Anabaptist cultural engagement

[RZehr]

So of all the community issues facing this town and there are many, drag queen story hour isn't even in the top 1000. It's not even an issue at all. I expect that is actually the case in most of America. There are plenty of actual community issues without having to invent fake ones. Homelessness, hunger, poverty, access to affordable healthcare, domestic violence, inadequate sidewalks and crosswalks, traffic, water infrastructure, nonpoint source pollution in local streams and lakes, trail maintenance, refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan, etc. etc. Also a very wide variety of local churches from the traditional mainstream variety to more fringe groups to newer evangelical megachurches. There are Spanish-language churches, Korean and Vietnamese churches, and conservative plain churches as well but more of the Apostolic Lutheran variety and some conservative Russian and Ukrainian churches but they tend to be further out of town.

So engage with the the outside world and your local community. Or don't. Help make it a better place, or don't. The choice is yours. Not everyone is necessarily going share your views. Nor you theirs. But so what? That is what living in a community has meant since literally the beginning of time.

So what?
The difference is that we are directly threatened by the liberal, anti-Christ agenda. We can more or less be left alone by other sins and community problems, and aren’t threatened. No one will threaten us if we don’t support, say, a homeless policy, or if we would object to “affordable” healthcare.
Tonight I was listening to a speaker from Romania talk at church about the Ukraine refugees, and at one picture he points to one Romanian man and tells us how this guy married a Norwegian woman, and lived in Norway, until the school there learned that he was “indoctrinating” his children with Christian values. They removed his children and were wanting to give them to homosexual couples (who obviously couldn’t have their own children). This man and his wife got their children back, and fled to Romania.
This new liberal agenda is not content with live and let live.

[Ken]

So of all the community issues facing this town and there are many, drag queen story hour isn't even in the top 1000. It's not even an issue at all. I expect that is actually the case in most of America. There are plenty of actual community issues without having to invent fake ones. Homelessness, hunger, poverty, access to affordable healthcare, domestic violence, inadequate sidewalks and crosswalks, traffic, water infrastructure, nonpoint source pollution in local streams and lakes, trail maintenance, refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan, etc. etc. Also a very wide variety of local churches from the traditional mainstream variety to more fringe groups to newer evangelical megachurches. There are Spanish-language churches, Korean and Vietnamese churches, and conservative plain churches as well but more of the Apostolic Lutheran variety and some conservative Russian and Ukrainian churches but they tend to be further out of town.

So engage with the the outside world and your local community. Or don't. Help make it a better place, or don't. The choice is yours. Not everyone is necessarily going share your views. Nor you theirs. But so what? That is what living in a community has meant since literally the beginning of time.

So what?
The difference is that we are directly threatened by the liberal, anti-Christ agenda. We can more or less be left alone by other sins and community problems, and aren’t threatened. No one will threaten us if we don’t support, say, a homeless policy.
Tonight I was listening to a speaker from Romania talk at church about the Ukraine refugees, and at one picture he points to one Romanian man and tells us how this guy married a Norwegian woman, and lived in Norway, until the school there learned that he was “indoctrinating” his children with Christian values. They removed his children and were wanting to give them to homosexual couples (who obviously couldn’t have their own children). This man and his wife got their children back, and fled to Romania.
This new liberal agenda is not content with live and let live.

A Norwegian school took away a family's children and gave them to a gay couple because they were Christian?

Right.

I expect something in that story got seriously lost in the translation.

[RZehr]

They didn’t give them to any gay couple permanently, because they got them back, against the wishes of whatever their version of a DHS is.
They were temporarily removed from the Christian home because of what they were being taught at home. I don’t know more details.

[Ken]

They didn’t give them to any gay couple permanently, because they got them back, against the wishes of whatever their version of a DHS is.
They were temporarily removed from the Christian home because of what they were being taught at home. I don’t know more details.

Is this the case from nine years ago? If so it was about accusations of child abuse not Christianity: https://www.thelocal.no/20160606/barnev ... dren-back/

Did the child welfare authorities in Norway over-react? I have no idea. Only what is reported which is minimal.

[RZehr]

They didn’t give them to any gay couple permanently, because they got them back, against the wishes of whatever their version of a DHS is.
They were temporarily removed from the Christian home because of what they were being taught at home. I don’t know more details.

Is this the case from nine years ago? If so it was about accusations of child abuse not Christianity: https://www.thelocal.no/20160606/barnev ... dren-back/

Did the child welfare authorities in Norway over-react? I have no idea. Only what is reported which is minimal.

I bet that is them. I didn’t know what the specific accusations were. Looks like them, names might be the same. My goodness that Barnevernet sounds like one messed evil group. Sound to me like a classic case of liberal atheistic social service run amuck, and targeting Christians. These socialists are no better than any other dictatorship that destroys families for some ridiculous petty violation.

Do you think taking someone’s children away is an appropriate and reasonable response to an occasional spanking and ear pulling?

