Posted by
Eric
at
9:08 PM
"Being gracious in defeat isn't a Democrat virtue."
--Noel Sheppard
Say Goodbye to America
By Noel Sheppard,
November 3, 2008
No matter who wins Tuesday America is going to be a different country.
When the sun rises on November 5, regardless of who the president-elect is, a more un-United States than has existed since the Civil War will wake to dispute the results of the disgusting campaign that has mercifully come to an end.
Whoever the losers, they will believe they were cheated, and will point fingers at those they believe responsible. Almost half the nation will view the winner as illegitimate, and will do everything in their power to undermine his authority as long as he's in the White House.
With this animosity will come a new level of hatred between those of differing political persuasions like nothing our country has experienced in the modern era.
Putting it bluntly, and without sounding too much like Rev. Jeremiah "G-d Damn America" Wright, there will be no such thing as Americans anymore.
Read it all at American Thinker.
129 Comments:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
And you claim Christian faith as a foundation of this country?
Was it so weak as to crumble when a centrist Democrat and a centrist Republican campaign for President?
Limbaugh has poisoned his own well, it seems.
It need not be. I have no plans to NOT support McCain should he win (providing there's no evidence of foul play - if there's evidence of foul play, we ALL ought to protest whether the foul play is for Obama or for McCain, right?). I will pray for McCain, support him when he's on the right track, oppose him when he's on the wrong track - just as I will do for Obama.
I'd hope you'd do the same. If we Americans and Christians can't come together, shame on us. McCain is not the enemy. Obama is not the enemy. We are one nation - differences or not.
You are my brother, Eric. I hope you feel the same way.
--Noel Sheppard
I suppose you recognize how ironic this quote is given the froth-at-the-mouth ranting of the Right even before the election is over based on the premise that it LOOKS like they'll be going down in defeat?
You're not talking about this election, are you? If so, you're only half right. We have a centrist Republican, or so it can be argued, but we don't have a centrist Democrat, unless you're sippin' that KoolAid.
"Whoever the losers, they will believe they were cheated, and will point fingers at those they believe responsible. Almost half the nation will view the winner as illegitimate, and will do everything in their power to undermine his authority as long as he's in the White House."
I doubt very much that there will be such an outcry from Republicans should Obumstead win the election. There are obviously blatant attempts to Acorn registrations, but for them to necessarily translate into fraudulent votes isn't automatic. There might be a bigger push in some circles to see that birth certificate, however.
Now as far as the other half, should McCain win, they will definitely figure it had to be stolen. That's their M.O. It's S.O.P. (since I'm using abbreviations) for the Dem Party. And since Bush won legitimately in 2000, the left, from citizens to members of Congress, have been obstructing and undermining as if it was their God given duty.
So it should be said that now, with a minority losing the election, the degree to which the Dems and their mushbrained supporters engage in that activity so typical of them, will rise to unprecedented levels.
Based upon those positions for which Barry O stands, I would have to say, no, I do not plan on supporting him should we be so unfortunate as to see him elected. I think his positions are shit now, why would I support him should he try to enact them as president? He's shown his character to be just as smelly, why would I expect it would change just because he took an oath of office? He's unworthy for the office of president, or any other political job for that matter.
And Dan, I will respect the office of president, but I cannot respect a man who is so obviously wrong for the job. I especially cannot respect a man who so callously throws away life. Pray for him? Yes... and for ALL of us who would be detrimentally affected by his presidency.
You think the partisan bickering is bad now... just wait. No matter WHO wins.
So, are you saying that Sheppard was not broad enough in his analysis? That he should have said, "Being gracious in defeat isn't a Democrat OR a Republican virtue"?
To a degree. I expect there'll be some weeping and gnashing of teeth. I further expect the majority of the US to move on. To hopefully unite behind issues we ought to be able to unite behind.
Energy independence, for instance. We all ought to be able to agree that we need to achieve something closer to energy independence.
Smart fiscally responsible policy, that ought to be something we can all agree upon. We don't want to have any waste any programs in the gov't in these tight times. We don't want to invest public dollars unwisely, that is in no one's best interests.
Good, wholesome jobs are a needed quantity in this time of rising unemployment. To the degree that gov't can assist with that, we could probably agree. For instance, policies that encourage Green Growth would be a win/win strategy that all reasonable people should be able to agree upon.
If we develop more jobs in industries that are less damaging to the planet, that work to create cleaner energy, cleaner transportation, more wholesome buildings, etc, etc. It's all good.
We can all agree that we need to find the most effective ways to stop those who would commit crimes of terrorism. Let's work on that together. Why not?
Life in a complex world is complex, by nature. But why not seek to find our commonalities and join together on finding solutions to problems we all can agree upon, at least in some measure? Why make it more difficult than it has to be?
I have been involved in politics on the local, state and national levels for twenty years. I have never seen such a one-sided gang of fake journalists spinning an election. The level of propaganda gone wild (in favor of Obama) is completely bizarre based on Obama's lack of experience, socialist tendencies and mystery background.
Any other candidate (specifically white--yeah I said it) with the same question marks would have been out of the race long ago. The whole racial thing actually kept the media from doing their jobs.
As a journalist I am so dissappointed in the reporting of this campaign I cannot even begin to tell you.
MSUGal
Or is the death that you feel is happening is something else? Is it some sense of identity built on shifting sand, on old ways of thinking of oneself, one's community, one's country.
If my description of Obama as a centrist Democrat can't be swallowed, then try a former chief of staff for Reagan, Ken Duberstein, who has also been Vice President and Director of Business-Government Relations of the Committee for Economic Development, Vice President of Timmons & Company Inc, one of Washington's top lobbying firms (whose clients include the American Petroleum Institute, Anheuser-Busch, Chrysler, Teva Pharmaceuticals, the American Council of Life Insurers, the American Medical Association, and VISA).
Ken Duberstein is voting for Barrack Obama today.
Smoke that blind extremists.
1. Bull.
2. If you don't like it, create your own media outlet. It is a free nation and you can try to get your voice in the marketplace of ideas.
3. If your ideas/ideals are so extreme that they can't compete in the marketplace of ideas, well, don't be surprised if people don't drink from your fount. If you are in such a minority, and you believe in your idea/ideals, then you'll need to do a better job of presenting your ideas to the public and educating us.
4. You could learn how to do this some from a community organizer, if you are so inclined. They are pretty well-versed in communicating ideas to the mass market.
Some suggestions, no charge.
I have no plans to NOT support McCain should he win (providing there's no evidence of foul play - if there's evidence of foul play, we ALL ought to protest whether the foul play is for Obama or for McCain, right?).
This is a reasonable comment, so far as it goes, but it cannot be squared with his posting and praising as "excellent" an op/ed piece by Donna Brazille, writing that widespread cases of voter registration fraud on the part of ACORN is nothing to worry about. Brazille's more concerned about vote challenges that have not yet happened, in the same way that Obama played the race card preemptively: "where is John McCain's concern when it comes to people being harassed at the voting booth?" Apparently we're supposed to be more outraged at events that might (or might not) happen in the future than in actual fraud that has actually been occuring for the last several months.
A brief, rational statement on Dan's part does not excuse or justify those less rational statements he's made in the very, very recent past.
Similarly, his recent magnanimity toward McCain and Palin, can't be squared with his earlier commentary on the campaign. McCain has integrity, Dan now says, but he thought his campaign and the Republicans in general have been so dishonest that it's worth pointing out that their assertion that Palin is governor of Alaska is actually accurate. Palin is a decent woman, he now says, but that didn't stop him from attacking his fellow Christian for her supposed religious beliefs, arguing that her beliefs are so backwards that they disqualify her as an expert on energy.
(You will never see from Dan a level of concern for an explicitly racist theology that matches what he displays for young-earth creationism, nor will you ever see him question the "post-racial" bona fides of a 20-year member of that church, so long as that congregant is advancing a political agenda he likes.)
If Dan would be willing to admit that his comments went a little far and admit that he is exaggerating the comments he dislikes -- e.g., "the world will collapse and life as we know it will end" -- then one could have a reason, thin as that might be, to hope that his call for post-election unity and civility is being made in good faith.
In the absence of those things, I'm inclined to believe that this is more of the same hypocrisy: standing by principles only when they're convenient, to appropriate the moral high ground on the cheap.
Do you really know what the theology is that you are so horrified by?
I missed it. And I don't think you can explain it.
Yesterday, BenT the Unbeliever dismissed as fodder for conspiracy theorists in tinfoil hats, the notion that Democrats are considering resurrecting the so-called Fairness Doctrine.
"I think you're off your rocker EL. The only place I hear about the fairness doctrine is conservative radio. Nothing on any of the left blogs. No licking of chops. No citing of recent quotes on conservative blogs. No scrolling banners on Drudge or Fox News. The fairness doctrine is dead issue."
Well, today, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was asked the Fairness Doctrine on Fox News. The senior Senator did not dismiss the idea as preposterous. Instead, while he didn't explicitly answer whether he supports the Fairness Doctrine, he justified the regulation of political speech by comparing political speech to pornography.
"The very same people who don't want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC to limit pornography on the air. I am for that, I think pornography should be limited, but you can't say, 'government hands off in one area' to a commercial enterprise, but 'you're allowed to intervene in another.' That's not consistent."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htD_-A7pDhw
As a general principle, this statement is chilling, because Schumer is not just arguing that -- despite the protections of the First Amendment -- the prohibition of things like pornography (and, I suppose, things like libel and fraud) opens the door to regulating political speech: he's arguing that consistency REQUIRES such regulation.
(There's no limit on how far this principle can be extended: if the government can and should prohibit all businesses from defrauding their customers or employees by breaching a contract, then "consistency" both allows and requires regulation in every aspect of every "commercial enterprise.")
But, more specifically, he not only didn't dismiss the notion of the Fairness Doctrine, everything he said could be employed to justify the Fairness Doctrine.
I think it's absurd to dismiss as fantastical the notion that Democrats are at least contemplating further regulations for political speech, among numerous other areas of the private sector.
I'm dumbfounded that you, of all my bloggy pals, seem to be, the most faithless. The most fearful.
You really don't believe He has the whole world in His hands, do you?
EL, I'm a-gonna start callin' you Eeyore.
I did too, to my wife's dismay. But it was the Christian thing to do, and the American thing to do.
Here's the headline I want to see tomorrow:
U.S. to GOP: Sit Down and Shut Up.
But right now, it ain't over yet. I will not pretend that God gives very much of a damn which way it goes, and I will not insult Him, or myself, for praying any selfish prayer. We'll see. That's all. We will see.
Considering how the apparent President-elect ran on cutting taxes and accused his opponent of raising taxes with his health care plan, and considering how quickly and emphatically he moved to the center after the Democratic primaries -- downplaying every part of his political career which betrayed his radicalism, leaving very little left -- I'm not quite so certain that this is a complete repudiation of the Republican party, to say nothing of the Reaganite conservatism that hasn't been on display in a pure form since the Gingrich revolution.
Win or lose, for the last two decades or more, Democrats have consistently metamorphosed between the primaries and the general election, to a degree that the Republicans have never had to. The Republicans have not governed well, but the country remains a center-right country that values individual liberty over collectivism, and that wants to defend traditional institutions from radical transformations.
We are the loyal opposition, loyal to this country and its values and founding documents, and opposed to another generation of Jacobins whose goals have already been discredited throughout the world.
We are happy warriors, standing athwart history: we press on.
That, or stay there wallowing in the pitiful remains of "God's Own Party."
I do hope that our country remains free, secure, and prosperous with an Obama administration, but it is my firm belief that the best thing I can do to make that hope a reality is to continue working to move this country to the right.
If you want to persuade me to do otherwise, feel free to present actual arguments in support of your position.
What you shouldn't dare do is suggest that your political opponents must be silent and must acquiesce to your philosophy just because your party won an election. To make such demands isn't American, much less Christian, and the speed and ease with which you're showing a despotic streak is appalling.
I agree with Bubba. That above statement sounds more like a dismissal than a welcome mat to the democrat tent. I too will stick with my convictions. I will pray for president-elect Obama, but I will not support him in policies that go against my convictions.
That's as much of a concession that anyone is going to get for now.
I believe that an Obama presidency puts free speech in the cross-hairs. His actions during the campaign and the words of democratic leaders assures me that the Left will attempt to squash free speech. And that is just plain unAmerican.
But time will tell. Let's see what Obama does, as compared to what he has said. His words have been truly frightening, but they were-- to quote Obama himself --"just words... just speeches." The proof will be in the pudding, as they say.
Will Barack really try to socialize medical care in this country? Will Barack really give me a tax cut? Will he really attempt to "spread the wealth"? Will he really attempt to create a civilian police force equally equipped as the U.S. Military? Will his buds really reinstate the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" and effectively KILL free speech in America?
I await answers. That is who I am right now... Awaiting. I am not content to "doff my hat" and humbly ask how I may "be of assistance." I am not any party's whipping boy, least of all tonight's winning party.
So. Congratulations to president-elect Barack Obama. Do a great job, please. Do a great job and you can earn a second term. Pursue an agenda that tears down Free Speech, that weakens our military, that taxes the middle-class into desperation... and you may well lose your next bid.
This election, for me, has never been about the color of your skin. It has been solely about your stated policy desires. Nothing more, nothing less.
Call me a racist for disagreeing with you, and you lose my respect. Prove to me you are bigger than the race card you played so skillfully throughout the entire election.
Prove to me you are able to reach across the aisle, and not demand I "doff my hat" and ask how I may be of assistance. Prove to me you are better than that. Show me that I am still, in your eyes, an American.
Do that and you will earn my personal respect. Fail, and I will not go quietly.....
As for you guys, I'm pretty sure we will be just fine without you.
I remember people wringing their hands and swearing that Reagan would start World War III.
I remember people being certain that George H. W. Bush would never raise taxes.
I remember people predicting that Bill Clinton would never balance the federal budget or pursue welfare reform.
I remember the certainty people had that George W. Bush would reign in government spending and behave like a conservative.
Sometimes you never know what they'll do till they've done it. But, regardless of what they do, the Christian's calling remains the same.
As I wrote on my blog several days ago:
"As Christians, we are told not to repay evil with evil, but to repay evil with good ; to bless those that curse us ; to pray for our enemies (and neither candidate is our enemy, so praying for them should be easy).
Believe it or not, but Jesus even expects us to love those we disagree with politically. (What a jerk, huh?)
We are told to pray for our leaders (and remember: the 'leaders', when the New Testament was written, were pagans -- so, apparently, whether we like them or their religion doesn't matter)..."
I've always thought that cynicism is a coward's refuge - and it disturbing how cynical people have gotten. It's even more disturbing how cynical so many Christians are becoming - but I guess that's what happens when you render unto Caesar that which is God's.
In Acts 5:27-29...
"...The high priest asked them, saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men."
Also, please re-read Daniel 3. Then read 1 Timothy 2:1-2 in which there are 4 things which we are exhorted to do-- We Are to Offer Up:
1)Supplications
2)Prayers
3)Intercessions
4)Giving of Thanks
Why? "That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty."
Supplications, those things we are in need of, even if the need is a lifting of oppression, persecution imposed by those leaders for whom we are to pray.
Prayer, for Godly wisdom to be imparted; that our leaders may rule/govern wisely.
Intersessions, that God might intercede in times need, strife, oppression, etc.
Giving of Thanks, for all that God has given us through every means at His disposal... including kings and presidents... even when some of those things include oppression, and persecution.
But when it pertains to matters of faith, we are NOT to obey any man over God.
If Barack Obama, as president, signs the Freedom of Choice Act we MUST protest. If it looks like he is even going to sign such a document we MUST protest and seek to prevent it.
If he, as a professed follower of Christ, seeks to enact policies that contradict both the intention of the Constitution (because of his oath of office) and his professed faith, we MUST protest.
We are given certain rights by the Constitution, and as citizens in good standing we have an obligation to stand against anything that threatens the Constitution and the rights of all men who call themselves American.
Simply carrying the title of President does not give Barack Obama unfettered power to do as he pleases-- just ask any democrat if they thought the same of George W. Bush. We can protest, and stand against immorality in America, and we must stand against those who would seek to increase the moral decay in this once great nation... even IF that person is president Barack Obama.
