Note to Chuck O'Neal from Former Church Member
This post was found in the comment section from Anonymous. How can one not feel the pain in this note?
Chuck,
Why don't you love people? 1 John says if you say you
love God but don't love people you are lying and the Truth isn't in you.
Don't you know you have harmed people and you will be accountable to
God for that? Doesn't your conscience bother you at all? How about at
night when you are trying to sleep? Why don't you overlook offenses, do
good to those you think are your enemies?
Reading the stories here,
the ones from people you have shunned; tossed aside as though they were
trash, should move you with compassion. Do they move you with
compassion or make you more angry?
You have a choice to repent of your
part in all of this and reach out to us with a pastor's heart or
continue on with vengeful arrogance. If you choose the former there can
be beautiful forgiveness and broken lives can be mended. God would be
glorified in that!
Or...you can continue on leaving a path of
destruction. God is NOT pleased with that course.
He has much to say
in His word about those who cause harm to HIS sheep. I plead with you,
for the sake of the glory of God, for the sake of His precious sheep,
and for your own sake.....do the right thing! "God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble."
With tears and a heavy heart
1 Corinthians 13 NKJV
ReplyDelete"1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
Clang clang clang, Chuck.
I am an outsider, not a part of this church, or the Oregon scene, although I grew up and graduated from a University there. With that disclaimer, there is a common element that seems to emerge from all the comments; the good pastor may be suffering from some form of anti-social personality disorder, or may even meet the diagnosis of sociopath. People like this, in the worst forms of the illness, will do anything to 'get back' at people who slight them. Not saying this is the case at all, but it is something to consider. For the record, the only suitable defense against the sociopath is avoidance, they cannot be "taught a lesson" or be brought around to the "right" way of thinking. They are permanently miswired.
ReplyDeleteMove on . . . you are a bunch of disgruntled whiners. The Amish shun all the time. Get over it.
ReplyDeleteTalk to any former Amish about that? You might have some different thoughts.
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