Or, another way of looking at it:
So of all the community issues facing this town and there are many, the occasional spanking and ear pulling isn't even in the top 1000. It's not even an issue at all. I expect that is actually the case in most of Norway. There are plenty of actual community issues without having to invent fake ones. Homelessness, hunger, poverty, access to affordable healthcare, domestic violence, inadequate sidewalks and crosswalks, traffic, water infrastructure, nonpoint source pollution in local streams and lakes, trail maintenance, refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan, etc. etc..

[Ken]

They didn’t give them to any gay couple permanently, because they got them back, against the wishes of whatever their version of a DHS is.
They were temporarily removed from the Christian home because of what they were being taught at home. I don’t know more details.

Is this the case from nine years ago? If so it was about accusations of child abuse not Christianity: https://www.thelocal.no/20160606/barnev ... dren-back/

Did the child welfare authorities in Norway over-react? I have no idea. Only what is reported which is minimal.

I bet that is them. I didn’t know what the specific accusations were. Looks like them, names might be the same. My goodness that Barnevernet sounds like one messed evil group. Sound to me like a classic case of liberal atheistic social service run amuck, and targeting Christians. These socialists are no better than any other dictatorship that destroys families for some ridiculous petty violation.

Do you think taking someone’s children away is an appropriate and reasonable response to an occasional spanking and ear pulling?

Or, another way of looking at it:
So of all the community issues facing this town and there are many, the occasional spanking and ear pulling isn't even in the top 1000. It's not even an issue at all. I expect that is actually the case in most of Norway. There are plenty of actual community issues without having to invent fake ones. Homelessness, hunger, poverty, access to affordable healthcare, domestic violence, inadequate sidewalks and crosswalks, traffic, water infrastructure, nonpoint source pollution in local streams and lakes, trail maintenance, refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan, etc. etc..

Spanking? No, probably not. Child abuse? Yes. It does sound like the Norwegian version of CPS is overly reactive but we are also just getting one side of the story.

Bottom line? If your religious beliefs require you to spank your children then immigrating to a country where that is strictly illegal and strictly enforced is probably not the best life choice. Just like, for example immigrants who believe their faith requires female genital mutilation of their girls should probably not immigrate to the US where that is strictly illegal and enforced.

In any event I hardly think that a one-off case involving child-abuse charges from Norway from 2015 is evidence of a pattern of religious persecution in the US in 2022. Or an argument for withdrawing from the world.

[Josh]

Is this the case from nine years ago? If so it was about accusations of child abuse not Christianity: https://www.thelocal.no/20160606/barnev ... dren-back/

Did the child welfare authorities in Norway over-react? I have no idea. Only what is reported which is minimal.

I bet that is them. I didn’t know what the specific accusations were. Looks like them, names might be the same. My goodness that Barnevernet sounds like one messed evil group. Sound to me like a classic case of liberal atheistic social service run amuck, and targeting Christians. These socialists are no better than any other dictatorship that destroys families for some ridiculous petty violation.

Do you think taking someone’s children away is an appropriate and reasonable response to an occasional spanking and ear pulling?

Or, another way of looking at it:
So of all the community issues facing this town and there are many, the occasional spanking and ear pulling isn't even in the top 1000. It's not even an issue at all. I expect that is actually the case in most of Norway. There are plenty of actual community issues without having to invent fake ones. Homelessness, hunger, poverty, access to affordable healthcare, domestic violence, inadequate sidewalks and crosswalks, traffic, water infrastructure, nonpoint source pollution in local streams and lakes, trail maintenance, refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan, etc. etc..

Spanking? No, probably not. Child abuse? Yes. It does sound like the Norwegian version of CPS is overly reactive but we are also just getting one side of the story.

Bottom line? If your religious beliefs require you to spank your children then immigrating to a country where that is strictly illegal and strictly enforced is probably not the best life choice. Just like, for example immigrants who believe their faith requires female genital mutilation of their girls should probably not immigrate to the US where that is strictly illegal and enforced.

In any event I hardly think that a one-off case involving child-abuse charges from Norway from 2015 is evidence of a pattern of religious persecution in the US in 2022. Or an argument for withdrawing from the world.

Ken,

A family originally from Kazakhstan with 11 kids at the time migrated to Norway. The rest of this story is their version of it. Their neighbours didn’t like them because they were foreign and behaved like German-Kazakhs. So they kept narcing them to social services.

Eventually social services decided to take their kids away and distribute them to “childless couples”. (I did see the letter they got but I don’t fully understand how the social services system works in Norway.) They fled in the middle of the night to Berlin, took the first flight to Australia and persuaded the immigration officers there to let them stay 12 months.

I moved to Australia shortly after they did and they welcomed me into their home and lives - albeit quite a bit got lost in “translation”, as they spoke Russian, German, Low German, and Norwegian but nobody else spoke languages other than English, Pa. Dutch, and a little Arabic.

This all happened around 2014 - 2016.

So, yes, we do have a pattern. RZehr and I both have independent, first-hand accounts of this happening.