Praying for our leaders in no way suggests we aren't to protest and ignore what our leaders demand when such demands go against what is right... "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." --James 4:17. That kinda puts us Christians between a rock and a hard place; but that is our lot as Christians. It is our reasonable service [Romans 12:1].
What was it Peter said?
"We ought to obey God rather than men."
Yes, we should. And a big part of that must include PRAYING for our elected leaders, and the leaders of other nations...... except where they contradict our faith as Christians.
The main point of my original comment was simply that you never really know what a President will do, until he does it (and the Bible clearly warns against being overly concerned about what might or might not come to pass). Pretty much every President has abused (or attempted to abuse) the Constitution. And, while we can, and should, speak out against certain unwise, immoral, or evil policies - we are called to live by Kingdom policies/principles every day, no matter what, and that calling never changes.
I definitely agree that we are not to submit when any authority tries to make us violate the clear teachings of scripture. (I didn't mention that because I took it as a given - having read some of your other posts.)
I also agree with you about 1 Timothy 2:1-2. And having the Constitutional rights we do, we are blessed with privileges the early Christians didn't have - and with certain greater civic responsibilities, up to a point. My concern is with the large number of Christians who confuse their patriotism with their faith, and who think they're only free because of the Constitution. We are free in Christ. Period. Constitutional Rights are nice - but our calling is the same, no matter what system of government we happen to live under. (Romans 13 is pretty straightforward about a Christian's obligations towards the ruling authorities, but most Christians would rather look for loop-holes. After all: "We're Americans, dammit! We got rights!!")
I also don't like the lack of Charity shown by far too many Christians, when subjects like politics or the "Culture War" come up. We are living in a post-Christian age. We can no longer assume that our non-Christian fellow citizens speak the same cultural language we do. Conversations have to be engaged in differently than in the past. But too many Christians throw scriptures and talking points, at those they disagree with, the way the Taliban throws stones at an adultress - and that greatly dishonors the word of God, and the cause of Christ.
Considering who the powers-that-be were, I find it fascinating that the New Testament has so little to say about calling the powers-that-be to account. But it is repeatedly calling believers to account. Ultimately, we are to model Christ for the world. The Church is supposed to be an example of a different way of living and ordering one's life. But American culture has changed the Church much more than the Church has changed America. Perhaps all the political power-shifting of the last several elections is meant as a wake-up call to Christians in America. No administration has done much to really help those about whom Jesus seemed most concerned. Maybe God's trying to wean the Church away from the teat of political solutions (somebody tell Dobson and Sharpton).
Jesus had a Zealot (Simon) and a tax collector (Matthew) as disciples. Talk about political opposites! The only thing a Zealot hated more than the Romans was a Jew who collected taxes for the Romans from his fellow Jews. If they had met in a dark alley, Simon would most likely have stuck a knife between Matthew's ribs. But in Christ they found something so far above and beyond politics that they were willing to give up everything for it - even their lives. Most American Christians are simply afraid of losing the comfortable, consumer-driven lifestyle they're so accustomed to (whether that life comports with scripture, or not).
The world will start paying more attention to the Church, when Christians stop looking as empty and mammon addicted as non-Christians. (But that's a whole other conversation.)
(Note: I hope it doesn't seem as if I'm lumping you in with the kinds of Christians I'm criticizing. I don't know you well enough to do such a thing. I'm speaking of things I see going on in general, but I do recognize that not all Christians are so misguided.)
mom2,
We are not saying you don't know the Bible, we're saying you don't know how to read the Bible. And I think you know that. Instead of engaging in scripture (or as you dismissively put it, "tossing scripture around" [such disrespect for the Holy Bible!]), you claim something that is simply sacrilegious: to know the heart of God.
Typical. Against all others, you chant, "Bible, Bible, Bible." When some come along who read their Bible thoroughly, you chant, "I know God better!"
Just as the Pharisees did.
When we disengage our mind we cut off part of God's creation.
Heart and mind have to work together.
And this is not me, I'm not that smart; I was made smart by others.
Just like you.
Fides quaerens intellectum... faith seeking understanding.
I couldn't disagree with you less! :) That is to say, I completely agree with you. If you've been reading other posts here, you know that just about every discussion here turns into a battle of diametrically (seemingly) opposed spiritual views over Biblical truth. Dan for instance-- I can't fault his take on the Jubilee or his desire to live within his means; I think this world would be better off if these two ideals were at the fore-brain of single single man woman and child. But that's not going to happen, and I believe he misapprehends the point and purpose of "kingdom living," that is to say, I believe his focus is on our building the kingdom of God here, now, on earth as it is in heaven... then Christ can return. The truth is, however, Christ will not return TO the kingdom of God, here, now, but rather He will return TO ESTABLISHM the kingdom of God, and to make judgment upon the wicked... to rule with a rod of iron. This was a major fallacy of belief among the crusaders, who thought they could establish the kingdom of heaven on earth themselves FOR God. Now, I'm all for living as though the kingdom were here, now, because we are not of THIS world. We are children of the King, and therefore subject to HIS rule, first and foremost, but it distresses me to hear folk care more about feeding the poor than winning their souls.
There is only one truth as far as I'm concerned, and that is Jesus, God incarnate, died for my sins. I would have no future worth looking forward to were it not for Him.
In light of that, referring to something you said... "We are free in Christ. Period." ...yes! But free from what? The penalty of the Law. Are we not adjured that we are to be 'in the world, but not of it?' In the world; subject to its laws and troubles, but not partakers of its "direction," its focus. Yet still we must work, sleep, eat, socialize with others of like faith... and those who don't to a lesser degree. But yes, we ARE free. Nothing anyone does to me affects who I am in Christ.
All that being said, it is hard sometimes to ignore what's going on around you. It is hard to not be concerned. The flesh still seeks its own path, despite the blood that has bought us. Learning to crucify yourself daily is perhaps the most difficult thing to do in life.
Thanks for your input. It is greatly appreciated, and most welcome. I pray you have not been unduly "stressed" by your visit here, and I hope you'll continue to offer your own two-cents when occasion and desire warrant.
Were you less insulting I might find less to object with you.
I think if you check, you'll find that my insults are always followers; like following, "arrogant and condescending."
But I'll forego this one since half of what you write is in that rare tone of actual discussion. (Oops, is that insulting?) What follows is in a spirit of discussion and while things may be stated strongly, it is in the lines of making an argument, and arguments have a way of being reshaped by thoughtful counter arguments.
I agree that heaven will not be established on earth by human beings. I also agree that we should be working as if it could while always taking critical looks at how things are going. I believe that bellies trump souls where they are starving, disease when it can be cured, homelessness in a land of plenty, etc. I believe this in part because that is the pattern in the Gospels. When people are fed, healed, housed, then souls can listen and souls are eternally important. Jesus preaches then.
The point at where we depart in what you wrote to Ricky -- and perhaps where we fundamentally differ in terms of theology on the ground -- is what I take to be an interpretive difference as to what "of the world” means. But neither Jesus (in John 17) nor Paul (in Romans 12) actually says “in the world but not of it.”
Paul does say, “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Now I think this seems to back up my long contention in these blogs that Jesus, Paul, and all of scripture asks us to be wary of your seemingly “simple truths” and infers a need to continue be diligent in thought and reflection, inferring that our understanding of Biblical truths can always deepen.
But on a different issue, we probably differ on “conformed to this world” when you say it means, “but not partakers of its ‘direction,’ its focus.” I think it depends on what that direction is, what governs the focus. I believe that the incarnation means that there is a lot that is good in God’s creation, that it is not totally depraved by virtue of God’s creation if it, involvement in it, living in it, dying for it. The cross does not cover a vile world; it redeems the effects of that part of the world that is vile. The resurrection and ascension guarantees the eternalness of what is good in the world. So, we are all, nature, human, cosmos, all mixed up good and bad (or absence of good as Augustine would say). It takes thought not to damn what is good in the world along with the bad. The mistake of doing just that is what I think you and the others tempt too often because of a dogmatic stand on what you and you only define as good.
The focus of human rights is a good to me, a partaker in the divine nature. It is not always a baptized goodness that exists. But it is a good. I think art is a good in the world, not always baptized, but a force that exudes goodness mixed, sometimes, with an absence of good but hardly anything really threatening to the greatness of the divinity. Politics can be a good, not always baptized, but a necessary thing and therefore a mixed thing.
The focus of the world can be a good thing, even a great thing. At 11:30 pm Eastern Time last Tuesday, a noise went up outside in my neighborhood of America’s largest city. People were spontaneously celebrating what they took to be a good, moral, even spiritual thing. It was not a complete good, an absolute good. As you say, that will come at the end, if we lucky enough that God does exist.
But my family went outside to join in. Because we believe the direction to be good, and a change from a bad direction (though we agreeably paid taxes, followed all laws, and opposed the executive government only by rhetoric and never by displaying insults or accusations in public.
But that night and every day since, we see icons, images of Christ’s love and goodness. Not because Democrats hold Christian truth, but sometimes they set an awfully good direction, partial, fragmentary, of course, but evidence of grace.
Regarding politics and the current climate, if I were you, I wouldn’t read Romans 13:1-6. It wars against everything all of you guys are about. And there is no caveat from Paul in this instance to follow only if they are Christian.
As for whom Paul writes, the first Christians were urban – witness to where all of Paul’s letters were written. These cities were urban marketplaces where the exchange of ideas, religious and philosophical, were debated endlessly – witness Paul’s speech on Mars Hill in the Book of Acts. They first Christians were not “simple folk” like hobbits, nor were they farmers in the remote areas of the Roman Empire. Many were rich. Again, read Acts. Many were well positioned. Witness the names to whom Paul addresses himself at the beginnings of his letters. The Gospels, the epistles of Paul, of Peter, of James, John, the writer of Hebrews, etc., all became quite educated people in order to be persuasive with the Good News. They challenged their audiences in styles patterned after the best thinking and writing of their time – one can read Greco-Roman scholarship of the same time that has tons in common with the writings of the New Testament.
I get insulted when Christians lay down their brains. I happen to think it is sacrilegious.
Dan for instance... I believe his focus is on our building the kingdom of God here, now, on earth as it is in heaven... then Christ can return. The truth is, however, Christ will not return TO the kingdom of God, here, now, but rather He will return TO ESTABLISH the kingdom of God...
To clarify: Clearly, I agree with you insofar as we are not going to perfectly implement God's Kingdom in the here and now. But, I DO believe we ought to be living by God's Kingdom standards now, acknowledging that we won't always succeed.
But I don't really believe you disagree on this point, right? You, too, think we ought to be living our lives now as if we are living in God's Kingdom now for, in fact, we ARE living in God's kingdom now. God's Kingdom on earth. I don't know that we disagree on this in theory, as my belief is as that of most evangelicals on this point.
We aren't to say, "Well, this is a fallen kingdom, we DON'T have to try to be moral or follow in Christ's steps now, we'll do all that later." Heaven forbid!, Right?
If. I don't want a "religion" that says "if." I want a faith that says "IS."
I don't disagree with the bulk of your comment. I am fearful of what it means for this country to have elected a man who has consistently and purposefully used race as a wedge issue in his campaign. I am especially worried about his stance on life/choice issues, among other things. I am ticked to the nines about media's dog-piling on Bush for all his executive orders and efforts to take the fight to Islamic extremism but the AP just today informs us that Obama will likely keep everything Bush put in motion because he will need those efforts to combat terrorism. Bush is a liar, a war criminal, and many other things besides, but they accept the fact that Obama will need everything he's put in motion to be effective? That is blatant hypocrisy.
On top of this you specifically have seemingly bent over backward to call me-- distilling it all down --a simpleton; unable to read or comprehend. I'm choosing not to take any of this personally, but is it not a wonder that my back is up whenever conversing with you? If you think I'm out of line please say so, but do you have to be so disagreeable while doing so? I don't believe you do.
May that day be soon.
Having said all that, I don't disagree with you on how we are to live in the here and now.
Obama did not use race as wedge issue. He avoided putting it at the center, but who we are as a nation unavoidably puts it at the center. We are not past it as a people. So what could he do, one way or the other, to change that? Nothing. He pressed on with the economy, the failed policy in Iraq (not a threat to us) the failed policy in Afghanistan (a bigger threat to us than is accepted by the current administration).
HIllary Clinton put race at the center via innuendo and made up a lot of ground. The Republican campaign leaders put it at the center via innuendo. Congressman Westmoreland, Congresswoman Bachman put it at the center via innuendo. Obama keeps calling for one United States of America with different political ideas. And when he does so he represents intelligence, calm assurity, and a steady hand. These were persuasive. I've yet to see you present reason why the majority voted before him that are not race based reasons or categorizing the majority of your countrymen as fools. You are the one bending over backward to call 54% of Americans "stupid."
But you, too, when you descend from the foaming-at-the-mouth rhetoric you no longer sound like a simpleton but a man with a reasoned position.
And I mean to be disagreeable with a lot of contemporary American Christianity, and that means the lot of us. I don't want to lay my brain down either, but I do so too often almost solely because I was formed in the American protestant tradition. To suggest that there is a deep Achilles heel in such a tradition is to say nothing more critical than what can be said about others. But anti-intellectualism is ours and we all have it bad.
Americans are suspicious of learning by heritage even when our founders were deeply learned. It is a long story too long to tell here. A little learning goes a long way, as you suggest. A lot of learning swells the head with obfuscation, as you also suggest. But deep learning lends humility and a strong bulwark against hubris and shallow divisions.
This is where I want to go and where I want Christians and the catholic church to go.
That raises a question that I hope you don't mind my asking, a question that sounds flippant but is meant quite sincerely.
Just what do you mean by "we"?
Do you mean, just we Christians or also we Americans? In other words, do you refer to us only as members of the church or even as citizens of the state?
If you mean the latter, I'm afraid that you're making a category error, confusing Christ's church with mere earthly governments, wrongly seeing Christ as a political messiah, and indulging in the postmillenial utopianism of the Social Gospel.
You write, "we are not going to perfectly implement God's Kingdom in the here and now," but any attempts to do so politically is fraught with peril, and the dangers inherent in the attempt is hardly eliminated by conceding that the efforts won't be perfect.
Dan, do you believe the state has a role in "implement[ing] God's Kingdom in the here and now," or not?
Goodness, what condescension!
As to your first point: One shouldn't have to have read any site to understand that the world is full of people who claim to be things they aren't. Everyday life should teach you that. (Heck, there's a fellow in my mirror who keeps me reminded me of that fact.) And the last sentence of my comment clearly stated that I wasn't referring to all Christians.
As to your second point: Your use of the term "...those who like to be on the wrong side of issues that any thinking Christian should be able to know the heart of God concerning..." is troubling for a number of reasons. While I firmly believe some Christian doctrines are non-negotiable, the idea that those who disagree with you are unthinking is kind of ridiculous. And who "likes" being on the wrong side of an issue? And who in here is tossing scripture around "selectively"? And how do you reconcile your uncharitably condescending remarks with the clear Biblical admonitions to not treat those we disagree with in such a manner?
And as for it being "easier to scold fellow Christians because they do not usually turn rabid on us." You can't be serious. Unfortunately, rabid over-reacting -- by Christians/toward Christians -- is one of the most shameful traits of a large segment of Christians in America. Name calling, inflammatory rhetoric, and a complete disregard for the disgrace it brings to the Body of Christ, is far more common-place than it should be.
I try to treat people with respect. So I assumed (as dangerous as that can be) that the people reading and commenting here are adults, and so would be smart enough to know that I obviously don't think that everyone who calls their self a Christian is one. (Just as I would also hope that no one here is silly enough to think someone they disagree strongly with is automatically not a Christian.) But, just out of morbid curiosity, how do you decide who is or is not a Christian?
While I don't necessarily disagree with your response to mom2, I must take issue with your labelling her response "a typical anti-intellectual American protestant" one. I'm sorry, but I've met too many Catholics to let the notion, that Protestants have cornered the anti-intellectual market, go unchallenged -- because it just ain't so.
But I quite agree with you about the need to use all the faculties God has blessed us with for understanding the world around us. That's something that Americans in general have lost sight of.
