Can a Christian be a soldier or police, and kill someone, and still be a Christian?

[GaryK]

"Kingdom Christian", personally, is the strangest term I have heard of. If I was an unbeliever, I think I would just stare in bewilderment. Why all the qualifiers?

Some people like the crowd in Boston want to make a big deal that they “aren’t Mennonites”. (The turn “Finneyite” hasn’t caught on yet). So they made up this term for themselves.

I think I first heard the term from John D Martin a number of years before I knew anything about FOTW.

[Soloist]

I heard Kingdom Christian back in 2014 first at our first fundamentally conservative Mennonite church.

[AndersonD]

"Kingdom Christian", personally, is the strangest term I have heard of. If I was an unbeliever, I think I would just stare in bewilderment. Why all the qualifiers?

Some people like the crowd in Boston want to make a big deal that they “aren’t Mennonites”. (The turn “Finneyite” hasn’t caught on yet). So they made up this term for themselves.

I think I first heard the term from John D Martin a number of years before I knew anything about FOTW.

Interesting. I was at the airport a few months ago waiting in the lounge and coincidentally a couple of John's members were there also. A lady approached them and asked if they were Mennonites and they gave her a lengthy discourse on why they were not Mennonites. The man kept saying, "No offence taken, but...we're kingdom Christians, and then blah, blah, blah." I learned a lot!

[Josh]

I think I first heard the term from John D Martin a number of years before I knew anything about FOTW.

I probably should have said "they adopted this term for themselves.

Interesting. I was at the airport a few months ago waiting in the lounge and coincidentally a couple of John's members were there also. A lady approached them and asked if they were Mennonites and they gave her a lengthy discourse on why they were not Mennonites. The man kept saying, "No offence taken, but...we're kingdom Christians, and then blah, blah, blah." I learned a lot!

I think people who obviously look like Mennonites, act like Mennonites, believe like Mennonites, grew up in a Mennonite family, go to church almost exclusively with other people from ethnic Mennonite backgrounds, etc. should not be dishonest and claim not to be Mennonites. And such discourses like above I don't think are helpful or a good witness.

There is a subgenre of this, which is Charity people who upon meeting them, will tell you "we aren't a Charity church". Nobody except people who actually are Charity churches says this. For example, I'd never describe my church as "not being a Charity church".

[AndersonD]

I think I first heard the term from John D Martin a number of years before I knew anything about FOTW.

I probably should have said "they adopted this term for themselves.

Interesting. I was at the airport a few months ago waiting in the lounge and coincidentally a couple of John's members were there also. A lady approached them and asked if they were Mennonites and they gave her a lengthy discourse on why they were not Mennonites. The man kept saying, "No offence taken, but...we're kingdom Christians, and then blah, blah, blah." I learned a lot!

I think people who obviously look like Mennonites, act like Mennonites, believe like Mennonites, grew up in a Mennonite family, go to church almost exclusively with other people from ethnic Mennonite backgrounds, etc. should not be dishonest and claim not to be Mennonites. And such discourses like above I don't think are helpful or a good witness.

There is a subgenre of this, which is Charity people who upon meeting them, will tell you "we aren't a Charity church". Nobody except people who actually are Charity churches says this. For example, I'd never describe my church as "not being a Charity church".

For me, it's tedious. And as you mentioned, please own your background, and the individuals were all from Cumberland Valley conference.

[GaryK]

Some people like the crowd in Boston want to make a big deal that they “aren’t Mennonites”. (The turn “Finneyite” hasn’t caught on yet). So they made up this term for themselves.

I think I first heard the term from John D Martin a number of years before I knew anything about FOTW.

Interesting. I was at the airport a few months ago waiting in the lounge and coincidentally a couple of John's members were there also. A lady approached them and asked if they were Mennonites and they gave her a lengthy discourse on why they were not Mennonites. The man kept saying, "No offence taken, but...we're kingdom Christians, and then blah, blah, blah." I learned a lot!

I think John, and, I'm guessing the rest of the church, consider themselves to be Anabaptist.

There is such a wide spectrum as it relates to the term Mennonite, that I tend to use Anabaptist much more than Mennonite. There are probably many Mennonites who don't have a problem with Christians being soldiers or policemen/women. Using the term Anabaptist often opens the door to explaining what the early Anabaptists stood for and why they took the steps they did. It often leads right into the issue of nonresistance.

[HondurasKeiser]

"Can a soccer player kick the ball into his own team's goal and still win a game of soccer?"

Well, yes, but kicking the ball into your own goal is still clearly not condusive to winning the soccer game.

"Can a soccer player use his hands to grab the ball and throw it?"

Well, yes, they can still be a soccer player, but the thing they are doing in that moment is clearly against the rules of soccer, and if they make a decision to habitually practice grabbing the ball with their hands, maybe they actually don't want to be a soccer player.

"Can a firefighter be an arsonist and still be a firefighter?"

"Can a grand larsonist still be a US citizen?"

"Can a dairy farmer be a member of PETA?"


Is the point made? Asking about an action and an identity is like comparing apples to oranges, but you can also see that when an action is in clear contrast to an identity, then the two things WILL enter conflict, if even just as long as the action takes place.

A better question to ask is to compare the identities directly to each other. Simify the question: can one be a soldier of an earthly nation and a citizen of God's kingdom simultaneously? Are these two identities in conflict?

Can one be a peacemaker and a warmonger at the same time?
Can one be a "son of peace" and a soldier of war?
Can one preach the gospel of peace and deal out the weapons of destruction?

This reads like a modern day version of Plato's Republic.

[barnhart]

This reads like a modern day version of Plato's Republic

Interesting. I was considering a post connecting Systematic Theology and over-reliance on Greco-Roman logic to negate simple obedience to Jesus.

[Praxis+Theodicy]

This reads like a modern day version of Plato's Republic

Interesting. I was considering a post connecting Systematic Theology and over-reliance on Greco-Roman logic to negate simple obedience to Jesus.

I was just reading this morning about how Zwingli condemned anabaptist to Hell for luring people in with their good conduct right after he wrote a paragraph about how people like Plato, Herecles, and a bunch of other classic Greek theologians/legends were in Heaven with Christ.

Magesterial reformation theology was such a weird mix of Biblical exegesis and Greco-Roman deification.

It reminds me a lot of the current trend of tradcaths and political conservatives who hold a Christian flag while clearly mostly just worshipping "Western Civilisation".

[barnhart]

It reminds me a lot of the current trend of tradcaths and political conservatives who hold a Christian flag while clearly mostly just worshipping "Western Civilisation".

When the ark of the covenant was displayed alongside the Philistine god, both could not stand. So today when gods disagree, one must be silenced, or at least muzzled.