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barnhart wrote:https://transformedblog.westernseminary ... an-values/

This!!

I see the valuable sentiments that lie behind a statement like this but it lacks in nuance and real-world application. I read an interesting article by Sohrab Amari today that I think fits well in this discussion. The final paragraphing deserves consideration as a counter-valence to the original article.

Make no mistake: white supremacism is indeed “the work of the anti-Christ,” as the Commonweal signatories say. But our critics would do well to remember that the Arc of the Covenant was entrusted to a people, and when our Lord took flesh of a Jewish virgin of the Galilee, he didn’t thereby destroy their Jewishness. There is nothing Christian in obliterating human difference and particularity, including in its political expression—that is, the nation. - Sohrab Amari - The American Mind - 09/2019

This resonated with me

The point is this: Our Commonweal colleagues pretend as if the political choice today were between the Church, which they rightly view as universal and transcending all national boundaries, and various cramped and vicious forms of nationalism. But that isn’t, in fact, the main, or only, political battle line.

Yes. A great article. And even more relevant in 2019 than in 2015, thanks to the Trump/Evangelical alliance.

HondurasKeiser wrote:I see the valuable sentiments that lie behind a statement like this but it lacks in nuance and real-world application. I read an interesting article by Sohrab Amari today that I think fits well in this discussion.
The final paragraphing deserves consideration as a counter-valence to the original article.

Make no mistake: white supremacism is indeed “the work of the anti-Christ,” as the Commonweal signatories say.

But our critics would do well to remember that the Arc of the Covenant was entrusted to a people,
and when our Lord took flesh of a Jewish virgin of the Galilee, he didn’t thereby destroy their Jewishness.

There is nothing Christian in obliterating human difference and particularity,
including in its political expression—that is, the nation. -

Sohrab Amari - The American Mind - 09/2019

isn’t it fascinating to think?

HK:
your link doesn’t go directly to the article anymore. i believe this is it:

“The Nation is not a Sin” / Sohrab Amari / Sept 2019
https://americanmind.org/post/the-nation-is-not-a-sin/

temporal1 wrote:

HondurasKeiser wrote:I see the valuable sentiments that lie behind a statement like this but it lacks in nuance and real-world application. I read an interesting article by Sohrab Amari today that I think fits well in this discussion.
The final paragraphing deserves consideration as a counter-valence to the original article.

Make no mistake: white supremacism is indeed “the work of the anti-Christ,” as the Commonweal signatories say.

But our critics would do well to remember that the Arc of the Covenant was entrusted to a people,
and when our Lord took flesh of a Jewish virgin of the Galilee, he didn’t thereby destroy their Jewishness.

There is nothing Christian in obliterating human difference and particularity,
including in its political expression—that is, the nation. -

Sohrab Amari - The American Mind - 09/2019

isn’t it fascinating to think?

HK:
your link doesn’t go directly to the article anymore. i believe this is it:

“The Nation is not a Sin” / Sohrab Amari / Sept 2019
https://americanmind.org/post/the-nation-is-not-a-sin/

Thanks for the catch, T1!

[bible]Matthew 22, 15-22[/bible]

HondurasKeiser wrote:I see the valuable sentiments that lie behind a statement like this but it lacks in nuance and real-world application. I read an interesting article by Sohrab Amari today that I think fits well in this discussion. The final paragraphing deserves consideration as a counter-valence to the original article.

Make no mistake: white supremacism is indeed “the work of the anti-Christ,” as the Commonweal signatories say. But our critics would do well to remember that the Arc of the Covenant was entrusted to a people, and when our Lord took flesh of a Jewish virgin of the Galilee, he didn’t thereby destroy their Jewishness. There is nothing Christian in obliterating human difference and particularity, including in its political expression—that is, the nation. - Sohrab Amari - The American Mind - 09/2019

I have been thinking about this, considering an Anabaptist reading of Mr. Amari. I would argue the Anabaptist conceptualization of the Kingdom of heaven does indeed infringe on the territory of "the nation", but does not obliterate "the nation", as Mr. Amari notes. It does however re-frame the relationships between Kingdom citizens and nations in a unilateral fashion. It does not ask for nor need the endorsement or permission of "the nation".

Mr. Amari makes a rather broad leap from noting the New Covenant broad acceptance of ethnicity to a doctrine that this fact somehow constitutes a Christian endorsement of "the nation". In Galatians three we read: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." All of these categories still exist after Jesus, the difference being the power balance within these relationships is reset according to Jesus standards. There are still slaves and masters, but masters are required to view slaves as brothers and fellow citizens, not as economic assets. Similarly "the nation" still exists for Kingdom citizens, but the allegiance it demands has been shifted.

Peter tells us "Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God..." The difference between the two has nothing to do with Rome.