I liken the Christian's journey to being on a tightrope. The easiest thing is to fall off into one extreme or the other (e.g., faith or reason, heart or head, liberal or conservative, etc.). The hard thing is to stay on the tightrope and keep moving forward. But the hard thing is also the most interesting, exciting, and rewarding thing. It's also the thing Christians have been called to do (since falling off means you stop moving forward). And we have the added blessing of the Holy Spirit being there to help us stay in balance (which is truly wonderful, since most (if not all) of us tend to be a bit unbalanced anyway).
I think the Church is kind of like a settlement on a new continent. While it seems to bear little resemblance to the Kingdom it represents, her members are to live by that Kingdom's ideals nonetheless, knowing what glorious things are to come when the King returns. We are to be about the King's business, advancing His agenda, rejoicing in the good work He started and left us to carry on, certain that it will come to pass, just as He promised.
Some are called to political involvement; some to live in community (like Jesus People USA, in Chicago); some are called to live in the ghetto, some in the trailor park, some in the suburbs, and some in mansions. Unfortunately, we have far too many Christians criticizing those who aren't doing things their way (and doesn't the Bible condemn that kind of thinking?). If they aren't violating the clear teachings of scripture, it is generally not worth fighting about.
People so often want to fight about the trivial stuff, but ignore the important stuff. In the last century, there were preachers railing against the "evils" of smoking, dancing, and playing cards -- but most of them never said a word about the true evils being done (legaly, illegally, and often by members of their own congregations) to their black neighbors and fellow Christians.
1 Corinthians makes it clear we are to judge believers, but leave it to God to deal with unbelievers. But there is a right and wrong way to go about it. It is always to be done humbly, lovingly, discreetly, and with great care not to bring disgrace or disunity to the Body of Christ. We can disagree about some of the exact details about how the Kingdom of Heaven will finally be established. What there's no room for disagreement on is the fact that Jesus expects us to follow him, regardless of the cost, in living out those Kingdom ideals here and now.
Thanks for the kind words. And fear not, I don't get "stressed" over theological/political discussions (even highly spirited ones). I've learned, over the years, not to take the opinions (and even snipes) of others personally. I love a good free-wheeling exchange of ideas, and try to respect the opinions of others, even if I vehemently disagree. (A kind of "love the opinionated, hate the opinion" approach;-)
I like to know why and how others came to believe what they do. Heck, I'm still amazed that I'm a Christian! The last time I ever talked with you in person was at Robby's apartment in Panama City, back in late '83 or early '84 (I remember us discussing Ray Bradbury). At the time I was still pretty anti-Christian. But within several months, I started reading the Bible (expecting to prove it wrong) and OOPS! So my approach to unbelievers is with a certain ammount of empathy, because I remember that I was once like them.
By the by, were you a believer, way back then?
I apologize for posting in bunches. I hope that is not a breach of etiquette. I have to use the onscreen keyboard to type - which seems to take forever - so when I get on a roll, I tend to just go with it.
Since I had not read any comments by you here before, perhaps I did not understand you, nor do you know and understand me. Please forgive, if I was too harsh. mom2
Not.
My compound phrase “anti-intellectual American Protestantism” is meant to mean those particular forms of American Protestantism formed largely on the early nineteenth century frontier of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia, Kentucky and the Carolinas. From such innumerable movements that gained cultural power beginning with Andrew Jackson, the American character was stamped with extreme literalist bents (a poor understanding of the Scottish Enlightenment), persistent but vague millennial expectations, and huge sectarian proclivities.
American Catholicism’s anti-intellectual weaknesses stem from either a too severe loyalty to traditionalism or a noble but sometimes limited focus only on the poor and working class as they are rather than as they aspire to be.
European Protestantism can be anti-intellectual as a function of exhaustion from battling in highly informed ways over extremely small things.
But for Heaven’s Sake!! OF COURSE the state has a role in implementing the life of God’s Kingdom here on earth!
Who else can abolish slavery?
Who else can give women a voice in determining how and where they use their own God-given gifts in benefit to society?
WHY ELSE are we proud to be Americans? At no other time in all of human history has one category of people given so much to other people! How many millions have we fed around the world? How many millions have been cured of simple diseases? How many millions have gotten economic uplift from the Marshall Plan, roads in Africa, electrical grids, sewage plants, water systems in Panama, Nicaragua, etc.
The power of freedom and protection brought into the world by the existence of this country has unleashed inventors of medicines, locomotion (which greatly aids feeding people and educating people, etc.) communications, profit! where money can be spent on good and deeply caring things, art! where inspiration leads us to know ourselves and others better.
Is none of this part of God’s grace? Nothing?
OF COURSE there is blood on our hands. So much was built by killing off Indians, so much, almost everything was built by slaves. OF COURSE our imperial power has slaughtered hundreds of thousands or more in the four centuries of the presence of non native people on this land.
But as long as there are categories of people against which to compare other categories there will be oppression.
We have huge Sin on our hands as a historic body politic. For which forgiveness is to be asked and repentance to be worked.
But we also have HUGE DEEDS as a people. Most particularly since the 1940s when we came out of isolation.
Our huge deeds should give us the courage to look at our huge sins.
This would be my view as Christian American.
Of course the language as a citizen is different. A nation that leads on human rights (the very term a result of great Americans like Eleanor Roosevelt working toward and in the UN), that leads in helping other nations in need (look at USAID), a nation that often commits its troops to prevent other slaughter.
We should be proud.
We will always be proud of Bush taking down the Taliban, even proud of taking down Saddam Hussein. Yes he was incompetent in the longer run. But his initial move was an American move, resting on what we did for Europe mid-century, Japan and Asia as well.
Power used for peace, healing, strengthening others, liberating ourselves, giving freedom, protection, and money so that so many of us can thrive and lend our talents to the whole… all this, all this is part of God’s life of grace and life in the Kingdom on earth.
How much better off are we – in the sense of God’s Kingdom – than anyone else in history?
Power continually corrupts us and the state will never institute the Kingdom. But the degree to which we pay attention as a body politic to how our power can and does corrupt us is the degree to which we move forward like the Kingdom would have us move forward as a people and liberate and empower ourselves and others.
This whole discussion is an example of how the anti-intellectual tradition in American religion traps us in small boxes which we think are Biblical but are really made out of the millennial fantasies of our agrarian forefathers living - they thought - on the edge of the civilized world with no education and a cultic approach to OT prophecies.
For what it's worth, I'm not sure that Christians are even intended to begin implementing God's kingdom, individually or corporately as the church.
It seems to me that the church's role is less that of the first wave of an invasion force, and more an "underground railroad," showing the people the way to return to the King before the King brings His army to reclaim the rebel territory that is rightfully his. We should certainly improve the world around us in what small ways we can, as humble attempts to improve our neighbors' quality of life, as we go, but that's not our highest priority, since the souls that are being saved will far outlast any freedom, justice, peace, or prosperity we bring about in this world:
It's not that that we improve this world, and Christ comes to perfect what we improved. Instead, Christ replaces the world exists. Hence, the new heaven and the new earth.
We're the salt of the earth, but Christ is the resurrection and the life, and the difference is stark, between salt's role of preventing or retarding further decay and Christ's power to undo and reverse that decay. While pointing the way to Christ, the most we can do in this world is to act as a stopgap against further sin and try to make the most modest improvements.
We're told that we will always be hearing about wars and rumors of wars, and that the poor will always be with us. Utopian attempts to eradicate these realities in the name of peace and social justice -- even marginally less hubristic attempts, those that recognize that the results won't be absolutely perfect -- defy those intrinsic flaws in human nature that will not be corrected until the end of history, and whose correction should not be attempted in the meantime.
The attempt to perfect man (or even get really close), which is at the heart of all radicalism from Rousseau to Marx to political campaigns that invoke the need to "fix our souls," is completely at odds with the Christian view of man, which sees man as so thoroughly depraved that only the most incredible intervention on God's part -- His first becoming human, then dying for our sins -- is the only corrective.
In the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13, the servants suggest pulling up the tares that are growing alongside the wheat, an act that could only be described as radical. It is worth noting, not only that the Master forbade them from doing any such thing before the harvest, but that He didn't question their intentions: the servants may have had the wheat's best interest in mind, but it doesn't mean their idea was a good one, much less one that actually has their Master's blessing.
Dan, when you appeal to the Lord's Prayer to suggest that our praying for God's kingdom to come means that we should work to bring that kingdom about, and when you then connect that appeal to some political point -- as you almost inevitably do -- it seems to me that you tread in very dangerous waters.
If you do believe that the state has no role in bringing about God's kingdom, I think you should be more careful about invoking that kingdom when advocating your pet political philosophies.
I certainly agree that the gov't can be a force for good and to the degree that any truly Good thing is of God, then yes, I agree with you. But I'm not looking for no theocracy - neither from the Right NOR from the Left.
If you do believe that the state has no role in bringing about God's kingdom, I think you should be more careful about invoking that kingdom when advocating your pet political philosophies.
See the above clarification to my clarification. I have no problem expecting our gov't to do the Right thing. I believe you would agree with this. I have no problem with opposing our gov't when it does the wrong thing. I believe you agree with this.
I do NOT want to set up a Left OR Right theocracy. I do not want gov't implementing policies for purely Christian reasons. That is, if the majority in the US were Christian and wanted the gov't to implement policies requiring people to join a church or requiring that we accept some church's definition of marriage as the only one, I am opposed to such implementation of religious ideology.
If, as a Christian, I believe it a moral good to tend to the needs of the least of these and I also have good civic reasoning for doing so (for example, it's cheaper to educate prisoners than it is to continually re-imprison them), then I am fine with taking those steps to advocate that moral good that happens to coincide with my religious belief system.
Its this withered heart theology that cannot feed the hungry, or see it as meaningful, cannot heal the sick, or see it as merciful, cannot extend peace, and see it as love, this kind of anti-Christ Christian theology that reads the Bible from cover to cover and back again and never see Jesus. The ascension was missed because someone was scanning the horizon with his rifle in his hand looking for the red man.
-Declaration of Independence
-US Constitution
-Bill of Rights
It is poisoning Christian conversation and it is poisoning our public square.
It is not wrong to shout down the jaded faith of fellow Christians with voices of passionate commitment to a more faithful and loving church.
It is not love to tolerate a theology that leads to bankrupt lives, though no theology is whole.
It is not love to let an admission of one's own limitedness lull one to sleep regarding destructive tendencies.
I do not find it to be love to let people be lulled to sleep regarding destructive tendencies by failing to show them the full nature of God. God's love sent His Son to the Cross to die for our sins, but He has many more attributes. If we fail to acknowledge His holiness or justice or other attributes, we do not make Him Lord.
mom2
But if holiness and justice is meant to signify delivering God's judgment on his behalf, as many believe, then one who believes fervently in such a notion of Biblical truth better pick up a sword and stand at the door of Planned Parenthood and be prepared to swing and prepared for the consequences of acting so faithfully. If those who believe in this way do not pick up the sword, then they are simply lying to themselves about they really believe.
Just like Bubba, apparently by what he writes. These compromisers can choose to be more lukewarm about their faith, refuse the fight, and sit in the den gleefully waiting for His terrible swift sword to cut the head off those "who do not make Him Lord" in the right way or even not at all.
Obviously, I do not find either of the last two examples to be Christian faith IN God but faith in one's faith, a kind of fool's errand of believing in one's own belief.
And having sat in my den just these past few years and watched believers cut the heads off those they considered non-believers, I do not find it an example to follow.
What god did the believers who were cutting off heads claim? If you have watched the current news, you will find those believers have rejected Christ. There have been some deaths attributed to so-called christians on occasion, but multiple deaths have been committed by those not believing in Christ. Your last post brought to my mind what I was meaning earlier, in that the intellect can acknowledge God, while the heart is still denying.
mom2
And if so do those who work at Planned Parenthood qualify? How about those who support PP monetarily? Or those who just vote for Democrats?
If you say yes, to any of the above, then you better be out there making it happen, in order to follow Biblical teaching.
If you say no, then why? Stand for yourself. Why not? What is Biblical reasoning? What is your modern rational reasoning?
Where does you holiness and justice live?
So prochoice/prolife, euthanasia, capital punishment, torture/intelligence, suspension of habeas corpus/wrongful imprisonment, gay marriage... these issues are negligible compared to being saved for you, yes?
All the energy and emotions that go into these issues are a distraction from the King in Heaven?
I have been peeking, though. Carry on please.
Bubba is suggesting that it does not really matter in any deep sense one way or the other, it seems to me.
mom2 seems drawn to that but then not really. Hard to know where she stands.
But if the answer is yes, then the question is what kind of good, and how does one defend one's choice of what kind of good one does?
Finally, with what kind of dedication and why that much?
I will make clear, however, that I do not believe as you think I do, that "it does not really matter in any deep sense one way or the other" to do any good in the world.
I believe we should certainly improve the world around us in what small ways we can, as humble attempts to improve our neighbors' quality of life.
This is why I wrote, "We should certainly improve the world around us in what small ways we can, as humble attempts to improve our neighbors' quality of life, as we go, but that's not our highest priority, since the souls that are being saved will far outlast any freedom, justice, peace, or prosperity we bring about in this world."
I don't deny the duty to help others in meeting their physical needs. What I deny is, first, prioritizing that duty above the duty of making disciples; second, the notion that this duty ought to be handled by the state to any great degree; and third, the belief that we can actually reach or even approximate an earthly paradise through our efforts.
Please elaborate on this sentence Bubba. I want to make sure I understand your thought, before I comment from a atheist/agnostic perspective.
--6:40 minutes of my life I can't get back.
"The next day they took him, and had him into the armory, where they showed him all manner of furniture which their Lord had provided for pilgrims, as sword, shield, helmet, breastplate, all-prayer, and shoes that would not wear out. And there was here enough of this to harness out as many men for the service of their Lord as there be stars in the heaven for multitude."
Only, in my case, I've been carrying all the things the Lord gave me much like Christian carried his burdens to the foot of the cross. I've only just begun to actually put these gifts on. I'm still working out how to put them on.
I'm mentally pooped.
Give me some time to read what's been writ, and I'll address you guys in the morning.
Today, by the way, has been the longest day at the new post. Usually I get an ad or two done in 1,2 or 3 hours. But THIS client...
Good thing this was a "extra-man" day in Production, otherwise I'd a had to break away for news... as it is, I still have to ingest a few commercials into the server... I checked. No one down there's even looked at 'em.
[sigh]
Time to hit the guitar and soothe this savage soul so's I can get some sleep. Ben and I have to finish a webpage tomorrow, then... should fortune so smile upon me in particular... there'll be time to play on Friday.
God bless you all, and goodnight.
No harm done, no foul. I don't tend to have thin skin, so I don't get offended easily.
I've read some of the posts and comments, hereabout, but wouldn't presume to yet know where anyone here stands on any issue. I try to be slow to judge, since the written/typed word can be so easily misunderstood (especially since the reader can't see facial expressions and body language, or hear vocal inflections).
I try to ask questions to find out more about a person's position. Depending on the other person's approach, I may use tongue-in-cheek humor or even mild sarcasm in the questions - which can sometimes appear ruder in print than they sounded in my head;-) But I try to never be intentionally rude to anyone.
I don't doubt that Eric has received abuse from commenters (the relative anonymity of the Internet seems to embolden those kinds of people). And I can understand how one can become protective of a friend that's been attacked so.
And I do agree that most things in scripture are pretty easy to understand, if one isn't trying to twist verses into saying what one would like them to say, rather than what they actually do say. Unfortunately, more and more people seem to prefer that the Bible be a reflection of them, rather than the revelation of God.
[Note: Sorry for the tardy response. I haven't felt well, the last couple of days (nothing serious), and haven't been able to stay at the computer long enough to type anything.]
It always bothers me when one describes the weaknesses of those they agree with in more flattering terms than the weaknesses of those they don't. I don't believe for a moment that Catholic anti-intellectualism is any more (or less) the result of misguided "loyalty" , or "noble" intent on their part.
A dozen or so years ago, I frequented a couple of theology chat rooms - one, Catholic/one, Protestant - and the thing that most amazed me was how very much alike they were. Same smug sense of superiority. Same prejudicial stereo-typing of "the other side". It was fascinating, but incredibly sad.
I do tend agree with you that God is able to use the State (even as an unwitting accomplice) to help accomplish His purposes. And I applaud you're view of American history as a combination of great successes and terrible failures (too many seem to want to ignore one reality or the other).
