Featured Would you support the baptism of a KKK leader if they had no intention of leaving racism behind?

I'm not going "to such great lengths" to claim anything. It's just that I was condemned for year for being a glutton when I was not. That came from doctors, people at church who were trying to be gentle and helpful, and to some degree, still today. I have had some hostile people claim I should be discipling others since I "obviously have no self-control" when it comes to eating. Once you get falsely accused of something over and over, you learn not to jump to conclusions about others based on the same criteria.

If someone expresses a willingness to leave sin behind, I have no concerns about baptism. Sometimes it takes years for us to gain self-control in all things, especially when we have a church culture that often rejects proven wisdom (spiritual disciplines) as a means of reforming character in the power of God.

Extreme prejudice could be a manifestation of mental disturbance or illness, or PTSD from related to persons from a different ethnicity. As a teen, I knew some Vietnam War veterans who had strong contempt for Asians based on some traumatic experiences they had in war. It was especially obvious since the US Government settled a lot of Vietnamese refugees along the Texas Gulf Coast so they could fish and shrimp to support themselves.

I don't like the word "race" since there is only one race, the human race. I normally use "ethnicity/ethnicities," but I was restricted in the number of characters I could use for the title and poll questions.

Again, if someone has a willingness to leave sin behind, I would have no issue. God's grace can do wonders in the lives of those who turn themselves over to Him. At the same time, we live and are established in God's grace to be free of condemnation from those things that we cannot control.

 

That's a good point. When I wrote that I was thinking about the roots of the Baptist denomination in which I grew up, the Southern Baptist Convention, which split from the northern Baptists over the issue of whether or not slaveholders should be missionaries. I was also thinking of my own ancestors, who were exclusively Southern, of which some owned slaves. I was also thinking of my ancestors who were alive when I was a child who rabidly supported Jim Crow laws and did not seem to recognize that African-American persons could be something other than their stereotypes of lazy, dishonest, sexually immoral, and feeble-minded. I grew up in that milieu, and still know many who hold those views.

There is a distinction, but in the American context, the two are closely related.

Has anyone here claimed otherwise?

Sure. I am quite aware of that. I have known people from all over the world, and ethnic prejudice is one of the marks of unredeemed humanity.

 

I'm not sure who you are addressing, but murder and terrorism of other persons doesn't happen without contempt for the intended victims.

I have no clue to whom you are referring, but you seem to be expressing contempt yourself. You need to get over it.

 

Ugh. That's horrible.

That might be a difference between Cushing's Disease (caused by tumor) and Cushing's Syndrome (often caused by steriod treatment), since I did not notice an increase in hunger. I simply found that I gained an enormous amount of weight on my weight-control diet of lean meats, whole grains, and moderate carbs. It has been speculated that Elvis Presley had Cushing's Syndrome caused by his quack doctor giving him massive steriod injections in the last years of his life, and he apparently had an enormous appetite as well.

I agree. Even for those who have an enormous appetite, the motivation for eating more is not the gratification of one's belly, but simply responding to what your body tells you it needs. Of course, when your body is malfunctioning, you can gain a massive amount of weight.

Toward the beginning of my weight gain, I started regularly fasting two days a week (up from one day a week) as a spiritual discipline and also hoping the extra day would have the side effect of bringing my weight under control. I continued gaining weight.

Yep.

One of the main symptoms of Cushing's Disease is the atrophy of all of the muscles in the body. It has been a long road to build everything up to normal again. The worst were the core muscles supporting the spinal column. My spine would constantly go out of alignment causing intense pain.