Grace, I think this is how many American Christians view the founding of America, the blessing of political freedom, our civic responsibilities to our countrymen, and a founding based on Biblical principles. I think there is much to commend to this view and I don't begrudge people their positive feelings towards the aforementioned things. Indeed, I recognize that certain material benefits have accrued to me because I was born into just such a polity.Grace wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 9:15 amYet the "worldly" system you are living under in this country, gives you the freedom to have the ability to bring the message of salvation to the multitudes without being harmed or imprisoned. The "worldly" system here in United States allows you to freely practice your faith, and it allows you the freedom to be a superintendent of a Christian School. It allows Christian parents to provide a Christian education for their children. That is more than can be said for millions of Christians world wide.joshuabgood wrote: ↑Thu Feb 15, 2024 2:49 pm If I believed in the political systems of the worldly kingdoms with regard to their ability to bring salvation on earth as also in heaven, I would vote. But I don't, so I don't.
When you and all the school board members worked with the local municipality (part of that "worldly" kingdom) to build a much needed new Mennonite School, were you pleased that in the past there were elected men and women who made ordinances to allow the school plans to move forward? And even though that local governing body (Worldly kingdom) cannot "bring salvation", that "worldly kingdom" has allowed you and the school to widen the scope in reaching young impressionable minds to the plan of salvation.
I do not view our nation as a Christian nation. However do you believe that when our government was founded, that God had nothing to do with the fact that it was set up based on some biblical principles? Do you believe that when the government was set up back in 1776, that the Lord's hand was not in the fact it was set up as a representative Republic, giving the people the right to decide on issues based on voting?
This post is not to discredit what you said. However these are questions I always had myself. Also I am not promoting the act of voting. Everyone needs to decide that for themselves.
I've been pondering though, Ernie's question for a few days - asking myself why I don't vote. I once wrote a long explanation to my sister, who at the time didn't vote either but found herself attacked by a professor at Grove City College for shirking her civic and God-ordained duty. For the life of me, I cannot find that response, Your comments, whilst I am sympathetic to them, strike a chord with me. Allow me to offer some pushback:
(Warning - This is not a sequential declension of my logical, one point leading into the other. It's just a collection of related thought, some more related than others)
1. My reading of the OT is that the relationship between God and Israel was meant to be one of King to his chosen people. It's a curiosity, probably anachronistic but worth mentioning nonetheless, that He didn't desire to be their President or Mayor or Representative - but their King.
2. Israel desired a human King and God, grieved as He was, allowed them that concession but with some prophetic words of what was to come as result of that desire and choice. I think much of the misery, idolatry and depredations that followed flows from that original rejection of God's Kingship on the part of Israel.
3. In the NT, Jesus constitutes a new, otherworldly Kingdom of which, He is the King. A kind of fulfillment of the original OT design rejected by the Israelites. We are citizens of that Kingdom and, using the appropriate language, subjects of Jesus.
4. I see nowhere in the NT that suggests in any concrete way that we can truly be "Dual Citizens" - with something like a foot in both the Heavenly Kingdom and an Earthly polity. That would require divided allegiances. We cannot, as Christians, have divided allegiances. To say "Jesus is Lord" has physical and cosmic implications far beyond my interior/emotional life of personal sin and temptation. It means He is our King in every facet of life; and no man can be subject to 2 different masters. Incidentally, that's why even in our "liberal" LMC congregation, we were taught to never say the Pledge of Allegiance or stand for the National Anthem.
5. Indeed, the NT explicitly states that whilst on this Earth, we are "wayfarers and strangers." Those types, aliens and strangers, are not usually invited to the Halls of Power or asked to elect leaders.
6. I could not, as a Christian rule as a King in an Earthly government. To do so would require that I use violence, or the threat of violence to enforce my edicts. I cannot be a Christian and use violence and threats of violence, no matter how self-less or seemingly righteous the ends might be.
7. That means of course I could not serve as President or Senator or anything similar for the same reason.
8. "Ah!" you say, "but voting for them is different. You're not using violence or threats of violence yourself; you're simply choosing the best, most able candidate to administer and steward our collective resources for the good of the people."
9. "Malarkey", I retort.
10. Romans tells us that God ordains government. Elsewhere the Bible suggests that God is actively involved in raising up and laying low specific rulers of nations.
11. Do you believe that to be true today? If yes, then why do you need to vote? Do you truly think God needs or even desires to act through a fiction of Primary, General and Electoral voting in order to enact His will? Do you think that sometime in the 18th Century and specifically in European countries, He decided to raise up leaders by method of Popular decision when for most of history He had chosen other means?
12. Or, do you believe that God doesn't raise up specific leaders today? Do you think His ordination of government is a general one and He lets the nations have the leaders they so desire?
13. If that's the case, I find your desire to vote a curious one:
a. Modern Liberal Democracies are, at root, a rejection of God-ordained-ness. That is to say, similar to Ancient Israel, they reject the idea that their provenance comes from God and instead embrace the solipsistic notion that it comes from themselves.
b. Social Contract Theory, which is the political theory that undergirds our modern, Liberal democracies, is an explicit attempt to create a "rational" origin story for political entities.
c. Troy had its origin story, Rome, Egypt, and Israel - as well as all the rest. All of them, including the medieval Christian kingdoms, appealed to something divine or transcendent as the basis for their origin and existence. e.g. The state exists because God ordains it.
d. Social Contract Theory is a rejection of divine origins and is an attempt to find a "rational" explanation for why people are political or why the State exists.
e. What's interesting is that within that theory, Mankind, in his pre-State self (think cavemen), is depicted with a sword, able to wield it at-will for any reason. In order to avoid a short and nasty death though, all men give their swords to one man, who takes them and now he is the lone sword-wielder. He is their ruler and he alone is able to make laws and mete out punishment. The ruler's right to use violence comes from other men.
d. This then, according to modern political theory, is why governments exist; we as humans give up our right to inflict death on others so that we can have material comfort.
e. Why this sidetrack? Two reasons:
1. Social Contract Theory, which is the animating philosophy of the U.S. Constitution and every other modern democracy, explicitly rejects God as the originator of the State and instead makes man, at his basest and most violent, the originator. In essence then, we are our own authority. We rule ourselves. Power and the right to govern comes not from above but from....the People.
2. In a democracy, that original violence of the sword given to a single man, gets diffused throughout society. Every office from dog catcher to President is backed up by violence. Violence that again, finds its origin in man's self-love and rapacity.
To sum it up then, I cannot vote in an election because the modern, liberal, democratic system which demands my allegiance über alles, is built on a rejection of God's provenance and sustaining providence. In that sense, it's more Satanic than the ancient Philistines. What's more, by voting I am made complicit in the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) uses of violence and threats of violence that pervade the system top to bottom. If I couldn't follow Jesus and be a king in medieval Europe, then how much more in a participatory democracy where "Every man is a king."
I suggest voting in these national kingdoms is re-creating that rejection in a small way.
