I love how you fall into the typical wotmania/readandfindout mindset where you are so obviously loosing a debate that you toss out the "straw man" or "its just semantics" wording as though that disolves the situation.

Hardly.

You immediately through yourself onto your sword on "that's not what I do"...when it really is. How many times have I seen you "homosexual marriage" or "gay rights"? How many times have we read where you actually admit that you're a universalist and that "what God wants, God gets"? How many times have we seen you defend sinful lifestyles and their legitimacy in society?

I agree that there is a difference between the two, but in your case, you never tell someone that God loves them in spite of their sin. In your case, you never point out that they *have* sin. You leave it some emphermal, intangible, quasi-unconnected thing...never personalizing it. That is not love....to use a term which you may be aware of...its nothing more than tickling their ears.

I know the story well of the prodigal son...and the older brother...and the situation very well. To be 100% transparent with you, I've lived it. My very own brother did practically the same thing. But guess what...he repented & came home. Sure, at first, I was that "older brother"...because I never did anything so hurtful. That is something that I strugged with for a time, until I realized 2 major things. First of all...God (and my parents) still & always did love my brother. Secondly...despite everything, I did too.

But you wanna know the major difference between the prodigal son & the unsaved of the world. The son has repented...the unsaved have not. That changes the situation completely. They are still loved, however they aren't living in their father's home & thus they are still living in that pig sty.

But this goes rather far afield from the original question of you presenting the only lasting hope (Christ & Salvation) at a funeral. As stated before, there is a venue for different presentations, but it is always time to present Christ. This is especially true when someone is receptive to listening because of hardship or grief.

~Jeordam