But your tone towards those who disagree with you is troubling. Why be such a bully? Why try to force people into defending positions they don't hold? And please don't use the old, 'well I'm just so passionate about the truth that I can't tolerate those who abuse it', canard. You seem way too intelligent to believe such nonsense. That's Fred Phelps territory (and you're no Fred Phelps, thank Heaven).
By the way, are you (by any chance) in college or seminary?
It is interesting that none of the New Testament writers (or characters) have much of anything to say about the State. Perhaps that should tell us something. In fact, the assumption seems to be that truly following Jesus is pretty much guaranteed to get you in trouble with the 'powers-that-be' of this world.
Also, I would think that all the Old Testament prophecies condemning Israel's habit of looking for political solutions (often Egypt) to her problems should be reason enough to be wary of getting in bed with the State.
The Apostle Paul says that there are different members of the Body of Christ (just as there are of a human body), and one member shouldn't despise another, simply because it serves a different function. Unfortunately, to the world, the Body's members are warring at one another in such a frenzy that the Church looks like one huge prolonged epileptic seizure.
Finally, Jesus never really says anything about the size of the difference the Church will make in the world - that's, apparently, not an issue. He simply said to go into all the world, preach the Gospel, make disciples. He said the world would know we're His disciples if we love one another (you know, by calling our brothers and sisters names if they disagree with us, or don't know as much as we do, etc).
But taking on reading the NT political theology is much too long a course for here. And by the way, one can’t learn a thing, much less anything about Protestantism and Catholicism, by checking out theology chat rooms. One can be pointed in a direction to find out stuff though. If that sounds harsh to you and unnecessarily negative, then common sense is going to be a rude sister in your life. That Protestant peoples and Catholic peoples writing in chat rooms sound alike says nothing about the philosophical foundations or lack thereof to those forms of faith.
So I‘ll only mention how wrongly you understand the Israel of the OT. God’s covenant with Israel is precisely to set up a theocratic state where God even appoints the King. The OT Israel is a complete marriage of faith and state, the ultimate glory of which is still the site of worship and prayers in Jerusalem today: the wailing wall is the foundation of the Second Temple, erected after exile when God fulfilled his promise restore the Holy Kingdom.
So…to turn to you and me. I understand myself to be living in a time at a significant distance from Biblical times. You, it seems to me, read the NT and think rather automatically that Jesus, Paul and others are just as well addressing themselves to a twenty-first century nation. It is extremely hard for me to understand this.
In the intervening millennia, human governments have come to behave rather differently. To skip ahead over the long history of understanding human rights, international law, penicillin, etc., let’s just look at the contemporary United Sates. A nation that gives billions of dollars in aid to other countries for infrastructure, housing, food, medicine and literacy programs, debt relief, on an on. A nation whose domestic budget includes, again, billions of dollars in departments of Health and Human Services which covers Medicare (health insurance for elderly and disabled Americans) and Medicaid (health insurance for low-income people), Financial assistance and services for low-income families, Prevention of child abuse and domestic violence, Services for older Americans, including home-delivered meals, Comprehensive health services for Native Americans, Head Start (pre-school education and services, free immunization programs, and on and on. Surely I don’t need to go on to the benefit of aid and access to the poor of the departments of Education, HUD, and Labor?
Understand, the United States came to this work largely due to our Judeo-Christian underpinnings and, more distant, the development of social rule from Greek antiquity through medieval European. So church and state, while not formally possible in the US as a constitutional protection from dominance by any one religious ideology, have been working in tandem since the white man arrived on these shores. As you mentioned, some of that work was ungodly and murderous. In other ways, downright Kingdom coming.
Given this preponderance of evidence, contra your suggestion that the church should not look to the state for examples of feeding the hungry, taking care of widows and orphans, visiting prisoners, being light and salt in a dark and dying world, maybe the state should not be looking to the church for doing what Jesus did.
I think there is a difference that can be suggested Biblically between the NT mandates of good works and evangelism. Jesus would often feed before preaching. Sometimes he would heal and not say a word. Often he wanted to keep the truth about himself secret (read the Gospel of Mark for his “secrecy” agenda). There was the witness of doing in the world. And there was the witness of preaching the truth. Not every occasion was the setting for both. In my world, a civil society is not the setting for preaching, but surely it is the setting for witnessing to Christ by deeds, by supporting and joining the good and great work of a modern, morally structure human lead state.
So your anxiety, have to say, is two-thousand years behind times and needs a lot of work in the area of Biblical studies.
Finally, to address the harshness of my responses, I have a surprisingly and purely Biblical answer for you. I get pissed when Christians sell cheap things in the temple. It misleads those looking for real answers.
We have no reason to believe that you are uniquely positioned to distinguish between "real answers" and cheap counterfeits. You apparently think you know much more than you really do -- as evidenced by the confidence you display in knocking down positions that have no relationship to the people your criticism, myself included -- but you give us no reason to share your very high opinion of yourself.
You should work harder to understand the positions of those with whom you disagree and to make actual arguments against those positions. You should stop acting as if the arguments have already been made, and you should really stop comparing yourself to Jesus Christ.
It's unseemly.
Bubbs is like a mad murderous Scottish King with a lust for power: "sound and fury..."
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
Are you sure, Feodor, that you're not just beholding yourself in a mirror? ...like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was...?
No better than the rest of us?
MacBeth wasn't compared to "sound and fury."
MacBeth himself called life "sound and fury."
In trying to write much more artistically than his evidently limited faculties allow, Feo's making himself look much more foolish than he otherwise would.
His writing isn't clever, it's clumsy.
And Eric, having worked long hours, tired, offers the least of himself. And mom2 listens in, directionless, pointless, an empty chorus.
You guys are so lazy. Nothing Ricky says or I say is taken up. Nothing offered about how a Chrisitan can be wholly modern and wholly the Lord's. Nothing offered of substance. Nothing offered of reason. Nothing offered of theological weight in a complex world where many suffer. You point at the crucified Jesus, always forgetting the story goes on and what it goes on to.
Blood runs while you guys fiddle with the brief victories of seeing yourselves in electric print. Hooray for you.
The news is the blood stopped. Life was raised to live with gusto. But you are too intent and bent over your keyboards to have anything to say about that.
At any rate, I'm confused: you write that "blood runs" in the present tense, but then you write immediately afterwords that "the blood stopped."
You write that we "point at the crucified Jesus, always forgetting the story goes on and what it goes on to," and earlier you wrote how we somehow missed Christ's Ascension, but you also deride us for our "Armageddon-obsessed" faith. It seems to me that YOU are the one who's being forgetful: Christ didn't just ascend, He promised to return, and to judge us all when He does so.
Forget the minimum level of civility that is necessary for a substantive conversation, a goal that you don't seem interested in reaching: you're being incoherent, so I don't see why any of us should try any harder to discuss any weighty matters with you.
Macbeths' lust for power, and his wife's lust as well, drive him to committ murder. Filled with notions that he should be King and would be a better KIng, he destroys the leader of the realm and the ethics of its leadership. This is the evil that takes him to a shadow life, signifying nothing. Evil ends in emptiness, nihilism.
Augustine's theology of evil is that it is an absence of the good, since God's goodness is the only thing of real substance. So... evil is ultimately emptiness. Nil. Tending always to the nihilistic.
Shakespeare may have know his Augustine, especially if he had a Catholic background via his father. But if not, he still had that great spiritual intuition of his regarding human souls.
Bubbs infers he wont answer this as he probably feels it slipping away from him. After all, bubbs can't read. Or rather, he wont read. Except for pithy blogs.
mom2, obseesed I guess with homosexual sexual methods and vandals in the news, goes way off topic and says that my appetite runs to the unsavory? Who's watching Fox and not reading their Bible, mom2?
For other Chrisitans, the ones who keep reading, the bleeding stopped, the body rose, and the incarnate Christ is in heaven, gifting human flesh with its ulitmate end: complete communion with God. The promise of Love is love and is irrevocable and conquered death by sin along the way. Heaven is a banquet, not a war. And the one eating next to me is my neighbor, not a suspicious Democrat.
Lose the anxiety and live.
About Christianity, if you genuinely want a substantive discussion, Feodor, I'm not stopping you.
What specific belief(s) do you think I have, that is keeping me "stuck in the blood" of Christ?
It's clear that you think very lowly of what you perceive are my beliefs, but I would like first to make sure that what you insist I believe, actually aligns with reality. If it doesn't, I would be happy to correct you. If it does, we can go on and discuss just what it is that is so objectionable about my beliefs.
If you want to move to a philosophy of logic from the art form of a play, then this may comfort you: I agree that X itself is not a belief in X; but neither is X itself the “signifying of X.” Macbeth is not nothing itself, but is the evil that leads to nothing (absolute evil). So Shakespeare has Macbeth reflecting on life (ironically his life not life itself – the defensive delusions of evil) as sound and fury, signifying nothing. The nihilism of evil (signifying nothing) leads to absolute evil (nothing).
As for our differences on Christian theology, the most recent stem from your earliest comments on Nov. 12th. From my standpoint you read Paul too literally and absorb his expectation of an imminent parousia. I think either Paul misreads God’s plan here or we mistakenly take Paul’s position for our own even after two thousand years. Misreading scripture is not necessarily an evil thing. Certainly Jesus says that the Pharisees misread because of their hard heartedness, but he is also a little more gentle with Sadducees in their misreading. Jesus also re-interprets scripture on the basis that he is the present fulfilling of the promise foretold by the Hebrew Bible, so no one could be blamed about some misreadings. Paul says the same things, and reads Isaiah in a particularly complex and close reading in Romans. But Paul also says James misreads the good news of Christ when it comes to the Gentiles and has problems also with Peter and others that he hashes out via scripture. So even apostles can misread and their doing so is canonized in scripture itself.
So, back to Paul and you, Paul thinks Christ is returning in his lifetime. Only in the later books of the NT do they begin to hedge their bets and talk of a longer wait and life as a Christian in such a context.
If Christ were coming in the next six months, I would not be so concerned with the problems of the world. But if after one year, and then another, and then ten, and then a wait so long that only my children are left with an earth burning up, millions more starving to death or dying in civil wars, or millions simply living it out in north Philadelphia with uneducated minds, poorly nourished bodies that bring on premature liver disease, lack of access to good transportation, good jobs, etc. It seems to me that we have to be about feeding as many as we can, housing as many as need, being peace makers, meek but offering access to education and the comforts and freedom that education brings. We should be doing what Jesus did, activist followers while waiting for the coming Lord Jesus. To not do these things but instead to do the following begins to seem not so much as a callous Christianity as a cowardly one:
“It seems to me that the church's role is less that of the first wave of an invasion force, and more an "underground railroad," showing the people the way to return to the King before the King brings His army to reclaim the rebel territory that is rightfully his. We should certainly improve the world around us in what small ways we can, as humble attempts to improve our neighbors' quality of life, as we go, but that's not our highest priority, since the souls that are being saved will far outlast any freedom, justice, peace, or prosperity we bring about in this world: It's not that that we improve this world, and Christ comes to perfect what we improved. Instead, Christ replaces the world exists. Hence, the new heaven and the new earth.”
Imminent parousia vs. realized eschatology; just one of our differences.
I suspect that our differences run much deeper: I believe in the inerrant authority of Scripture, resulting from its writers being guided by the Holy Spirit, and it appears that you do not share that belief.
Hence, instead of attempting to reconcile the books of the Bible, you see them in conflict, where there are problems that each writer "hashes out via scripture." And instead of believing that an eternal and almighty God could communicate to every generation through a written revelation, you downplay the present authority of Scripture, writing that you don't understand the idea "that Jesus, Paul and others are just as well addressing themselves to a twenty-first century nation." Since Jesus is God Incarnate, there's no reason to think that His teachings weren't universal; and since Paul was being guided by the Holy Spirit, the Scripture he writes may have been intended for an audience far, far beyond his immediate audience.
All that said, my beliefs are NOT rooted in a firm belief of Christ's immediate return.
I do believe that Christ will return, as He promised, but I have no idea when, which also fits what He said about the Second Coming. It could be tomorrow, it could be in six months, it could be another two thousand years or even much longer than that.
My beliefs don't collapse if Christ waits centuries to return, because I DO NOT think that we ought to shirk our duty to help meet our neighbor's material needs.
I wrote this before, I even reiterated and emphasized this, and when you quoted me just now, you included the assertion that belies the idea that we should do nothing about temporal concerns: We should certainly improve the world around us in what small ways we can, as humble attempts to improve our neighbors' quality of life.
Once again, I just believe that we have a higher priority in sharing the good news about the salvation from sin, not because the Second Coming is necessarily this week, but because our souls are immortal while this life is temporary.
Even if Christ waits another thousand thousand years, most of us alive today will die within the next hundred years. Even if the average lifespan was quadrupled, no finite number of days compares to eternity. Our chief concern ought to be eternal salvation, not "lack of access to good transportation, good jobs, etc."
And, more germane to my writing against utopianism, I think we ought to be modest about our prospects for alleviating poverty and eliminating war. The poor will always be with us, and we'll always hear of wars and rumors of wars. We can leave this world better than we got it, but the work is gradual and incremental, and each generations results will be -- at best -- a slight improvement over the status quo rather than a slight deviation from perfection.
But, again, I don't think we should entirely ignore our duty to meet our neighbor's physical needs. I just think we should let that duty trump -- or replace -- the duty to evangelize.
You want your response to child sex slavery to be, "it's not our highest priority," and "the poor we will always have with us"? Wow. Way to WWJD, hero. You've got it all backwards. Meeting our neighbor's need is exactly HOW we evangelize. Watch Jesus and read the farewell discourse.
Is total depravity your answer to suffering? Put that in Jesus mouth and see if it fits. If the Sermon on the Mount means anything it means to reach for godliness knowing that it will exceed your grasp. You are the Grand Inquisiter. A jaded rag mop of a believer, esconced way too comfortably in your American priviledge.
As for your misreading of me:
"I suspect that our differences run much deeper: I believe in the inerrant authority of Scripture, resulting from its writers being guided by the Holy Spirit, and it appears that you do not share that belief."
Do you believe in an inerrancy in the Spirit or in that thing you read bound in leather? Because the book you have is a translaton of a translaton of a copy of a copy and inerrancy is a logical impossibility. Jesus did not speak Greek so what you are reading in the Gospels of his words is a translation of a translation of a translation. If you believe in an inerrant force of meaning by virture of the Spirit, just how do yo tap into that?
"Hence, instead of attempting to reconcile the books of the Bible, you see them in conflict, where there are problems that each writer 'hashes out via scripture.'"
Wrong. I see them in complexity and dialogue with each other and this presents problems only for us. If they were clear then the Christian church would not have the history that it does nor would we be as separate as we are. Unless you want to say that only you and people who read the Bible EXACTLY like you are the only ones who will be saved. Do you?
And instead of believing that an eternal and almighty God could communicate to every generation through a written revelation, you downplay the present authority of Scripture, writing that you don't understand the idea "that Jesus, Paul and others are just as well addressing themselves to a twenty-first century nation."
Wrong again. I place the authority of that book in your hand under the authority of the eternal and almighty God that communicates all the time in the cosmos, for what could ever silence the glory of the Lord? Now, I may not understand a bit of what God communicates. That's why I have to congregate with believers and deliberate in community and even then proceed slowly and with humility. It's also why Bibilical studies, Church history and theolody are such helfpul correctives and aids. This is too scary to some so they retreat to the inerrancy of somthing published in English translation of a decade or decades or four hundred years ago and call it perfect.
"Since Jesus is God Incarnate, there's no reason to think that His teachings weren't universal; and since Paul was being guided by the Holy Spirit, the Scripture he writes may have been intended for an audience far, far beyond his immediate audience."
Christ incarnate is risen and become Lord. He it is whom I worhsip. The parables and teachings he gave in the Gospels are guides for life given in the context of the first century in order to reveal the fulfilling of Hebrew prophecy. If you think you dont' translate down through the centuries and decide what is meaningful to you and what is not, then you must be a sight in those robes and sandals (which you shake off outside of a disbelieiving town), spend you talents and drachmas at the corner stable to feed you donkey, and suck on olives and figs for nourishment. I suppose you recline at the dinner table like muslims?
