Greetings:

I was pleased to see a letter (my own) on Christian Liberty published in the Faith and Values section of the Atlanta Newspapers today, and am happy that my own church newspaper, The Wesleyan Christian Advocate, preceded this by a publication of its own of a letter with pretty much the same import.

I wish humbly to confess that this letter in todays paper was *greatly* enhanced by the removal of one sentence which was urged by the newspaper editor. I will now quote the letter of four paragraphs as it actually appeared:

"The intention of the Christian revelation is to produce the so-called Gentile Christian, the person not subject to any law except the law of love. It is only in such a person, freed from the constraint of all externally imposed law, that the Holy Spirit is able to take control without interference. It is only through such control that a person becomes an honest reflection of Jesus, i.e., a person increasingly able to love as a second nature, and thus a person increasingly delightful to God.

"The most important consequence of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD was the dispersion and effective elimination of the then authoritative Jewish Christian community. But this took place only after this group had declared that the Gentile adherents to the faith were subject to no law apart from the Golden Rule [along with admonishing them to be sensitive to those who still relied upon the law of Moses].

"The present-day consequence is quite clear: the Christian must view the scriptures as a church-sanctioned history book of the early faith (and its background), and not a law book.

"However, the present day Christian church is shackled by its failure to recognize this its birthright of freedom from law. The reason is fairly apparent: the early church, in its efforts to be palatable to the non-Christian Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem, took on the mantle of legalism and the trappings of a priesthood. The results have been a moral set-back lasting almost 2,000 years."

The following sentence was deleted from the end of the third paragraph, namely: "Therefore, among other things, the Christian is not inhibited by strictures against contact with blood nor against homosexual relationships." The editor saw clearly what had escaped me due to my passion and preoccupation with the specifics of the homosexual debate, namely the power of the letter goes far beyond the homosexual conflict, which is merely a catalyst, and touches upon the liberty given to Christians generally through the death and resurrection of Christ and whereby we are then enabled to receive this renewing power of the Holy Spirit. To have remained on the homosexual question and level would have been to turn our eyes away from the fact of the real power of God's sprit. Thus I was guilty of that which I accuse my homosexual brothers and sisters of, namely they are missing the real issue, liberty of Christian conscience, and are taking a stand, in the homosexual question, which as such they cannot win.

As a sort of footnote, I must confess that I was very much taken, in a strange sort of way, by the reading in the Christian Century last year of a sort of camp meeting of Christian "Goths" and how it was that some of the younger ones went about in the camp smoking cigarettes "to show their liberty from law".

By the way, and as I mentioned to you earlier, the last paragraph of the letter is partly based on an opinion expressed by Kant with regard to how it is that the Christian faith, "the only moral faith in the history of the world", came to be burdened with legalism despite its happy (moral) beginnings.

A last word: I hope I will not be accused of the Marcian (sp?) heresy. In my opinion, the primary value of the Old Testament will lie in the effect that it had on the education of Jesus, both directly as a scripture and then indirectly through the effect that it had on the shaping of the society in which he appeared, and especially in the effect that the scripture and that society had upon Mary and Joseph.* **

[* I will also affirm that the Old Testament is a record, sometimes garbled, of God's intention with regard to his creation, and especially in producing the socieity and mindset such that His Son would arise in our midst to set us free from law, sin and death.]

[** I am increasingly taken by the faith of Mary, and have been, I think, enlightened and emboldened in this regard by the faith of Joan of Arc who was a very simple girl who accomplished mighty things by believing her visions. Joan is for me a generally recognized, historical fact which, very importantly, establishes the plausibility of the mind set and attitude of Mary***; and what mightier act could there be than the up bringing of the Son of God!]

The essential scriptural elements of this thinking are pretty much these: Genesis 3:22 (we know good and evil), Mathew 7:12 (Golden Rule alone), Peter's dream and experience at Joppa (early Acts), Acts 15, Romans 13:8-10 and chapter 14, Galatians (on the danger to the Christian of accepting externally imposed law).

[*** much as Francis of Assisi does in establishing as an historical fact the attitude and spirit of Jesus.]

Have a nice day!

/s/ Philip McPherson Rudisill