himself in a special way, the other being the incarnation of Jesus.  Without an adequate knowledge of what's in this revelatory book, we can easily be "tossed back and forth" by heretical teaching.  Jesus Himself attests to the importance of scripture by the way He refers to what we call the Old Testament (Mt. 4:4,7,10; 5:17-19; 12:3-5: Mk. 1:15; 14:49; Luke 4:18-19; 7:27; 23:30; John 5:39; 6:45; 19:28; etc, etc, etc).  Look up the number of times Jesus used the words "it is written."

 

4.  Truman finds it "curious that you found my beliefs offensive."  What is offensive is that Truman, as an ordained pastor, has been entrusted with the spiritual guidance of a group of called out believers meeting on Robinhood Road and is apparently teaching them that it may be alright to seek out God through other means than Jesus Christ.  The totality of scripture teaches otherwise and Truman is placing the salvation of those entrusted to him in jeopardy.  Luke 17: 1-2 comes to mind.  With the plethora of religious beliefs available in the marketplace these days, it is more important than ever to hold on to orthodox Christian belief and to beware of the waves of teaching that would "toss us back and forth."

 

5.  The Israelites got into the most trouble when they cyclically sunk into worshipping other gods.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not the same as the god of Mohammed or Buddha.  If Truman were in fact born in Jakarta and were Islamic, I would respect and love him.  But my prayer would be that he would be sought out by the Holy Spirit and found by Christian missionaries and hopefully led to the Cross.  I too have no "interest or need to rank the world religions" because they are false religions.  If Truman in his heart of hearts cannot place Christianity in "first place on the charts" then my question to him and the PEC is what is he doing as a pastor/teacher of a Christian church?