Forgiveness and WW1 again

This raises its head again over at Monty's blog following Ben's trollish commentary.

The pick and mix culture of our pluralistic society gives some people the impression that they can take some aspects of the Chrisitian faith and apply them to their own individual brand of Christianity. That way they are still able to exercise total personal control over their belief system with no element of individual sacrifice. They apply their rules and not God's. They become comfortable with their "brand" and then have the audacity to try and convince others that it is the real deal and fix it in stone by giving it a label.

There are some key fundamentals of the Christian faith. Forgiveness is one of them.

I may not understand or indeed agree with all of what God instructs us to do. For example, total personal sacrifice for my God is one of them. And I certainly have major issues with today's Church and (to quote viewnewsandpews) spiritual bullying. (Check out the VNP blog and Tim's letter to Christianity Today)

However, I hope I am big enough to be flexible and contemplate the issues with which I'm not fully happy in the hope that one day I might fully understand.

I tell you something,it's far from easy. In fact some days it's like wading through treacle.