There cannot be a dialogue when, to put it bluntly, YOU ARE NOT LISTENING.

Your statement below again ascribes to me a claim that I did not
make.  Just as the web page comment I complained about ascribed a position
to church leadership that THEY DO NOT HOLD.  Go back and read my email
again!  It is very disturbing to me to see this again.

To quote from my own article that you posted:
Moravians have always believed that God is not bounded by any human thought
or limitations. As Brother Dan Crews is fond of paraphrasing it, "God can
apply the grace and love of Jesus however and wherever he pleases." This
belief in fact has been an integral (but often forgotten) part of Synod
resolutions leading up to the Ground of the Unity. The 1818 Synod
recognized that "both Scripture and experience show that different people
are led by God to salvation in Christ in different ways."

What about the covenant with the Jews?  What about a true seeker in, say, a
rural area of the Sudan who earnestly and truly seeks guidance from
God?  Will that person burn in Hell because we did not manage to get a
missionary to his village?  Cannot God extend grace to that person if He wills?

We believe that salvation was created by Christ, and that seeker in the
Sudan may be very surprised to learn that it is the Holy Spirit that has
guided his seeking, and that it is Christ that has created his salvation
and inviting him into heaven.  But are you suggesting that our merciful,
loving heavenly Father will see such a person damned because a missionary
didn't get to him with "right doctrine?"

Spangenburg says that God will deal with those who have not heard the
Gospel "in the same manner in which He sought after mankind before they had
the Holy Scripture." (Idea Fidei Fratrum, pp 63-64).

Please take care with this issue, and I beg you, READ other people's
statements carefully and DO NOT put words in other people's mouths.  Doing
so is frankly dishonorable, Lee.

Pardon my bluntness but I was very disturbed by the manner in which you
responded to me.

Rev John Jackman


At 01:58 PM 6/24/03 -0400, you wrote:

>Can you document your claim that the statement that "[Moravians do not
>Know that Jesus is the only way to  Salvation] has been  a Moravian
>position for centuries". If this has been our position as expressed in
>writings of Zinzendorf and Spangenberg and in the documents of the Ancient
>Unity, why is it not present in the Ground of the Unity.
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