As for me, I have to translate the meaning of withered fig trees, mustard seeds, demon possessoin and such things into what has reality in my life. Paul did the same thing. So I pattern my translation and interpretation after his method, which one can only derive by deeply and closely reading how he moves from his scriptures to what he says and shifts the meaning in the movement to persuade Jews that the promise was for Gentiles as well.
The whole thing is a revelation, a very great one, and I will not dishonor it by being the one to stop its power to read our time in a new way and speak liberation to women, to blacks, latinos, asians, gays, lesbians, and straight white men, none of whom can be found in the NT, except women subserviently so.
I hope you don't drive a car. (It's not in that book you hold in your hands!)
Everything is translated and interpreted. I just don't think you notice when it goes on so automatically in your head.
And if you think it's unworthy of Christians to place a higher priority on the eternal destiny of the soul than on the temporal and temporary provision of food and shelter, you should take it up with the One who asked what profit there is in gaining the world but losing your soul -- and who cut short what you apparently consider a traveling bread line to die on a cross and purchase the forgiveness of our sins.
I must correct you again, this time about my beliefs regarding inerrancy rather than the timeframe for the Second Coming: I do not believe that any modern translation of the Bible is inerrant, only that the original "autograph" manuscripts were the result of inerrant inspiration, a position that I believe is far more prevalent than the straw man you present and is far more tenable.
One reason to give Scripture the benefit of the doubt is that we have no clear, external, objective standard against which Scripture could be measured and compared: a standard which would let us determine what's authoritative and what isn't. You seem to admit that problem in denying inerrancy...
Now, I may not understand a bit of what God communicates. That's why I have to congregate with believers and deliberate in community and even then proceed slowly and with humility. It's also why Bibilical studies, Church history and theolody are such helfpul correctives and aids. This is too scary to some so they retreat to the inerrancy of somthing published in English translation of a decade or decades or four hundred years ago and call it perfect.
...but within two short sentences of telling us how one must proceed "slowly and with humilty," you go right back to your vicious -- and dishonest -- attacks on those with whom you disagree, calling us cowards for affirming inerrancy, in addition to your calling me an inquisitor and a "jaded rag mop of a believer;" your calling us illiterate, lazy, and apathetic; and your subtly playing the race card.
And, since you do seem to reject the inerrancy of Scripture, and even to mock and despise those who do, I hardly see how I misread what you wrote.
I'm bothered by the fact that you seem determined to pick fights with people over things they haven't said and/or don't believe. Your seeming inability (or unwillingness) to comprehend relatively simple statements calls into question your understanding of the more complex and finely nuanced arguments you try to appeal to.
I'm well aware of Romans 13 (and 1 Timothy 2, and 1 Peter 2, et al). But I NEVER said I "didn'think Paul has anything to say about the state." I said that "none of the New Testament writers (or characters) have much of anything to say about the State." I plainly agreed (more than once) that God can and sometimes does use the State for His purposes. I just don't think it's something the Church should count on. Plus, things tend to get ugly when the Church depends on the State to do what God has called her to do.
The theology chat rooms I mentioned (and you so cavalierly dismissed) were often moderated by people with degrees in such things (priests, ministers, etc). The others involved ran the gamut from very well educated to barely educated, so it made for some interesting and lively discussions. But I only mentioned them as an example of how anti-intellectual tendencies exsist in both traditions, from clergy to laity, and the roots of such silliness are no more "noble" on one side than the other (as you tried to claim). And I never claimed such chat rooms are good for learning a lot of in-depth theology - they can, however, be great places for learning about Christians of various traditions, and how they view each other.
As for Israel, I wasn't comparing her to the State, I was simply suggesting that since Israel is a type of the church, perhaps we should be wary of some of the things God warned Israel against (e.g., idolatry, putting our faith in human institutions, et al).
I know you're not going to believe this, but I am actually aware that the world we live in is different than the world Jesus and the New Testament writers lived in. (Crazy, ain't it?) But what I'm also aware of is that people really aren't much different. What amazes me is how relevant the Bible remains.
As for your laundry list of government programs... I'll only say that many of those programs are inefficient to the point of making the problems they're supposed to alleviate worse. I say that from experience, not from just reading about it. I'm disabled, and have experienced (and have known too many others who have experienced) the humiliations of trying to get any help from the government. And far too often, help comes at the expense of your dignity. I'm no Libertarian, by any stretch, but too many government programs just end up being another way to keep the slaves on the plantation (and slaves is NOT a reference to color).
One reason my wife and I don't have kids is that we wouldn't be able afford it. We try to be responsible. But my wife pays taxes that go to people who aren't responsible, and who keep having children they can't afford (because they know there are government programs they can get on). But you know, there's no tax break for a disabled/dependent spouse. Meanwhile, I can't get SSI, because we got married and my wife makes more than $1500 a month (if your spouse makes over $600 a month, they start whittling away at the monthly SSI check - which maxes out at about $600 a month). Now, if we had just lived together, she could make any amount at all, and I could still get a check. There have been families told that the only way they can qualify for medical help for a sick child is if the parents get divorced. I know people with real disabilities that can't get help, while non-disabled people willing to lie get all sorts of benefits. Because most of the programs are so screwed up, you almost always end up having to lie or compromise your morals or ethics to get any help, which just adds humiliation to the embarassment of having to crawl to them for help to begin with. Eventually, people just give in and - voila! - master gets another slave.
Here's an example of just how broken it can be (and if you think this kind of thing doesn't happen much, you need to get out of the classroom more often): http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=364893203&blogID=443183657&Mytoken=988C24BA-A794-47CF-BC018BA0FB2613913720875
I NEVER said a thing about whether the Church should look to the State for examples of anything. I only said that the Church shouldn't "expect" the State to help her carry out her mission. If the State can be of assisstance, fine. But it shouldn't be expected. In fact, didn't Jesus pretty much guarantee that truly following him will get you in trouble with the 'powers-that-be' of this world? The State will always eventually start making demands that call on you to compromise your faith in some way.
I don't really see any reason to separate good deeds and evangelism. I suspect the reason Jesus ministered in so many different ways was to put to rest any notion that God only does things one way. I like the saying, "Preach the gospel at all times - if necessary use words."
And what "anxiety"?!? Seriously. And how would you know whether it "needs a lot of work in the area of Biblical studies" - especially when you've so consistently misread what I've written that you couldn't possibly know?
And finally, I stand corrected. When I addressed your tone towards those who disagree with you, I wrote: "And please don't use the old, 'well I'm just so passionate about the truth that I can't tolerate those who abuse it', canard. You seem way too intelligent to believe such nonsense." But you proved me wrong. You're not too intelligent to believe such nonsense. Congratulations! You even went me one better and compared yourself to Jesus. Goodness, what hubris.
You said: "I get pissed when Christians sell cheap things in the temple. It misleads those looking for real answers." Who in here is selling things any cheaper than you? And, the people in here ARE looking for real answers - just as you are. The fact that we're not all on the same page doesn't mean you're any closer, any wiser, or any more entitled to being a jerk. And if anyone else in here had so blatantly and self-righteously abused a Biblical reference, you would have gone for the throat like a hyena on a baby antelope.
Dr. Savage said something like, 'the deviants in this country have managed to make everything that's decent and moral, indecent and immoral, and everything that is indecent and immoral, decent and moral... the boy scouts have become the new deviants in this country.' And I can't argue with that. Before even that, the simple truth that a lot of what passes for fairness in this country, in terms of government programs, is antithetical to what the Bible has to say.
--Welfare; it's rules and regs established by this nation..
--Social Security; its rules and regs, its use and its dole..
--Taxation; Corporate, Capital Gains, Death, Earned Income Credit..
Just to name a few...
Welfare is responsible for the destruction of the Black Family first and foremost, but every demographic as well. Had more biblical rules governed the Welfare system, at its inception, generations of children could have grown up with fathers in their homes, perhaps the prison population would not be so overwhelmingly black. Perhaps racial tensions would be far less than they are today.
Social Security, if it operated under biblical tenets, would not be an empty filing cabinet somewhere in West Virginia. Perhaps honest folk wouldn't be forced to divorce... "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." And yet this government has forced men and women to sacrifice their marriages in order to get help from the government. What a bargain! It obviously doesn't end with just that; Rickey's personal example is not rare or isolated. It is quite common. The government forces compliance of taxpayers to pay into a system that balks at helping the very people the system was ostensibly created to help. It is now, and has been for some time, little more than the politicians' piggy-bank.
Taxation? Especially the Death Tax? There's no need for me to even elaborate further.
My point is, the government is a poor provider of help, and when it does help it requires of men and women things God asks us not to surrender. The breaking up of marriages has led to widespread... endemic... fornication and numerous immoralities to include-- at the very top of the list --abortion.
Government has taken the Bible out of our classrooms and replaced it with a godless devotion to state. At least with the Bible AND prayer in school children grew to be foundationally strong, and for the most part self-reliant. They grew up to honor their parents, and to respect and care for their neighbors. The only churches that get national and financial "at-a-boys" and pats on the back today are the churches of men like Father Pfleger and Jeremiah Wright... who compromise the truth of God to get hand outs from the government. Yet some today still insist the Church's primary role is to feed, clothe, and house the poor... that's what government does, and poorly.
But what did Jesus say? His final earthly instructions?
Matthew:
"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen."
Mark:
" Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."
Luke:
"Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. "
John:
"...Feed my lambs... Feed my sheep... Feed my sheep." (Reference that with Matthew 4:4 "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.", and John 4:32 "I have meat to eat that ye know not of."
Acts:
"Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."
We can't honestly deny that Jesus did not intend for us, His followers, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners, relieve the oppressed, etc., but as Bubba points out, our Lord emphatically stated in Mark 8:34-38....
"Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
The soul is paramount. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these "things" will be added unto you.
His miracles were His testimony. It was they which declared who He was, and by what authority He preached what He preached. His chief concern was salvation. Yes, He fed five-thousand, but what did he say to the crowds the very next day?
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed."
The Church should be doing all these things, not the Church relying on government to it. He came to seek and to save that which is lost... what's the point is saving anyone if you have no intention of seeing to their well-being from then on?
Your poignant sharing of the difficult choice to not have children must be met with respectful silence. The remainder of your story of family life on one income and disability is moving and representative of what should be the ultimate concerns of our society. Since you have graciously offered your personal story, perhaps you can offer some further reflections on how your experience meets with the nexus of church and state.
It seems to me that Bubba suggests you should be happy in your salvation, never think that anything can truly answer your earthly struggles, and take comfort that your Christian brothers and sisters probably help you out a little along the way. (I imagine you have some Christian support, but correct me if I am wrong.) Bubba rests this prescription on the biblical witness of a second coming and the ultimate rottenness in all earthly and physical desires.
But to me you sound like you have legitimate complaints and a right to anger regarding the degree of difficulty the two of you face in achieving economic stability and confidence.
I think Bubba’s answer is cheap in the face of your story, of which I know so little, and in the face of the story of others in my life of which I know so much. And further, I think Bubba offers his cheap help with a biblical grin. I don’t think Bubba is in touch with life.
_____
Eric’s possible suggestion, on the other hand, is rather confusing. What he writes is passionate right up the point of being radical, righteous in diagnosis, and has seemingly constructed a beautiful and holistic argument. But what help is he really proposing?
Is he suggesting a theocracy? Ricky, are you happy to wait for a theocracy to develop in this country?
Tripling the government’s budget so that the social net programs do a far better job and you, your wife, and more people get the real help they need? That would certainly be radical but Eric would of course not be suggesting that.
Or would he be suggesting that churches (whose budgets are stringent, burdened with overhead, peopled with hard working families and singles already assisting any number of unemployed or homeless folks already) take on the nation’s welfare roll?
He lists quite a number of biblical texts and makes several disparate points. To what effect?
“The Church should be doing all these things, not the Church relying on government to it.”
What force does his “should” have? Fantasy sold as a cheap idea.
You still face the difficulties you do. Is your church at fault? Is the larger “Christian community” in which you live at fault? Perhaps. Is this what Eric really, really means, to guilt-trip your Christian community into doing more? Perhaps he really “should.” I certainly would not mind a little prophetic anger turned towards the church. But it would have to an argument that includes more than you and your wife, but potentially thousands more, and the size of the problem is only growing and is way beyond the capacity of the church.
_____
So what do we have besides Bubba’s rapture positioning through life and Eric’s raging positioning?
I know the social net system is broken. I’ve worked in an urban region of a half million people where 44% of the residents lived below the defined poverty line. Life is hardscrabble; families are made up of bits and pieces that constantly shift. A third of the young men are in prison. One woman worked for my organization for $12K in an afterschool arts program, another job in the school cafeteria in the morning. She mothered her eldest son through high school, her younger son away from gangs, loving her husband through disability and unemployment. She was teamed with her sister, whom we had to let go. We let go eight people on a staff of thirty-one. Some were living hand to mouth, making homemade jewelry. And they lived in a see of hundreds who had already given up or never even started where food options were harmful, murders a weekly occurrence. It will not help to try to cull out hundreds of thousands from all those who really do need help by demonizing them or misdiagnosing the issue.
Welfare did not destroy the black family; it failed to restore it after four hundred years of oppression: slavery, Jim Crow (does anyone here know how vicious Jim Crow laws were?), segregation, poor education. The black family, such as it became in the context of being raped, hit its high mark mid-century when the economy was booming enough to provide low paying industrial jobs in northern cities. We know what became of the American industrial base.
I know the system is broken. It is wasteful. To give it up to God or to fume is of no help, though, and cruel and cheap in the end. The money spent in the seven-year war in Iraq would have solved all honest people’s problems.
But that is not a real answer, just a tragic and damning fact.
What good is it to be a democratic superpower when so many of us have shrinking or disappeared economic stability and millions of others are locked in a vicious poverty circle?
Part of the problem is that the Party that sees and names such things, moves to enact legislation to solve it but follows through with half measures. Partly a result of the political compromise process but also partly getting fat themselves and partly jadedness on the part of elite Democrats.
The Democrats are somewhat like Eric: rage, rage against the reality, and the oxygen used for the raging is never given to getting over the hump and making change happen.
The other Party (aside from Bush) wants to correct government wastefulness and largess, thinking that capitalist economics will answer, trickle down from the invisible hand of the market. All while spending trillions in war making that has not served to answer our long-term current security issues.
The Republicans are rather like Bubba: we are advance shock troops waging battle while letting the huge and growing numbers of the hurting and suffering take care of themselves.
I know the system is broken. But now that times have gotten so hard and the rich have lost their hold on political power, I think there is a new will to make government serve and to do it with accountability in the mix (as you cry out for).
Our own political system is the only way. Bubba is right to the extent that he says the church cannot deal. The social net is not its primary mission, nor does it have the capacity. Eric is wrong here.
Reforming our own political system is the only way. Eric is right to the extent that he says
caring for the millions who need is the only right thing to do and we need to do it with honor, integrity, and conscience. Bubba is wrong here.
So, as a Christian I am involved in the political process as a Christian, wanting to make our governing structure – that which we establish ourselves – answer to you, your wife, Mamma Debbie, and the millions of Americans in need. And while trying to make real change happen at the social level, joining in with my faith community to help those who are around us and those who suffer terrific calamity elsewhere.
Your anger is justified and should remain until we make ourselves answer in how we organize ourselves governmentally. Anger should be part of reforming government. Both parties tap into that but only glibly. We have to make them both answer. It is the only way.
My faith is that God will indeed use this nation, will use me, and will use my church. All three are relatively new to the scene, with new issues heretofore unknown. The bible cannot speak to disability insurance, health care insurance, mortgage backed securities, unless we analogize and metaphorize its teachings in order to decide what we can best do to love and serve. God calls us to this task. Calls Us. To this task Today. In America. God the Holy Spirit will guide our interpretations of the printed English words in that book of leather. If we don’t do this, we are in danger of becoming Pharisees like Eric, or Laodiceans like Bubba. And cheap, too.
Let's agree, for the sake of argument, that the Holy Scripture is inerrant in "the original 'autograph' manuscripts."
Since those scrolls are not available to anybody, how does that help us read what we do have?
Further, you say that "one reason to give Scripture the benefit of the doubt is that we have no clear, external, objective standard against which Scripture could be measured and compared: a standard which would let us determine what's authoritative and what isn't."
