*She meant to say "without being repentant."Laura is correct. Even Steve, a member and elder of our church, who evangelizes to prisoners, sees this all the time. He sees those who wish for forgiveness, but have no godly sorrow in their hearts, or they wish for forgiveness, but only have worldly sorrow. Other prisoners know they did wrong, and confess they did wrong, but they will not repent towards God, and believe it is impossible for them to get to heaven.
After Laura, I then followed suit and looked at the blog post as well. She is correct again: McKinley never defined the word 'repent'. You have to try to infer what he means, and based on his article, I cannot figure it out.
"If we are realistic, then the wisdom of repentance as a pre-condition to forgiveness shows when we consider trusting someone who has wronged us. Unless the person who sinned against me acknowledges what he did, how am I to know he will not do so again? I would be foolish to continue subjecting myself to abuse, and I would have difficulty 'living in harmony' of a reconciled relationship of trusting someone who had wronged me in the past. With repentance, I have some assurance that he is on notice not to repeat the offense, or at least that he knows I am not willing to simply be his doormat with respect to that mistreatment. To move forward in close relationship of trust, repentance with forgiveness is the shared work for moving beyond the damage with full willingness to live in a clear relationship of harmony."
Based on this, it seems like he believes repentance is just confessing one's wrong. Confession is part of repentance, but it result, or function of, repentance, not repentance itself. His article left me more confused than anything.
So I would agree with Laura, and I am confused as to why you wanted to share this article in the first place. After Laura's assessment, I decided to check out who this "John McKinley" is, and the first red flag is that he is a professor at a seminary college. In my experience, that usually indicates he is not of Christ (not in all cases, but in many), simply because (in most cases) you have to compromise a lot of Scripture just to graduate from a theological seminary, let alone be hired on as a professor in modern day so-called "Christian" college.
Even in his short bio on the website, he never speaks of his conversion unto Christ, but rather, just talks about his passion for studying "Christology." The more I read of his writing, the more I see him (if I may use the term) "brown-nosing" other theological professors within his "professional" circles, and this was sickening for me to read because, not only does McKinley thank them instead of the Lord Jesus Christ, he will thank them for information that is deceptive, like how he thanks one of his professors for showing him false information coming from the "LXX" which has no evidence for its existence.
(See
Does The Greek Septuagint Exist?)
And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power [authority] of God.
-1Co 2:4-5McKinley relies on corrupt lexicons and concordances, and quotes from various new-age bible versions in order to distort the Word of God to get it to say what he wants it to say.
(See
Why I Use The King James Bible)
John McKinley is leavened (i.e. corrupt with false doctrines), and his profile is just him glorying in himself for all his accomplishments. Read it for yourself:
https://www.biola.edu/directory/people/john-mckinleyHis teachings are mostly made up of the same vague nonsense that I see in the average church building pastor, and it is reflective of one who believes himself to be wise, instead of relying on the mercy of God.
John (i.e. bluebird724), if you are new Christian, I do not want to be really harsh on you in any sense, but as it stands, I do not believe you have much discernment yet. I looked over this guy's work for 10 minutes and I was disgusted with him, and so that confused me as to why you were so eager to post this man's materials, and then furthermore say,
"I hope you all like it!" Again, I was disgusted by McKinley's writings; I have not liked any of his posts. Thus, I have to conclude that you're new to all this, and so I hope this might help give you a heads up warning about the dangers of such men (as I'm sure there are many more corruptions surrounding that man than was I was able to find in a short time), because they will lead you astray into a false gospel.
