Sinner or Child of God?

1. Unbashed Pacifist
How can peace go out of fashion?

2. Unabashed Christian
Holy One,
"Bless me, for I have sinned." I imagine that you despise this approach to you. Why would you want to relate to such a cringing human? Which of the biblical patriarchs or matriarchs ever displayed such a groveling attitude? It is most unseemly for your children.
Even the "prodigal" son, who feels this way toward his father, finds his sense of guilt ignored. The father receives the son is if he has said "Bless me, for I am your child." That father, like you, does not expect shame and atonement. All that matters is the child's return.
Amen

3. Unquoting Jesus
"Obviously, God cares more about your personal sins than about humanity’s collective sin. That’s why I’m only a personal savior." [Maybe it would appear in the gospel of Augustine?]

4. Blog/Rant: On Doctrine
A. I believe we should focus on what Jesus is reported to have called the two greatest commandments: love of God and love of neighbor.

B. I am not particularly interested in human-made doctrine or theology that does not relate quite directly to those two commandments.

C. It seems to me that anything else in church doctrine and church practice only serves to make some people feel justified and self-righteous about judging other people as lost, wrong, immoral, sinful, and/or unfaithful – that is, generally less/inferior and therefore unworthy of being loved by God or by them.

D. In other words, too much doctrine serves as a means of avoiding and disobeying (not following through on) the two greatest commandments.

(cf. “How can you say you love God if you don’t accept a brother or a sister as a child of God.”)

The simple version of On Doctrine:

I love God. I love my neighbors.
You love God. You love your neighbors.
People will use everything else in the way of religious belief as a distraction from or a means of avoiding those two things and what they imply.
Doctrine, in short, is usually a tool of the devil (metaphorically speaking, of course)