Yes, I was naive. Any way, to make a long story short, this guy was quite liberal. When I had talked with him about my unsaved catholic family members, he chided me, and took offence to me trying to witness to them. He talked about not judging, and suggested that it was impossible to ever remove the speck out of a brothers eyes, because there is a huge log in our own eyes. He didn't go into detail, but that was the message I got overall. He came across as bitter and impatient. Later on I would still email and share things with him about various topics. At one point I was discussing about how the church was like the bride of Christ, and that hit a sore spot. In what seemed an unguarded moment, he mentioned about his divorce. I just found him really like nabal in the bible - too difficult to talk to. All the while he came across like an overly educated snob, too important. The one thing that made me think he might be saved, was his mention early on of seeing an end times style movie as a child, and coming to Christ that way (I heard his in testimony he posted at a church website, or something). That plus a possibly charismatic grandmother and relative were also in his life at some point. His background is Mennonite, but now he's Presbyterian (the liberal flavour). He mentioned about a divorce, and that that later church had welcomed he and his ex-wife (I presume) as a broken people. I couldn't quite fit all the pieces together. I know divorce is not easy, but a Christian ought to be not so difficult. He never once apologized, and I made a point to later apologize about any past tone, etc. He just never seemed interested. Unfriendly, and irritable (he once got really upset when I spelled "Ghandi" wrong, plus my pointing out that this famous man, without Christ, could not be saved). He just seems like an apostate Christian who has found a comfortable nominal religion with Christian trappings. Why does he even bother. Why the facade? Why the bitterness? I can't understand him. Have any of you had similar encounters with unfriendly and irritable Christians who never show regret for their manner? I can't reconcile those behaviours myself. I've had my own moments of unfriendliness and irritability - but it pains me to remain that way. My conscience doesn't let that continue. How can anyone who presents themselves as a Christian, but who does not seek to right things see themselves as saved? Any how, I'm sure my past lack of proper conversation didn't help matters, but I've tried to keep in touch with him over the years. He's mostly ignored me, and you'd think he'd have improved by now. I don't see any change in him. But my perspective is limited, so I can't say for sure. How have you found liberal Christians? Do you know of any genuinely saved folks who fell into apostasy and are keeping up a facade? I'd be curious to hear how it went.