[RZehr]

Is this the case from nine years ago? If so it was about accusations of child abuse not Christianity: https://www.thelocal.no/20160606/barnev ... dren-back/

Did the child welfare authorities in Norway over-react? I have no idea. Only what is reported which is minimal.

I bet that is them. I didn’t know what the specific accusations were. Looks like them, names might be the same. My goodness that Barnevernet sounds like one messed evil group. Sound to me like a classic case of liberal atheistic social service run amuck, and targeting Christians. These socialists are no better than any other dictatorship that destroys families for some ridiculous petty violation.

Do you think taking someone’s children away is an appropriate and reasonable response to an occasional spanking and ear pulling?

Or, another way of looking at it:
So of all the community issues facing this town and there are many, the occasional spanking and ear pulling isn't even in the top 1000. It's not even an issue at all. I expect that is actually the case in most of Norway. There are plenty of actual community issues without having to invent fake ones. Homelessness, hunger, poverty, access to affordable healthcare, domestic violence, inadequate sidewalks and crosswalks, traffic, water infrastructure, nonpoint source pollution in local streams and lakes, trail maintenance, refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan, etc. etc..

Spanking? No, probably not. Child abuse? Yes. It does sound like the Norwegian version of CPS is overly reactive but we are also just getting one side of the story.

Bottom line? If your religious beliefs require you to spank your children then immigrating to a country where that is strictly illegal and strictly enforced is probably not the best life choice. Just like, for example immigrants who believe their faith requires female genital mutilation of their girls should probably not immigrate to the US where that is strictly illegal and enforced.

In any event I hardly think that a one-off case involving child-abuse charges from Norway from 2015 is evidence of a pattern of religious persecution in the US in 2022. Or an argument for withdrawing from the world.

That is unless one’s faith is sufficiently sophisticated to simply call that female genital mutilation “gender affirming”, eh? In that case we will remove the children if that mutilation is taught against.
The liberal west says, that because of their religious beliefs, children must have genital mutilations if they are called “gender assignments”, and teenagers should be able to kill their baby’s via abortion; but woe to the righteous who want to raise decent, well trained and adjusted children, and don’t want them kidnapped to meet homosexuals desires for children.
The occasional Christian spanking or rumor of it, is so much worse than raising hellions, or genital and emotional abuse perpetrated and advanced by these same liberal tyrants? Okay then.

[HondurasKeiser]

Second, to the issue of comparing a regulated church to the governance of society, I would emphasize these are not parallel issues. Jesus said the way of the gentiles is to "lord (rule) over one another, but not so among you." His way is service, not rule. The only use of force at the disposal of the church is to withhold fellowship.

Third, to the issue of how the kingdoms of this world ought to rule, I simply don't know. There are principles I advocate like, Imago Dei, or Reciprocity (do to others as you would have done to you), but in the specifics, I am ignorant. Actions that seem right in the moment often prove less than desirable in the long run.

Two stories from people I know personally who demonstrate the courage to engage culture wisely and in a way consistent with Jesus.

One owns the only bakery in a small town and was eventually asked by a same sex couple he knew to make a cake for their wedding. He went through the planning same as any other wedding and thanked them for trusting him with something this important. Then he told them as a follower of Jesus he can't see this relationship has God's blessing, but if they don't mind his convictions, he would be honored as a friend to make the cake. They accepted and he maintains a relationship with them to this day.

Several years ago an immigrant Muslim community began to form in my neighborhood. The public school began an awareness program and invited the Imam to give classes in the school which turned out to be religious indoctrination. The pastor of our church arranged a meeting with the principal and volunteered to lead a religious studies class on following Jesus. Very quickly it was decided to drop that program entirely.

Maybe a kingdom announcing believer with imagination, courage and grace should move into that community with drag queen story hour to fast and pray about how they can serve, not rule.

I have a number of thoughts regarding the above quoted; the first is something like:

1. I agree that my role as a follower of Jesus is to be creative and prayerful and loving in response to something like a 'DQSH' in my immediate community (I'm less concerned about something that happens across the country).
2. Nevertheless, that response is contingent upon a recognition that a 'DQSH' is anti-human and a kind of anodyne 'on-ramp' to a path that ends in destruction.
3. Echoing the postmillenial video from a different thread; no state simply creates a 'neutral public square' and allows a thousand flowers to bloom. Values and beliefs are telegraphed and encouraged/discouraged based on what is legal, taboo, and socially acceptable.
4. Thus a state, in its binding and loosing, can encourage/discourage on-ramps to death or on-ramps to life.
5. Note well that I say encourage and discourage as it can never force me to take a path of death or life and is never, in itself, salvific.
6. It may not be my role to make rules for others to follow but I can hope for a state that tries to encourage life-giving choices and discourage death-giving choices.
7. Thus, I do not lament the outlawing of DQSH, gender-affirming care or the overturning of Roe and see them as foreclosures on people's ability to choose death in those sundry ways.

[barnhart]

I think I generally agree. One difference might be I open to the possibility that laws and prohibitions can backfire or otherwise produce unwanted outcomes.