"But Robinson reminds his readers that in addition to healing the Syro-Phoenician woman's daughter, Jesus cured the servant of the Roman soldier in Capernaum, showed compassion for the woman at the well of Sychar and chose a Samaritan to be the hero of one of his most famous parables.
These stories demonstrate that Jesus treated people of other faiths as his neighbors."
"In the Parable of the Last Judgment in Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus talks about the final judgment, when people will be divided like sheep and goats.
The goats will be those who did not perform acts of kindness toward the least of God's little ones, while the sheep will be those who fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked and visited the sick or imprisoned.
There is nothing in this parable about the sheep being those persons who self-identified as Jesus followers, nor is there any indication that the criterion for entering the kingdom is what a person believes, but rather how he or she acts."
"Finally, the account of Peter at the home of Cornelius in Acts 10 is a remarkable one for me and is perhaps my favorite Scripture.
The context is Peter's visit with a Gentile, Cornelius, after a vision on the rooftop in Joppa when Peter saw a blanket, laden with food, that descended in front of him. He heard God speaking to him, giving instructions to eat the non-kosher, culturally forbidden foods.
Then, after this vision, Peter was guided by Gentile servants to the home of Cornelius, where he was startled to see the Holy Spirit fall upon Cornelius and his family.
This prompted Peter to exclaim: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears (respects) (God) and does what is right is acceptable to (God)."
While I realize this aha! moment for Peter, the Jewish disciple of Jesus, concerns his surprise that even Gentiles are acceptable to God, if I place his surprising revelation in the context of today " and allow it to refer to people of other religious traditions " I am fascinated. Perhaps even divinely surprised."
from "Six Scriptures undergirding my attitude toward other faiths"
baptistnews.com
Eb,
When I look back at issues on which my views differed from prevailing opinions on this site, I often find that public policy eventually moves in my direction.
The border. Transgender issues. And now mail-in voting.
The USPS has now finalized a rule requiring states to provide a list identifying every voter scheduled to receive a mailed ballot and place unique tracking barcodes on both the outgoing and return envelopes.
The rule would apply nationwide to mailed ballots used in federal elections.
It originated with one of Trump's executive orders. The rule is currently blocked by federal injunctions, and the administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow it to take effect.
The rule would not turn every mail-in ballot into a traditional absentee ballot or require every voter to apply for one. However, it would require every mailed ballot to be part of an identified, voter-specific tracking system much closer to the way traditional absentee ballots are handled.
The system would provide better information for reconciling the number of ballots mailed and returned, tracking their progress and identifying ballots that were lost or otherwise unaccounted for.
It does not adopt everything I have advocated, but it moves substantially in that direction. The concerns I raised were not nearly as unreasonable as people claimed.
If the Supreme Court allows the rule to take effect, states will have only a small window in which to comply with the new requirements.
I hope they are already working on it.