I'm wondering why the shaming, degrading and hostile attitudes and remarks are warranted to those who stood up in front of church leaders and 20,000 people who disagreed with them to voice their opposition to sustaining our leaders.It's as if sustaining our leaders is an act of faith. Or an oath like commitment as it has been described over the General Conference pulpit.
Here's what Jesus said about oaths: 33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. Matthew 5:33-37
Jesus spoke about faith and what it is and is not and never did He say that sustaining leadership on any level is a test of faith in any way.
If one cannot bear the thought of an opposing vote then whatever you do do not ask the question "Any Opposed?"
What pains me the most is that these anonymous opposers are being shamed and judged for simply disagreeing with the rest of us. They had the stones to voice their dissent in front of cameras, in front of 20,000 people who disagreed and in front of those they refused to sustain. They are brave to me, and that is all I know about any of them.
So I refuse to judge them when I don't even know their names, much less their stories or why they arrived at the problems they have with our leadership.
If I don't know how they arrived at their views then unless one knows them personally I don't know how one can judge their motivations or condemn them by comparing them to the people in the great and spacious building.
That seems like righteous judgment in the minds of most rather than in the Hebrew sense of the term which means to give the benefit of the doubt or judge favorably. Rather than judge to condemn.
From Torah.org there is this translation of the mishna 1:6 "Yehoshua ben Prachiah and Nitai HaArbeili received from them (Yossi ben Yoezer and Yossi ben Yochanan). Yehoshua said: Make for yourself a Rav (a teacher); acquire for yourself a friend; and judge every person on the positive side.
This means when making a judgment call we ought to weigh the scales of judgment in favor of those we judge.This is also known as judging favorably.
This has been the understanding of Leviticus 19:15 "15 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor."That is the opposite of the reaction I am seeing in response to simply opposing sustainment.Jesus said this when speaking about the religious elite of His day. I am not comparing our leadership to the Pharisees so just work with me on this;25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Matthew 23:25-27
Jesus is saying that outward signs of righteousness are in vain. Checking off the boxes of your religious obligations does not prove your heart is in the right place. You can be beautiful on the outside and rotten to the core inside.
So rushing to judge those who oppose as being rotten inside and the same as those in the great and spacious building may be accurate but we have no way of knowing that.
Because we do not know anything about these people other than that they oppose. And that does not prove anything other than they oppose. We don't know why because we don't know their names, we don't know their stories and we certainly do not know their hearts.
God knows. And if they are worthy of condemnation then they will be condemned but if their hearts are in the right place then they will be smiled upon by God.
We do not know either way, even if we knew them we do not know them as God does. And judgment is Christ's alone. Our job is to love one another as He loves us. To give the benefit of the doubt and judge in righteous judgment.
To walk a mile in each other's shoes, and then go the extra mile, to step inside each other's minds and to feel one another's pain, to bear one another's burdens and lighten them, to see as they do and to see ourselves and each other as Christ does because then we will understand, these are the things we ought to be concerned with.
Only then will we know each other and see how much God loves each of us. Even those who hate us or belief different than we do.
We are all beautiful in God's eyes. We were all created in His image. We are all His children even when we don't get along.
