Justice & the Sanctity of Life - Applied

Events occurring and how they relate/affect Anabaptist faith and culture.
temporal1
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Re: Justice & the Sanctity of Life - Applied

Post by temporal1 »

joshuabgood wrote:Though I would support "marches" and "protests" and "civil disobedience" etc - so long as they were peaceful...

it could/should be noted that there is very little evidence that any Christians did much (any) of this for the first 1800 years or so...despite having lived in plenty of oppressive regimes.
as lester and max are speaking to above, there is a difference in reaching out to sincerely evangelize with a pure heart .. as opposed to political activism (while citing Christian principles.)

i think i agree with you, there was a change wherein pastors led their flocks to seek answers in government, probably not realizing the ultimate outcome would be for the laity to seek-after earthly answers when they should be seeking God's will. only one God.

how to tell the difference? mike is addressing this.

one red flag is when Christian acts are preceeded with language like (to paraphrase:)
"i hate trump, i've always hated trump, i insist you hate trump, too - or you are not Christian."
o. and, this is why ..

following might be examples of how evil trump is, being a republican .. (but, i was just thinking last night) trump was a democrat when he (legally) did all those evil things .. further, he was a citizen, not an elected representative. lots of elected representatives have done lots of evil things, not all legal, abusing public trust+monies, but those folks have a short memory on their improprieties, some major.

today we have a sad situation where all matters are now exploited for their political worth. :(
pastors: what have you done? laity: what are you demanding of pastors?
matters of faith, family, community, everything is hijacked for political divisiveness. :(

i pray we can turn away from this, somehow. i don't know how, Jesus does.
identifying the problems, admitting where we've gotten off-track, not where others have gone wrong, but where have we gone wrong?

we can fool ourselves and others, but Jesus knows our dark hearts.

so. His will? or, our vanities?
it's more than tweaking language to veil intent. that's a waste of time. Jesus knows.
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Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.


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Re: Justice & the Sanctity of Life - Applied

Post by Bootstrap »

temporal1 wrote:
joshuabgood wrote:Though I would support "marches" and "protests" and "civil disobedience" etc - so long as they were peaceful...

it could/should be noted that there is very little evidence that any Christians did much (any) of this for the first 1800 years or so...despite having lived in plenty of oppressive regimes.


as lester and max are speaking to above, there is a difference in reaching out to sincerely evangelize with a pure heart .. as opposed to political activism (while citing Christian principles.)
I think that's the whole question in this thread - how do we tell the difference? I would broaden this to serving and loving other people, not just evangelizing. Christians are called to more than evangelism.

I'm not sure that I believe that the church did little of this for the first 1800 years or so. After all, we did things like the Crusades, which took this completely overboard, and Constantine wiped out whole tribes and conquered nations in the name of Christ. Starting at least with Constantine, the entire history of Christianity is deeply enmeshed with political power. So we at least have a long tradition of doing this badly. I suspect we also have a long tradition of doing this well, pleading on behalf of the poor and oppressed - it's probably worth researching that history too. Or maybe not. Maybe all true Christians have avoided political power. That's why we would have to look carefully at the details of history with an open mind and see what we find.
temporal1 wrote:i think i agree with you, there was a change wherein pastors led their flocks to seek answers in government, probably not realizing the ultimate outcome would be for the laity to seek-after earthly answers when they should be seeking God's will. only one God.
No matter when this first happened, it clearly had gotten to the point that some churches look like political parties with little understanding of the basic call of the Gospel.
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Re: Justice & the Sanctity of Life - Applied

Post by MaxPC »

temporal1 wrote: today we have a sad situation where all matters are now exploited for their political worth. :(
pastors: what have you done? laity: what are you demanding of pastors?
matters of faith, family, community, everything is hijacked for political divisiveness. :(

i pray we can turn away from this, somehow. i don't know how, Jesus does.
identifying the problems, admitting where we've gotten off-track, not where others have gone wrong, but where have we gone wrong?

we can fool ourselves and others, but Jesus knows our dark hearts.

so. His will? or, our vanities?
it's more than tweaking language to veil intent. that's a waste of time. Jesus knows.
Amen! :clap: :up:
joshuabgood wrote:it could/should be noted that there is very little evidence that any Christians did much (any) of this for the first 1800 years or so...despite having lived in plenty of oppressive regimes.
Perhaps it was because they lived in oppressive regimes they didn't do it. In the first 1700 years, the regimes enforced quiet streets with violence: protestors were killed where they stood. They didn't have to worry about appearing as a story of police brutality on the evening news.

The American and French Revolutions changed that oppressive tactic to quite a degree ... but I digress. :mrgreen:
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Re: Justice & the Sanctity of Life - Applied

Post by Bootstrap »

temporal1 wrote:today we have a sad situation where all matters are now exploited for their political worth. :(
pastors: what have you done? laity: what are you demanding of pastors?
matters of faith, family, community, everything is hijacked for political divisiveness. :(

i pray we can turn away from this, somehow. i don't know how, Jesus does.
identifying the problems, admitting where we've gotten off-track, not where others have gone wrong, but where have we gone wrong?

we can fool ourselves and others, but Jesus knows our dark hearts.

so. His will? or, our vanities?
it's more than tweaking language to veil intent. that's a waste of time. Jesus knows.
I like this part of what you said. It has to start by seeking what God wants, and really wrestling with that, making my motivation vulnerable to God's call, seeking together with the brethren. And maybe our discernment needs to include questions about political feelings - am I being reactive because of strongly held political opinions, or is this really what Scripture says? After all, we've been interpreting Scripture for thousands of years, if we start coming up with new interpretations that nicely fit modern political situations, we should be especially cautious.

