God, Sometimes You Just Don’t Come Through

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God, Sometimes You Just Don’t Come Through
By: Spencer Ackerman Friday April 17, 2009 10:35 am	Tweet

I’m sure it’ll stun you to learn that I don’t have many friends who study the Bible, nor do I have any theological interests myself. Andrew Exum is the exception. He read the Bob Dylan lyric that served as this post’s headline and emailed a point about what God will and won’t accept:

For the record, there is no sin beyond Christ’s forgiveness, theologically speaking. But — and here is the key — one must regret and repent of one’s sin. In other words, you have to believe you have done something wrong first.

Probably not a good idea to try and game the divine system. I know some of us in the FDL community are seminarians and clergy-folk, so please weigh in.

Update: Megan Carpentier IMs:

psst, i have read the bible and taught catholic sunday school for a year

One can only wonder about her syllabus.

4 Comments

4 Responses to “God, Sometimes You Just Don’t Come Through”

greenwarrior April 17th, 2009 at 11:43 am

IANAC, but there’s a couple more steps in repentance:
1. Stop committing the sin.
2. Return to the person you committed the sin against whatever it is you took from them – make amends.

Kathryn in MA April 17th, 2009 at 12:36 pm

Judaism:
1. Acknowledge what you have done is wrong.
2. Say you are sorry.
3. Swear never to do it again.
4. Make all possible reparations.

WilliamOckham April 17th, 2009 at 1:25 pm

Despite my user name, I’m neither a theologian nor clergyman. So, I’ll farm out my answer to an intinerant preacher who regularly pissed off the ‘world’s remaining superpower’, to the point where they tortured and and executed him in an extrajudicial setting. As a non-citizen, he didn’t have right of appeal. In describing how things would be if he ran the world, he said:

‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

[My emphasis]

See, he seemed to more interested in judging people by the right things they did than by their avoidance of the wrong things.

To my fellow Christian, Barack Obama, I have a simple question. There’s no doubt that Abu Zuybaydah is sick and in prison. There’s no doubt that it is within your power to do something about that. What are you going to do?

prostratedragon April 19th, 2009 at 2:33 am

In response to WilliamOckham @ 3