Yes we do. No apostle made what we call the Bible. One council determined what would become the Hebrew canon. Several councils formed the NT over time and did so with long and complicated reasoning. Knowing how they decided what they decided is informative.
We also have an internal standard. How Jesus interpreted the OT is extremely informative. How Paul and Peter, James and John filtered their interpreted of the OT through the lens of their experience of Jesus Christ is an incredible model. They differed in many things, by the way, so differing interpretations (despite your suggestion of a pristine uncomplicated Holy Writ) are actually enshrined in scripture itself.
I asserted that there is no clear, external, objective standard "which would let us determine what's authoritative and what isn't," and you disagreed, but you didn't actually produce evidence to the contrary.
I dispute the notion that the councils decided what was canonical and authoritative: instead, I believe that all that they did was acknowledge what was already clear to the church, to recognize those books that were already clearly authoritative and whose authority derived, not from human councils, but from divine inspiration.
And I dispute the implication that the NT writers contradicted each other: they certainly had different emphases, but what they wrote can and should be reconciled with each other. If you abandon the goal of reconciling Scripture with itself, you have to decide what's authoritative and what isn't, and that brings us back to the question of whether there's a clear, objective, external standard against which passages could be evaluated. You claim there is, but you haven't produced that standard.
And, I will note that Christ certainly did not appeal to Jewish Scripture as if it was a merely human work: He affirmed its authority to the smallest penstroke and frequently cited it as the final word of many discussions.
I would ask you to refrain from ad hominem attacks if at all possible. But if you're not going to do that, at least make your insults sensible.
If your problem with me is that I'm overly concerned with the the future -- with the Second Coming and the eternal destiny of our souls -- it makes no sense to accuse me of being too concerned with the past, of having stopped at the cross and become "stuck in the blood."
Similarly, I don't think your problem with me is that I'm apathetic, ambivalent, or lukewarm: I'm quite passionate about defending the inerrant authority of the Bible and about reiterating the importance of the salvation of souls. It's not an absence of passion that irks you, it's the object of my passion, so it makes no sense for you to call me a Laodicean.
If you can't say something nice, at least say something that's apt.
I could write volumes about your political rant, the absurd claims -- "The money spent in the seven-year war in Iraq would have solved all honest people’s problems," as if we haven't already spent several times the amount in an attempt to eliminate poverty over the last thirty years, and as if all problems can be solved with money -- and the dangerous utopianism that lies just under the surface of your declaration that people should have a righteous wrath for having to endure real life.
I will, instead, say only that your rant is quite clearly rooted in something other than Christianity. I'd love to know more about what specific political solutions you advocate to fix our broken system, but I do not doubt that it is based much more in the writings of Rousseau and Marx than it does Peter, James, John, and Paul. You're attempting to hijack and distort Christianity to support your obviously radical political agenda, and by trying to attach God's holy name to your petty little cause, you're risking blasphemy.
Finally, about the church -- Christ's church -- you write, "The social net is not its primary mission, nor does it have the capacity."
On that, we both agree, but it's not clear what you believe is its primary mission.
If you could clarify, I'd appreciate it.
You're wrong, but my saying that will never convince you. And I am a pharisee because? Why? Because you say so? You can't throw out an accusation without offering something to back it up. Who are you to make such accusations? You've shown yourself to be anything but "charitable," and that's about as charitable as I can be on that score. At every turn you prove to me and others that your hands are just as dirty as ours. If not more so.
You have the nerve to compare yourself to Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple, then presume to act like an ass and point your finger at me and cry "Pharisee!"?
Wasn't it you who rhapsodized something about "if we [are] lucky enough that God does exist." Lucky? And you want to lecture us on the Bible? Where's YOUR faith? Are you believing on Christ? Or hoping God really exists? I get it, you're putting it on me, right? You said, "As you say..." Only problem is, I never said or inferred that such a thing. If anything, my words here declare God DOES INDEED exist. But you don't listen; you hear what you want to hear, not what's actually said. Which is how you can call Bubba a Laodicean-- patently false, and a lie.
You seem to take delight in being undelightful. But if you insist on referring to Bubba and I as Laodicean and Pharisee, respectively, then I insist you either prove it or retract it.
You asked for examples and I have tried to give as representative but brief a listing as I thought helpful. There are so much more. Perhaps you would like to do some reading on the subjects at hand: Luke Timothy Johson’s The Writings of the New Testament is but one good introduction to NT studies. Richard Hays’ Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul is excellent and he is someone I can personally recommend. G.K. Beale’s Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts?: Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New is a good follow up on that subject.
Well, first, Christians had an OT before Jews had a Bible. Early Christians read and used a Greek language version of all of what became the OT and also included books Jews rejected that became the Christian Apocrypha. The Christian use of this Greek OT, compiled over 100 years prior to Jesus, put pressure on the Jewish community to decide what they felt to be authoritative. At the council of Jamniah at the end of the first century A.D., the Tanakh was established as authoritative Jewish writings and included the Penteteuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy), the Prophets (Joshua through Job and Isaiah through the later prophets) and the Writings (Psalms, Song of Songs, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes). The OT for Christians included a lot more books than these and still does except for Protestants who threw out the Apocrypha in the seventeenth century.
As for the New Testament, the earliest sign of writings being given authority is found in the Letter and Sermon of Clement (about 100 A.D.) and he lists the words of Jesus and Paul’s letter to the Corinthians and Hebrews. The Didache (somewhere in the last of the first century) more specifically lists the Gospel of Matthew. In the second century, Ignatius of Antioch clearly wants Christians to begin to treat as authoritative the gospels of Matthew and John and maybe Luke and some parts of Paul’s letters, though he does not refer to any of these as scripture. Justin Martyr (died 165 A.D.) is the first to refer to the gospels being read in worship, although he calls them apostolic memoirs.
Iranaeus (175-200) is the first one talk about writings being scripture, by which he means the four gospels, thirteen letters of Paul (but not Hebrews), 1 Peter, 1 and 2 John, and Revelation. He also quotes from the Shepherd of Hermas and the First Letter of Clement. Clement of Alexandria (early third century) lists the same but also the Didache, the Letter of Barnabas, and the Apocalypse of Peter as scripture. An explicit list and rationale for why some books make the list is found in the Muratorian Fragment. On the list are the four gospels, Acts (its first appearance), 13 epistles of Paul, Jude, 1 and 2 John, and Revelation (its first appearance), and the Wisdom of Solomon.
It is with Origen of Alexandria (185-254) that an inquiry began to be made in a systematic way about the literary origins of the NT. The undisputed books were the four gospels, the 13 letters of Paul, I Peter, 1 John, Acts, and Revelation. Those that were debated were 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Hebrews, James, and Jude. Those ruled out were the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Gospel of Thomas, and others. But even this list was not universally agreed upon. Eusebius of Caesarea of the fourth century and a historian of the church said that some books that had been rejected were now accepted, prominently Hebrews, which was hotly debated.
The 27 books that finally made it are found on a list by Athanasius in the year 367 A.D. He concluded that Hebrews was not written by Paul and that Revelation was not written by the author of John and the epistles of John, but decided that their wide use in the churches confirmed their inclusion.
It’s interesting to note that Jesus quotes from “The Wisdom of God” in Luke 11:49 and some unknown text in John 7:38 (“scripture said: 'From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water'"). 1 Corinthians 2:9 quotes from an Apocalypse of Elijah and Jude 14 quotes from the Book of Enoch. The quotation and allusions in James 4:5-8 are drawn from Proverbs, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and some unknown sources. So we have the NT quoting writings that never made it into anyone’s scripture.
_____
Examples of contradictions in scripture:
• Matthew and Luke do not agree on who fathered Joseph.
• Matthew says Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great, Luke says when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Herod was dead before Quirinius was governor.
• Matthew misquotes Micah 5 in order to say Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Luke says the family traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem in Galilee because of the census. Mathew says they moved to Nazareth after the birth because they were afraid to return to Judea.
• In Matthew, Mark, and Luke the Last Supper takes place on the first day of Passover. In John’s gospel the Last Supper takes place a day earlier and Jesus is crucified on the first day of Passover.
• In Matthew 5:18 Jesus says that not even the tiniest part of the Law can be changed. In Mark 7:19, he declares that all foods are clean, a drastic changing of the law.
• John and Luke conflict on the last words of Jesus.
• John 10 and John 14: either Jesus and the Father are one or the Father is greater.
• Acts 9 and 29 conflict on what Paul’s traveling companions saw or heard.
• Peter and Paul cannot agree on what happens to the unbelieving husband: 1 Peter 3:1-6, 1 Corinthians 7:10-15.
There are about two hundred such contradictions with such facts and dating, which bother me none since I do not find Biblical authority in the view of inerrancy. God works through human beings, scripture is no different. Only God is perfect and the Bible is not God.
Some examples of other kinds of contradictions stem from misquotes:
• Matthew 27:9 claims to quote Jeremiah, but actually quotes Zechariah.
• Matthew 2:23 claims the prophets said Jesus would be called a Nazarene. Not found in the prophets.
• Matthew has Jesus riding on two donkeys at the same time apparently because he misreads Zechariah 9:9 which reads in part, "mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
• In Romans 9:25 Paul changes what is in Hosea to fit the point he wants to make.
There is contradiction within Paul’s own eschatological thinking stemming from his use of Psalm 8 and Psalm 110. Namely, in 1 Cor. 6:2 but more developed in 15:24ff., Jesus has yet to conquer the “powers that be.” But in Phil. 2 and Ephesians 1:19, the victory has already been won at Jesus resurrection.
There are deeper issues in Paul’s use of the Greek Septuagint version of Jeremiah 31:31 in 2 Cor. 3, but that involves teasing out the differences between the Hebrew and Greek versions of Jeremiah that indicate what Paul is doing with his discussion of “hearts of flesh” and “tablets of stone.”
_____
I take my lessons in ad hominem attacks from you. Always have.
_____
Eric,
A Pharisee in the 21st century is one who wants to make the New Testament into a law, sees only injunctions necessary to avoid hell, and conceives of the grace of Jesus Christ as a written down thing. For Paul, the revelation of Jesus Christ brings life in the Spirit that changes our very nature (contra Bubba). But it is not a written down thing, though it is THE spiritual truth which defines everything else about the Christian life. Paul’s theology is deeply troubling, then, to an exclusive dependence on written down scripture – a dependence only possible with the printing press, and so has only existed in some forms of Protestantism and recent reactionary Catholicism that is papering over its traditions.
2 Corinthians 3 and 4 is Paul’s answer to pharisaical Christianity.
As for Bubba, I'm pretty sure I've been clear that his eschatologically dictated response to human suffering is lukewarm enough to be cold-hearted. His sole focus on doctrinal truth causes atrophy to his moral response. His idea of the Truth (doctrine) hinders him from developed ideas of the Good (morality), and a lot would have to alter before we can discuss a theology of the Beautiful (glory).
Jesus did not, as you say, declare that all foods are clean in Mark 7:19, or anywhere else. The word "meats" is translated from the word Broma which does mean "food" in a general sense, but more specifically it refers to food that is allowed by Jewish law. Foods that are "Broma" are foods set aside for the purpose of holiness for the Jewish people. Swine is not Broma; it wasn't in Moses' day, nor was it in Jesus' day, nor is it now. No Jew hearing Jesus' statement would have thought he meant swine.
On top of this there are practical reasons why swine in particular was considered "unclean," and still unclean today. God apparently knew-- go figure --that if swine were allowed as a food source, his chosen people would be a sickly and diseased people.
Furthermore, no good Jew would have touched swine; nor do they today. Muslims as well, for much the same reasons. Jesus would never have included swine in any use of "meats" (food), and none of his disciples would have thought he meant swine was suddenly fine and dandy.
If we are to believe that Jesus, in Mark 7:19 was condoning the eating of unclean foods, then we must believe that Peter's vision in Acts 10 likewise condone the eating of unclean meats because, after all, the voice of God from heaven said, "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common." But anyone with a modicum of understanding knows that God was referring to the Gentiles, not "ALL manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air." But what God has cleansed through the blood of His son Jesus... the hearts of men, not pigs, oysters, shrimp and lobster.
When looking at Mark 7:19 you're applying a 21st century perspective to a 1st century understanding. Hence, it appears to you that Jesus has made a flub, or rather the author of Mark made a flub.
Now, what DID change about unclean food was the need to keep the Law surrounding diet for righteousness' sake.... for the sake of ones eternal soul. Anyone eating a diet today based on Levitical law in the belief that doing so makes them holy before God is sadly mistaken. Only the blood of Christ can do that now. A Christian can eat bacon and not have to worry about all the cleansing rituals and sacrifices to be holy once more in God's sight. When God looks down upon us now He sees the blood of Christ sprinkled upon the mercy seat of our hearts and cannot therefore "see" the Law. He sees His promise instead.
Personally, I believe every Christian should repent of their daily breaking of the dietary laws, but not because they stand to lose their salvation if they don't. God doesn't change, neither have unclean foods; they are still detrimental to the health and well-being of His servants. But you won't go to hell for eating sausage or enjoying that lobster. But a diet rich in these foods will destroy your body, the temple of God. And that is as much something to repent over than committing adultery, or murder, or any number of "other" sin.
If you're wrong on this one thing, are you certain you're right about all the others? Are you sure you're not reading the scriptures with eyes firmly rooted in the 21st century. Context is King, as they say. And you've certainly read Mark 7:19 out of proper context.
As to YOUR definition of the modern Pharisee.... it is YOUR definition, and not proof of anything. After all, if YOU were the apostle's epistle, "written in our hearts, known and read of all men," might many not think you too were a Pharisee? How have you demonstrated Jesus' command to love one another, the surest sign that you are His disciple?
I'm just asking.
Nevertheless, Feodor, there are quite plausible explanations for how the supposed contradictions can be reconciled, and how the supposed errors are really the result of a misunderstanding on our part.
Paraphrasing an earlier canonical work is not necessarily "misquoting" the work, there is no intrinsic problem with canon citing non-canonical works, and there is a very elegant solution to the apparent problem that "Matthew and Luke do not agree on who fathered Joseph."
There aren't any real similarities between the two geneologies -- they also didn't agree on which son of David belongs in the geneology; Matthew says Solomon, and Luke says Nathan -- and that strongly suggests that we're looking at two altogether different geneologies. I believe the most popular belief among scholars is that Matthew records Joseph's geneology and Luke records Mary's.
When there are numerous responses that are least worth arguing over, your list of supposed errors is rather glib, the sort of stuff I'd expect a sullen teenage atheist to trumpet.
I'm well aware of the history of canonization, but that doesn't prove that the Church determined canon, and it remains entirely possible that, instead, it discovered canon -- that it recognized the authority the canonical writings already had from God, rather than granting those writings authority.
And, I'm well aware that are books in which I could read about the theologically liberal approach to sifting through Scripture, declaring what's authoritative and what's not. But none of those books qualifies as the clear, external, objective standard against which Scripture can be judged.
If you wanted to know whether a model or map of the Taj Mahal is accurate, you can compare it against the real thing.
But there is nothing against which the Bible can be compared to determine which of its claims are authoritative and which are not. If you continue to insist that there really is such a clear, external, objective standard, I will continue to ask that you produce it.
Finally, I don't believe it's remotely accurate or fair to write that I'm lukewarm about the suffering of others, though it's entirely typical of a Leftist to accuse his critics, not merely of being mistaken, but of being uncaring.
The slander has no basis in truth.
I do care about present-day suffering: I just think that the temporary and temporal suffering that many face in this life is not nearly as important as the eternal suffering that sinners face unless they accept God's free gift of salvation, the forgiveness of sin and the promise of eternal life.
And, I'm opposed to utopian schemes to alleviate all suffering, to eliminate (or practically eliminate) poverty or war, NOT because I am indifferent to the deprivations and horrors that come with these things, but because I'm deeply skeptical of human efforts to solve problems that are clearly intractable, and I believe the unintended consequences of these efforts are often worse than the ills they purport to cure.
I'm not "cold-hearted." I'm simply clear-headed.
If Jesus did not clear unclean foods then he has a fight brewing with Paul in Romans 14 and especially 14:14 where "broma" is not used but "koinon" is just like in Luke's vision. Also, Jesus will not approve of Paul's anger at Peter in Galations 2:11ff when Peter ceases to eat like the Gentiles ate when prominent Jews showed up.