But it's easier for each of us to see clearly and remove the speck from our brother's eye if we first remove the log from our own. And it's probably easier to point clearly to what Jesus said and did than to claim that I clearly know someone else's dark motivation. I probably don't.
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Re: Justice & the Sanctity of Life - Applied

Post by Bootstrap »

I'm stealing this quote from Valerie's Leviticus 18 thread.
Valerie wrote:I think anyone should be upset about what's happened in America, and why not? God would be. Does He smile on the fact that we legalized abortion and the millions destroyed in the womb? Does He smile on the divorce situation? The women's liberation movement? Hollywood? That gay marriage has become 'nationally' received?
Absolutely. I think God is also upset with the plight of refugees all over the world, unwarranted wars, and many other things.

As Christians, we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we mourn at so much of what we see, we look for ways to serve those who need it. Do we also plead with Caesar? Or clearly say where what Caesar is doing is opposed to Kingdom principles? If so, in what way, and to whom? I think that's precisely what this thread is about.
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Re: Justice & the Sanctity of Life - Applied

Post by Bootstrap »

Here's one interesting approach - what would you think of contacting elected officials to assure them we are praying for them, and telling them what our concerns are and how we are praying? Here's one example:
Upon your inauguration as the forty-fifth President of the United States of America, I offer you my cordial good wishes and the assurance of my prayers that Almighty God will grant you wisdom and strength in the exercise of your high office. At a time when our human family is beset by grave humanitarian crises demanding far-sighted and united political responses, I pray that your decisions will be guided by the rich spiritual and ethical values that have shaped the history of the American people and your nation’s commitment to the advancement of human dignity and freedom worldwide. Under your leadership, may America’s stature continue to be measured above all by its concern for the poor, the outcast and those in need who, like Lazarus, stand before our door. With these sentiments, I ask the Lord to grant you and your family, and all the beloved American people, his blessings of peace, concord and every material and spiritual prosperity.
The person who wrote this probably doesn't believe in Anabaptist two Kingdom theology. But what he did seems compatible to me - what do you think?

In a similar vein, what about prayer vigils instead of protest marches? Turns out the prayer service we had for refugees - which was not at all political - was covered on television. I don't think that was planned.
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mike
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Re: Justice & the Sanctity of Life - Applied

Post by mike »

Bootstrap wrote:Here's one interesting approach - what would you think of contacting elected officials to assure them we are praying for them, and telling them what our concerns are and how we are praying? Here's one example:
Upon your inauguration as the forty-fifth President of the United States of America, I offer you my cordial good wishes and the assurance of my prayers that Almighty God will grant you wisdom and strength in the exercise of your high office. At a time when our human family is beset by grave humanitarian crises demanding far-sighted and united political responses, I pray that your decisions will be guided by the rich spiritual and ethical values that have shaped the history of the American people and your nation’s commitment to the advancement of human dignity and freedom worldwide. Under your leadership, may America’s stature continue to be measured above all by its concern for the poor, the outcast and those in need who, like Lazarus, stand before our door. With these sentiments, I ask the Lord to grant you and your family, and all the beloved American people, his blessings of peace, concord and every material and spiritual prosperity.
The person who wrote this probably doesn't believe in Anabaptist two Kingdom theology. But what he did seems compatible to me - what do you think?
To what extent should a Christian ask the powers that be not to do what God has ordained them to do?

[bible]Romans 13,1-7[/bible]
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Dan Z
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Re: Justice & the Sanctity of Life - Applied

Post by Dan Z »

Mike - granting that governments are ordained to wield the sword to keep order and punish evil (something Christ followers are not ordained to do):

The question I'm wrestling with is to what extent should Christians speak up when the powers that be unjustly overstep their ordained responsibilities (e.g. genocide, exploitation, slavery, bombing civilians)?
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Re: Justice & the Sanctity of Life - Applied

Post by Bootstrap »

Dan Z wrote:Mike - granting that governments are ordained to wield the sword to keep order and punish evil (something Christ followers are not ordained to do):

The question I'm wrestling with is to what extent should Christians speak up when the powers that be unjustly overstep their ordained responsibilities (e.g. genocide, exploitation, slavery, bombing civilians)?
Exactly.

And to what extent should Christians speak up when a nation is doing the kinds of things for which Old Testament nations other than Israel were punished? Presumably, those are the kinds of standards that apply to us all.
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mike
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Re: Justice & the Sanctity of Life - Applied

Post by mike »

Dan Z wrote:Mike - granting that governments are ordained to wield the sword to keep order and punish evil (something Christ followers are not ordained to do):

The question I'm wrestling with is to what extent should Christians speak up when the powers that be unjustly overstep their ordained responsibilities (e.g. genocide, exploitation, slavery, bombing civilians)?
I hear you, and my question is, what moral code are we using to determine what constitutes unjust overstepping of their ordained boundaries? You have said, the Judeo-Christian ethic of the sanctity of all life. But, I counter with, doesn't the Judeo-Christian ethic (according to us as Anabaptists) embrace the sanctity of ALL life including the life of our enemies, precluding not only unjust war but also just war? And not only unjust border policy but also just border policy? And not only unjust incarceration policy but also just incarceration policy? Et cetera.
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