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 %LEGALIZE CONTROL OWN SYSTEM CONFUSE CHRIST GOSPEL 940904

     People within the Christian Church who cannot believe
that  the  Christian Gospel affirms the  transcendence  of
legalism,  rules, regulations, prohibitions, proscriptions
judgmentalism,  condemnations,  excommunications and other
tools  of addictive control---are perpetually  seeking  to
legalize the gospel,  control the gospel,  own the gospel,
systematize the gospel and/or confuse the gospel; so as to
maintain  the status  quo and empower addictive  tools  of
control.

     People who are threatened by the New Testament  often
seek  to repress the New Testament by claiming that  there
is  little  which is new in the New  Testament---that  all
that  is  worthy  of respect is to be  found  in  the  Old
Testament.    They see the New Testament only  through the
filters of the Old Testament paradigm.   They behave as if
God cannot renew Her creation through new  revelations and
new lives which transcend the old  revelations and the old
lives  of  those  people who lived in  terms  of  the  old
revelations.

     People  who  are  dominated by fear seek  to  operate
within   a paradigm of fearful control.   Through  fearful
control  they  hope that their fears will  be  diminished.
Somebody  must  be in control  for  them to  feel  secure,
because they   have  not received  the gift of the freedom
to  be  safely  vulnerable;  for even  when  security  has
been  offered to  them  it  has  been unacceptable to them
because   it  has  been  offered  in  ways  which   entail
vulnerability.  They may or may not want themselves to  be
in  control,  but to  them  security  depends on  somebody
being in control. There  are of course advantages to being
in control or to being close to someone who is in control.
There  are of course conflicts between those who appear to
be in control and  those whom they appear to control;  for
when people appear to be in control there is deception all
the way around, and reality  is not what it appears to be.
When people  are dominated by fear they cannot see reality
or   each  other  as  they  really  are---for  honesty  is
unthinkable  and  so  gifts  of the freedom to  be  safely
vulnerable   in   open   and  honest   relationships   are
unthinkable and unspeakable.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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