Luke also does not use "bromata" but "koinon" (common) AND "akathartov" (unclean animals); and and if you think when God says, "Kill and eat!" he is refering to Gentiles, we are all in deep trouble.
Your word games don't fill out scripture, Eric, they diminish it to 19th century Millerite religious games. And cheap phariseeism. As I've just demonstrated.
Since you don't read or think for yourself on these matters, should we ask your "scholar" friends for the trick they use to explain that Jesus is still descended from David even though he was not actually fathered by Joseph ("as was supposed")?
You didn't address anything below the trivial gospel parallel problem, Bubbs. Careful. Wrong with the small stuff, really wrong with the big stuff.
You guys are coming up with some awfully weak (read cheap) sauce.
I sure hope your neighbor never ever really needs more from you than an apple pie. You don't live near Galveston, New Orleans, Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, homeless women, starving men, sexually abused children, I hope.
"We should certainly improve the world around us in what small ways we can, as humble attempts to improve our neighbors' quality of life."
What gives?
I think Bubba and I have reached new ground here and can agree:
1. Interpretation (paraphrase) can work if one is disciplined and diligent; after all we find such practice in scripture. And being disciples we should pattern ourselves after Jesus teaching (like throwing out cheap stuff) and the disciples teaching.
2. Non-canonical sources can be authoritative but not as authoritative as scripture. Finally we can Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Barnabas, the Didache and see how they argues that the NT has passages closer to the heart of the revelation of Jesus Christ and passages that are much farther away and some that do not apply to the revelation of Jesus Christ. In this way we have an external, objective framework on how to read the NT and derive from it further implications of the goods news of God's favor toward us. Studying the Nag Hammadi texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls may be useful, too, but with much more caution as Orthodoxy would require.
"I'm well aware of the history of canonization, but that doesn't prove that the Church determined canon, and it remains entirely possible that, instead, it discovered canon -- that it recognized the authority the canonical writings already had from God, rather than granting those writings authority."
So if they had thrown out Hebrews and included the Shepherd of Hermas instead, that would also have been "discovering" the canon?
Your statement is not an argument of reason. It ignores the challenges to christian approach to scripture inherent in the historical process by which it came to be. You are trying to deny the implications of any history whatsoever. You are trying to get outside history by an appeal to God's mind. That is sophistry and serves to kill thinking.
program per se. I do, however, think that, in most cases, private organizations are much more efficient. I also think there has to be a much greater effort made to weed out the many abusers of those programs intended to help the truly needy.
Although I do believe that, in the grand scheme of things, the salvation of someone's soul far outweighs the filling of their belly - I think that Bubba's either/or dilemma is a false one. No one ever has to choose between the two. Jesus simply says meet needs where you find them (e.g., if
some one is hungry, feed them; if someone is grieving, comfort them; if naked, clothe them). He never says to base our compassion or charity on how likely they are to become believers (Jesus wasn't a pragmatist).
But, however mistaken I may think Bubba is on this isue, I won't be so presumptuous as to question his motives, since I don't know him, nor will I call him names. We're all mistaken about many things. That doesn't make us evil - just human.
___________
As for waiting for a theocracy, I certainly don't want one established here before Christ returns (I don't believe Eric does, either) - but I do think Christians are called to live by the principles of Christ's kingdom until he returns.
Part of the problem I have with using the State to implement some of Christ's mandates is that, in doing so, we force non-believers to contribute, whether they want to or not. I never see Jesus indicating that that sort of thing is alright. Christians are called to give what they can (sacrificially, even), but I see nothing about forcing others to contribute.
It's funny that, in a nation that doesn't believe in "coercing" others to pray (at graduation ceremonies), or mention a God they may not believe in (Pledge of Allegiance), people have no problem coercing others to give up more and more of their hard earned money so it can be inefficiently funneled to various government programs. That's incredibly messed up. (And, just for
the record: I'm NOT suggesting we should have prayer in school, nor am I opposed to progressive but fair taxation.)
I believe strongly that the State should have a safety net for the neediest. But that only works if people don't abuse the system on a massive scale. Unfortunately, people do abuse the system, from the wealthiest to the poorest, and it's become so wide-spread that I wouldn't begin to know how to go about fixing it.
I recently read that 85% of most church budgets goes to keeping that church running (in other words: stays in house). That seems kind of screwy. Too many (though, certainly, not all) churches are way too enamored with technology and all the modes of entertainment and enticement they think are necessary for keeping the pews full. Imagine the good that could be done if that money was spent on meeting the needs of the poor in their communities.
The Church will never be big enough to take care of all the poor. But she can (and should) be an example of how it can be done. Unfortunately, that's not happening in enough churches to make any real difference.
As for who is at fault: we all are, to some extent. Too many churches in America fail miserably to fulfill the great commission. Too many Christians fail to truly follow Christ and live and love sacrificially. Too many government programs are grossly wasteful and less than truly effective. Too
many politicians seem to lose their way, once they get into office. And too many Americans either worship at the altar of consumerism, or sell their birthright for a place at the trough of entitlement. (cue Paul McCartney's "Too Many People")
___________
I don't think that calling people names, or accusing them of believing things they may not actually believe, is ever the way to go.
The problem with placing blame is that it is so rarely done fairly. One shouldn't make excuses for the negative/self-destructive behavior of some people, if one isn't going to extend a similar consideration to everyone. All of us are broken in some way.
As for Welfare, for all the good intentions, it has done much to destroy families of all colors. Many benefits can't be had if there is a father/husband in the house, which undermines the stability that marriage often brings to families and society. Just as benefits are available to unwed mothers that are denied to poor married mothers. It's not a race thing. It's a stupid thing.
The failure to simply treat blacks as people, for so much of our history, is one of this nation's biggest and most tragic failures. But that's not why so much of the black community is still in the shape it is (though it certainly didn't help). The white community is in the same downward spiral,
exhibiting many (if not all) of the same self-destructive tendencies. And if black negative behavior isn't mostly their fault, then why is white negative behavior their's? At some point, we all have to stop blaming others for things we're doing to ourselves. At some point, we have to forgive others for the things they've done to us.
When I was in Jr. High School, my disability was really starting to show - especially in the way I walked (I was awkward and unsteady). And the people that laughed at and mocked me most mercilessly were the black kids. And it's not that I just noticed them more, they did it far more often (the
kind of obnoxious, loud, pointing and jostling others to join in laughter that's meant to deliver maximum humiliation). With that burned into my memory, am I excused if I have a lack of affection for black people? Do I get to be prejudiced? Bigoted?? As a member of a minority myself (people in
wheelchairs are only .04% of the U.S. population), do I get to be mad at the world because of the way disabled people have traditionally been neglected?
The answer, of course, is "no". Ultimately, such lingering resentments just end up being cowardly and embarassing. I can choose to not let idiots turn me into an idiot. For all the negatives in this broken world, there are also great positives. And my JOY in Christ is something that can transcend whatever circumstances I find myself in. I could go on and on about the frustrations, bigotries, and unfairness that I have encountered in my life. But I can also go on and on about the wonderful things in my life. I have a wife that is a daily example of God's amazing grace in action (and for
some unfathomable reason, she doesn't regret marrying me!); I have written songs with my brother (who is also in a wheelchair) and through CDs and concerts we have defied every stereotype there is about what to expect from cripples making music; I have some of the most incredible friends
imaginable. My wife and I may actually end up having to get divorced to get help with our situation. But in spite of all the stress, struggle, and instability, there is no healthy person with whom I'd trade places.
The Bible clearly teaches that we should try to be agents of good in this world. But it also seems to make it clear that the world will probably hate us, if we truly follow Christ. And sometimes we're going to suffer in some way. History seems to show that how Christians handle the suffering is a more powerful witness to the world than anything else (and NO, that doesn't me we should just
suffer stoically).
I think it's shameful that so many Christians have abandoned the arts (Precious Moments figurines and CCM dont count). I think art touches people in ways that nothing else can, and Christians have given them up, for the most part.
I think your efforts to make things better are admirable, and I truly pray that God will use you to bless others and effect positive lasting changes. I think we're all called to try to make the lives of others better in some way. But Jesus said the way the world will know we're his disciples is
that we love one another - not by how much we do for others. And seeing the name calling and false accusations that Christians use to attack each other, it's not hard to see why he said that - because too many Christians find it easier to get along with unbelievers than with believers; too many are willing to make excuses for the unseemly behavior of unbelievers, but will show neither mercy nor charity to their brothers and sisters in Christ.
I've enjoyed this energetic little free-for-all, but it takes me so long to type out my thoughts (using the onscreen keyboard) that it ends up being exhausting. So I will not be posting as much as I'd like to - though I will still be reading the ongoing discussion (and, perhaps, posting the occasional short comment).
If I've said anything to offend anyone, I apologize. That's never my aim. Typing this way can make me so bleary-eyed that I sometimes lose my train of thought, or fail to express myself as clearly as I would in person.
I also apologize if I failed to answer any questions that may have been asked of me. I try, but don't always succeed. If I missed anything, let me know.
There are roughly 24 million persons in the US with one or more disabilities between the ages of 21 and 64 (working years).
• So, in Iraq, we have spent $24,000 per disabled US citizen over the last seven years.
• Or, we have spent $7800 per US public school student over the last seven years.
• Or, we have spent $14,600 per Medicare client over the last seven years.
None of this ushers in God’s kingdom, but it would have been a better and more moral government if we had spent it in aid to our neighbors.
The primary mission of the church is to worship God.
In Numbers 36, members of the tribe of Joseph asked Moses to rule on a case where Zelophehad had given his inheritance to his daughters where, presumably, he had no male heirs. If his daughters married outside the tribe, his inheritance would accrue to another of the twelve tribes. Moses commanded that the daughters marry within the tribe to keep the inheritance within the tribe.
In that case, the son-in-law would be treated as the legal heir, as a son by marriage, rather than as a biological son. We see something of this in Ezra 2:61, where a man took the name Barzallai after marrying one of Barzallai's daughters.
There is no evidence that Mary had any brothers, and though Luke was aware of the term gennao to denote begetting and used it four times in other passages (e.g., the birth of John), he didn't use it in Luke 3. Matthew writes that Jacob begat Joseph, but Luke didn't directly contradict Matthew by saying Heli begat Joseph.
If Mary had no brothers, and if Luke's geneology was Mary's by birth (and only Joseph's by inheritance), then the pieces fit together: Mary obeyed the command of Numbers 31 by marrying within the tribe of Judah, and Joseph became Heli's son by inheritance.
Joseph was then a son of Judah (and a son of David), twice over, by birth and by inheritance from his father-in-law. His wife's son Jesus would legally be a son of David because Joseph was, through both Solomon and Nathan; and Jesus would biologically be a son of David because Mary was a daughter of David through Nathan.
I think it's a fairly elegant solution to the problem of reconciling the two geneologies. It's not obvious, but if it were, there wouldn't have been a problem to begin with.
If you find this argument unpersuasive, it's at least worth arguing, rather than presuming that there are no responses to your list of supposed errors in the Bible, and dismissing those who disagree with you as illiterate, unthinking "backwoodsmen."
It was only one example from your lengthy list, but I think it's enough to demonstrate your superficiality.
On that subject, I did not give anyone "license to paraphrase scripture and not fear that we are misquoting." I just noted, correctly, that not all instances of paraphrasing amounts to distortion.
About the Bible's writers citing non-canonical works, I readily agree that non-canon can contain truth (e.g., the Yellow Pages), and I believe that what, for instance, Jude cited was true, but it doesn't follow that everything in the work that Jude cited is true, or that Jude ever intended his readers to believe otherwise.
And, about what you denounce as my "most dangerous comment," I think you emphasize historical processes to the exclusion (or at least de-emphasis) of God's sovereignty.
You ask, what would have happened if the church canonized what we now consider apocryphal? Well, what would have happened if Judas hadn't betrayed Jesus? Numerous prophecies would have been undone, but that's not a question worth asking: God is sovereign, and the prophecies of His chosen messengers are never wrong.
If one can accept that God became a man, I don't see why it's so hard to accept that God first inspired other men to write Scripture inerrantly, and then later guided His church to reliably differentiate between those works and frauds.
But what's so glib about your appeal to historical processes is that, earlier, you had no problem claiming a divine calling to justify whatever vague, probably utopian political program you support:
"God calls us to this task. Calls Us. To this task Today. In America."
What you wrote against me, applies just as easily here. You are trying to get outside history by an appeal to God's mind. That is sophistry and serves to kill thinking.
You don't apparently have a problem with appealing to divine inspiration and divine communication, per se. You think you have a divine calling to revolution; it's only when people believe that the Bible was written through divine, inerrant inspiration and then canonized through God's guidance, that you find the idea of divine intervention to be dangerous.
But, despite all this, I agree with you that worshipping God is the church's primary mission. I'm glad to see that you don't believe it's anything else.
I asked because I find what you wrote earlier to be troubling in its own right. Writing that "the system is broken", you write, "Reforming our own political system is the only way."
"So, as a Christian I am involved in the political process as a Christian, wanting to make our governing structure – that which we establish ourselves – answer to you, your wife, Mamma Debbie, and the millions of Americans in need. And while trying to make real change happen at the social level, joining in with my faith community to help those who are around us and those who suffer terrific calamity elsewhere."
The sounds like the ranting of a Christian Marxist -- or rather, a Marxist who sees the utility of churches and other "faith communities" in achieving his political ends, and who then appropriates and bends Christianity to serve his own purposes.
I sure hope your neighbor never ever really needs more from you than an apple pie. You don't live near Galveston, New Orleans, Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, homeless women, starving men, sexually abused children, I hope.
Why would you hope that? Have I stated that we shouldn't help those in need? No I haven't.
On the contrary, I believe that we should help, but that belief is tempered only by the recognition that eternal salvation is a higher priority than alleviating temporary suffering, and by the belief that schemes to immanentize the eschaton tend to do much more harm than good.
Just what is objectionable about that? Specifically?
Does logic reject the notion that eternal damnation is more serious than a day's hunger? Does the Bible?
Is skepticism of the latest revolutionary program to bring about an earthly paradise, that promises to eradicate all or most war and poverty, so irrational that it cannot be accepted as a matter of one man's prudential judgment?
I ask you, please explain why my beliefs justify your smearing me as cruel and cold-hearted. If you have an argument for that slander, I don't see it.
Going far and wide for bits and pieces of scripture to cut and paste together, claiming evidence that is actually the absence of evidence (“there is no evidence that Mary had brothers” and neither is there evidence that she did not – you are using silence as positive argument for your wants), and then using two “if”s followed by “then the pieces fit”, it is all like saying mosaic is not only a portrait but has photographic quality. If this string of hypotheticals and broken pottery demonstrate anything, it is how superficially you take the obvious and how heroically you go to amazing lengths to prove mist and fog. And your conjecture that Joseph and Mary had inheritance concerns is made up out of whole cloth and against the evidence of needing to find bedding in a stable.
Your efforts are, to be kind, creative, but misspent. Your “elegant” hippogriff loses too many feathers when it tries to fly. And yet you still have 200 or so trivial instances left and have not addressed yourself to the more difficult issues.
Not to mention that part of the inerrancy argument for scripture is usually accompanied by a claim for the clarity of scripture – at the very least for believers. But your hard work does not demonstrate such. Surely a God interested in having a powerfully true and clear written word would not have buried such important news as Jesus being the son of David, the lion of the tribe of Judah.
To be clear, the irreconcilable genealogies (irreconcilable by rational processes) are your problem to deal with and not mine. Matthew and Luke are after ends that do not matter so much to modern Christians who are not bogged down with an archaic understanding of inerrancy. They are concerned to demonstrate Jesus’ family connection to prophecy in order to set the stage for their claim that he was the Messiah. The criticism of “can anything good come out of Galilee” was strong in their minds. This contextual and critical understanding of what the gospel writers are trying to accomplish in their writings (since they were not under a divinely imposed trance, writing automatically) has helped Christian scholarship weigh the import of Biblical witness for centuries. It took anti-intellectual Protestantism to take this away from generations of believers.
On the more important issue of scriptural self-reference (because it teaches how the canonical writers understood scriptural authority), you confuse just that, “authority,” with your notion of “truth.” The point is not that the texts ruled out of the canon may still contain truthful things (like the Yellow Pages). The point is that the NT writers understood those texts to be authoritative and worthy to participate in aiding the revelation of Jesus Christ (which is the thing you don’t want to be conscious of). It would be Christian scholars born hundreds of years later who would consider them just not quite as authoritative as other texts. This permeable boundary, while still a boundary, indicates that the notion of scripture is at least fluid to a point that dissolves absolute claims for the Bible’s “exclusive” and the notion of its perspicacious inerrancy.
You say, “if one can accept that God became a man, I don't see why it's so hard to accept that God first inspired other men to write Scripture inerrantly, and then later guided His church to reliably differentiate between those works and frauds.” And by that you have cheated yourself of the resources of Biblical faith.
One can accept that God became a human being because that is the preeminent sole concern of the New Testament in its preaching and elucidation. There is nothing at the center of Christian scripture that is not about confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord.
What the writers of the New Testament are not concerned about is an argument for the inerrancy of scripture. How could they be? They did not understand themselves to be writing the New Testament. Such a thing did not exist for centuries. They were preaching Jesus as Lord.
You are outside of history, outside of human reason, outside of Biblical witness, and therefore are not relying on anything God provides to us to reflect on the power of scripture to proclaim the gospel and form Christian community.
You are the picture of inelegant, superficial glibness. And you make such a lazy thing look so hard.
God calls us do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. This is not “divine inspiration and divine communication, per se”... to just me who “think[s I] have a divine calling to revolution.” It is scripture.
As a Christian in the world, I have responsibilities to live by faith in the context of my citizenship apart from my faith community. These responsibilities I work out politically and ethically in my society. As a Christian in community, I have responsibilities which I work out in the communal worship of god, teaching the Word of God (which can only mean the living Jesus Christ not the leather book), and nourishing each other. Church and state are two different but overlapping sets of life’s experiences and responsibilities, both with things to teach.
So scripture, Christian tradition (history of the church and the saints), and human reason in community and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: these are the sources of reflection of the Christian. And will inform and be formed by meeting Christ the King in the Eucharist.
This may be too difficult for the “dungeons and dragons” set or the Harry Potter set. But it will be so only until one matures and grows out of childish things.
When you say “I’m not sure that Christians are even intended to begin implementing God's kingdom”… and “should certainly improve the world around us in what small ways we can, as humble attempts to improve our neighbors' quality of life, as we go”… you mock this Biblical call to a complex and committed practice of faith. And here, again, is the heart of the childish and cheap things you sell in the temple of faith.
I wasn't attempting to prove conclusively that Joseph was Heli's son-in-law and legal heir: I was only attempting to show that that claim is plausible, as part of the larger point that there are good arguments for reconciling seeming contradictions in the Bible.
I'm not interested in arguing each of your dozen or so claims about errors and contradictions in the Bible. I wouldn't be interested even if you were willing to drop the ad hominem attacks in order to engage the actual substance of the issues, which is clearly not the case.
My point was, you're being incredibly glib in showing that inerrancy is impossible. I think you've already proven my point.
This line is particularly telling:
And your conjecture that Joseph and Mary had inheritance concerns is made up out of whole cloth and against the evidence of needing to find bedding in a stable.
Even if a Jewish man in ancient Israel hardly had two coins to rub together, the continuation of his family line and the preservation of his name may have been reason enough to ensure that he had an heir. But all that's academic, because -- after berating me for presenting arguments from silence -- you dig up that hoary old chestnut that the holy family was destitute.
There is no evidence of that. Luke 2:7 is clear that, when Jesus was born, Mary "laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn." It was an issue of occupancy on the inn's part, not wealth on Joseph's part.
For what it's worth, I do believe that each Christian has duties as a citizen of whatever country he calls home, and I do not believe that our duty to help meet others' material needs should be lukewarm or half-hearted. What I've been warning against in this thread is not any passionate effort to feed and clothe the poor, but rather those efforts that ignore the lost's eternal needs and those efforts that are utopian in their goals.
And, I believe you misunderstand a few of the beliefs that Protestants traditionally hold regarding the Bible. First, the idea of the Bible's clarity does not mean that everything the Bible teaches is completely and equally clear: it is that the important teachings are clear, that the Bible is clear on what is essential. Second, inerrant inspiration doesn't entail or logically require a belief that the Bible's writers were "under a divinely imposed trance, writing automatically;" instead, we believe that the Holy Spirit prevented each writer from making errors while still allowing him to express his unique personality.
I think anyone who is honestly interested in what inerrancy means and what it doesn't mean, should take a look at the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, but I'm not sure that you would be capable of a good-faith examination of what we really believe.
In this one comment thread, you have so far made at least two egregious errors on what Protestants can and generally do mean by biblical inerrancy. The concept of inerrant inspiration doesn't extend to copies of the original autograph manuscripts, nor does it imply that the Bible's writers were under some sort of trance. (See Articles VIII and X of the Chicago Statement.)
You have also presumed -- quite wrongly -- that the idea of the Bible's clarity implies that all passages are equally clear, and that my beliefs require a near-immediate Second Coming.
All of that points to what you make quite explicit, writing against "anti-intellectual Protestantism."
You're a bigot, Feodor.
You are an angry, arrogant, ignorant anti-Protestant bigot.
If I displayed half the hateful ignorance about Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy that you display about Protestantism, I should be ashamed at myself. In the spirit of ecumenical outreach, I certainly won't treat you worse than an anti-Catholic bigot, but I won't treat you any better, either.
I am thrilled that you are aware of the Chicago statement of 1974, since it means you are committed to follow at least the nearly contemporary workings of Biblicist protestants and are not so buried in past (thought the statement is now almost 50 years old). But what is the Chicago statement?
1). It is a retrenchment, agreed upon in only three days of meetings, in the face of the discovery over two hundred years of proliferating manuscript versions of the NT. That so many documents had accrued with so many countless differences in word, phrasing, whole passages, threw down the challenge to inerrantists.
2). Not only this, but the creation of the NIV in the late sixties and early seventies in order to have a translation that presented the theological understanding of Biblicist Protestantism, nonetheless raised the thorny issue of having to choose English words to get close to the Greek words. Adherents to the KJV decried that their own professors were “changing the words of scripture,” and this embarrassment of being criticized “from the pew” also led to the Chicago statement, in order to give evangelicals their inerrancy, just not inerrancy of what they were reading in devotion.
3). After a few hundred years examination of the periodically appearing manuscripts and partial manuscripts by historical criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, the understanding of heilsgeschicte and kerygma, the thinking of Bauer, Wellhausen, Harnack, Schweizer, Bultmann, etc., the Chicago statement is an effort to get outside what history has brought us and remove the doctrine of inerrancy from any rational examination. Thus the language of point 4 in its summary statement:
“Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching [vs. redaction criticism], no less in what it states about God's acts in creation [vs. form and redaction criticism], about the events of world history [vs. historical criticism], and about its own literary origins under God [vs. the obvious], than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives [vs. only kerygma]”
But the whole statement stops short of taking on the understanding of “biblical infallibility” which usually understands the Bible as inerrant as regard to issues of faith and practice but not history or science (usually meaning creationism). Thus it puts itself square in the creationist (read science deniers) camp.
What it is not itself aware of, however, is that it states its own interpretive reality without being conscious of doing so (a habit you, Bubbs, repeat all the time):
“God’s own word… is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: It is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises.”
Well… all of Christendom disagrees about what the Bible “touches on,” “affirms,” “requires,” or, indeed, “promises.” On this basis, either “infallible divine authority in all matters” begins to look like a canard, or holders of the Chicago statement have to consign Roman Catholics, Orthodoxy, mainstream Protestants, and Anabaptists to Hell.
In the end, the Chicago statement is a retreat, letting liberalism in the back door by admitting the damage done to nineteenth-century agrarian American protestant “ideas” of the inerrancy of what history has put in your hands as the revelation of God, and yet it is also a getting outside of history by moving the Protestant argument of inerrancy (built on seventeenth century Enlightenment principles) to the “original autograph manuscripts.”
Again, I ask, how does the argument that inerrancy in the golden tablets lost forever translates without interruption and interpretation into a slavish defense of what you hold in your hand? It cannot. The truth is that interruption is present, a blind, unconscious moment, when the interpretation of scripture happens in your head before silently until you voice wakes you up again with this kind of sophistry: “if it claims to be inerrant, based on its own authority, it must be.” And then all evidences are marshaled to support that pre-supposition.
What you have done is to deny your agrarian forebears their doctrine, by removing it from the field of rational argument. You claim that I get inerrancy wrong. But the fact is that my sympathy for frontier religion is as great as it is for Syrian monasticism. My point is that you harbor in a place that no longer exists, is dead and unhelpful for who we need to be as Christians today. You harbor there in the sod house of a faithful Baptist, but you paper their long gone walls with a statement of shifting self-deception. You need to crawl of it.
The Chicago Statement and you are lost in the circles of your arguments, like walking a labyrinth and ending up being trapped by your own winding path.
FYI, I am not a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. But no category of Christian group can go without criticism.
Your doctrinal theology does not demand a near-immediate eschatology. Rather, this is the part that is so fixated in biblical times that the blood of Christ may as well be still running down the rough cross.
Your moral theology is, however, fixated on end times and skips over the history of the horrors and sufferings of whole groups of peoples. This is the Laodicean moment of your half-hidden adolescent joy in some battle of The Empire and The Force.
That you cannot reconcile them is no surprise.
I am not a bigot. I am an elitist for intelligence. And in conversations with you, that makes me an evangelist.
I'll skip over the confused metaphors and the questionable math to ask, again, just what is so objectionable about my belief that efforts to meet others' material needs should keep in mind their eternal needs and be wary of utopian solutions?
Your moral theology is, however, fixated on end times and skips over the history of the horrors and sufferings of whole groups of peoples.
The claim has no basis in reality. I believe that Christians should keep in mind the need for salvation, not because the present horrors and sufferings aren't bad, but because the eternal horrors and sufferings that lost sinners face are worse to a literally infinite degree.
And I believe that Christians should be skeptical of revolutionary politcal programs -- e.g., "Reforming our own political system is the only way... God calls us to this task. Calls Us. To this task Today. In America." -- not because I'm dispassionate about the suffering these programs attempt to alleviate, but because history shows that these programs rarely accomplish what they intend and often cause much more harm than good.
For all the times you've attacked my position, you haven't actually even attempted to explain what precisely makes this position so contemptible.
It's not your job to be worried about the "eternal horrors and sufferings that lost sinners face." Judgement belongs to God the Father. Preaching Christ's love is to say that love is the way to eternal life. It is not to instill fear of hell. There's an eternity of difference between these two approaches. The first is cheap and easy. The second is the hard path of discipleship.
My reform of government is far from your "utopian revolution." I want a more efficient democratic progressive government with social safety nets, helping people to be healthy and smart contributors to peace and prosperity in the 21st century. This is not God's kingdom. It is civil society, the bare minimum of being good stewards of Gods' creation.
You have some bizarre and unrelated vision of conflagration in mind, some video game version of Red Dawn. LIke a Republican Club high schooler listening to Pat Buchanan spool on about Karl Marx. It gives you so many jollies that you can't let it go.
You act like real change in people's lives via governance is impossible practically or empty rhetoric revolutionarily.
Read a book on Johnson's Great Society. Just to tick off a FEW accomplishments:
Head Start
Federal funding for public schools for the first time
Medicare
Medicaid
The 1968 Heart, Cancer and Stroke legislation has provided funds to create meical in every major American city
The 1965 Health Professions Educational Assistance Act provided resources to double the number of doctors graduating from medical schools, from 8,000 to 16,000
The 1964 food stamp program helped feed more than 20 million men, women, and children in more than 8 million households
1967 School breakfast program has provided food for 100 million hungry American kids
Taken together, these programs have played a pivotal role in recasting America's demographic profile. In 1964, life expectancy was 66.6 years for men and 73.1 years for women (69.7 years overall). In a single generation, by 1997, life expectancy jumped 10 percent: for men, to 73.6 years; for women, to 79.2 years (76.5 years overall). The jump was highest among the less advantaged, suggesting that better nutrition and access to health care have played an even larger role than medical miracles. Infant mortality stood at 26 deaths for each 1,000 live births when LBJ took office; today it stands at only 7.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, a reduction of almost 75 percent.
During Johnson's administration, the number of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in this century. Since then, the poverty rate has hovered at about the 13 percent level and sits at 13.3 percent today, still a disgraceful level in the context of the greatest economic boom in our history. But if the Great Society had not achieved that dramatic reduction in poverty, and the nation had not maintained it, 24 million more Americans would today be living below the poverty level.
Did this install God's Kingdom? Absolutely not.
Was this a utopian revolution? Absolutely not.
It was done with the engines of capitalism, intellect, and political power within the limits of human goodness and decency.
But if we did could repeat this kind of national work, we could again do something that, from the Christian's point of view, is the work of compassion and love.
Would it install God's Kingdom? Absolutely not.
Would it be arrive at a utopia? Absolutely not.
But it would something better for millions and millions of Americans and could be a witness for Christian compassion and ability that points to another kind of power that changes other kinds of things.
If all you're advocating is Great Society II, it's not nearly the all-encompassing utopian program that I suspected you supported -- and I appreciate the clarification -- but I do think that what you support is still premised on assumptions about human nature that don't mesh with reality.
But I'm not going to question your Christian faith, your intelligence, your literacy, your curiosity, or your compassion simply because we hold different beliefs politically.
I will, however, say that it isn't "cheap and easy" to be honest about the eternal consequences of damnation. Considering how frequently Christ Himself mentioned the subject, I don't see how one of His professed followers could disagree. Christians should certainly preach about more than Hell, but not less, and it is not sufficient to say merely that "love is the way to eternal life."
You must be born again.
And, about the intersection of political progressivism and Christian evangelism, you write that a second Great Society "would [be] something better for millions and millions of Americans and could be a witness for Christian compassion and ability that points to another kind of power that changes other kinds of things."
If that argument is plausible, why has there not been a Christian revival in Europe? There, the sort of social welfare state that you advocate is much, much further along, but Christian faith is dying out.
I think it's fairly obvious that the massive European nanny state isn't pointing people to God; on the contrary, with family life and religious devotion disappearing, the post-Christian welfare state is pointing to itself as the only thing the modern, cosmopolitan European really needs.
During the Johnson administration, the number of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent. And if that had not been done, the numbers of people under the poverty line today would be so much more crippling than they will be as this economic crisis deepens.
This country has never done anything like that before or since.
I don't think you're equipped with the research to even begin to evaluate "the morality and the efficacy of the Great Society" or whether "It did not accomplish nearly the transformation that was originally promised."
I think you're talking in that glib way of bloggers who have no graduate eduction in the things of which they are offering comment.
Neither do I think you are informed about the devotional scene in Europe. When I visited the parish of St. Germain de Près in Paris on a Wednesday evening, 200 young people were gathered for the second of a four night series of devotion-led meetings. This was going on throughout France in a coordinated effort of the young to lead themselves in spirituality. A pilgrimage takes place every year to Chartres.
You can find the same thing going on in all the major cities of continental Europe, but especially France, Germany, and Austria. The young people are engaged spiritually. Almost always, though, the Roman Catholic hierarchy -- in France and Austria -- is old and staid and unresponsive to this fervor and as Europe's educated youth age and take on the concerns of adulthood, this fervor goes undeveloped. The situation is rather more hit and miss with German and Scandinavian Protestant church hierarchy. Italy has little youth fervor, I admit, but eastern Europe is very traditionally aligned.
So, I think you are trying to connect things that you know nothing about. The problem is not with the state, it is with the church.
And neither is the family disappearing. Where do you get this stuff?
You pass judgment from the comfort of your den by passing off lines you think sound right but are just Hannity-ism or Limbaugh-isms tossed off after taking too many pain killers.
These guys don't know what the hell they are talking about when it comes to Europe (when do they have time to go see and examine what's going on? They're locked in their studios year round). And you think they sound right. They sound like they know what they're talking about.
This country will go to hell just as fast and long as we continue to pass glib chat as learning and colloquial hockey moms as competent world leaders.
PItiful.