It's not that I'm arguing we need to be social justice warriors like some urban liberal churches seem to suggest. Or be pro-life warriors like some conservative evangelical churches suggest.barnhart wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:40 pmI think Ken raises some good points, non participation and silence eventually become a fig leaf when the violence and coersion are consistently done for the benefit of you and your economic power. Robert used (overextended in my opinion) this argument to prove that non voting is the moral equivalent of voting for the status quo. Those who's lot in life lies at the pointy end of the coersion generally see through such evasion.Ken wrote: ↑Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:39 pmYou may choose to completely disengage from all of this. Many if not most Americans do as is their right. But it doesn't absolve you from violence or injustice committed on your behalf.
- The police and sheriffs in your community are hired by your tax dollars.
- The standards for use of force, training, weapons, (whether officers shoot first or as a last resort) are all determined and supervised by elected officials in your community.
- The type of police officers who are hired, and their educational and training requirements are all determined by your community. Did you know that hairdressers in Ohio are required to have 2.5-times more training than police officers? Look it up.
- The disciplinary standards and process for reining in "rogue" police officers are determined by elected representatives in your community.
- The law enforcement priorities in your community are determined by your elected representatives. Whether they, for example, profile and target minorities for traffic stops as a law enforcement priority or revenue source (https://www.al.com/news/2022/01/police- ... -hole.html), or focus their efforts on community policing, dealing with more difficult issues like child abuse, substance abuse, and other social problems.
Image some future dystopia where power centers have shifted east and China sends drones around the world to execute people for emitting too much carbon. How comforted would we feel if the 100 million Chinese Christians flourishing there would shrug and say, "we don't support that."
I don't know where to draw these lines, but silence, inaction and evasion are not seemly for children walking in the power of the true king. This calls for wisdom, creativity and action.
I'm only pointing out that in any democratic society we are all collectively responsible for the things that our government does on our behalf. How we choose to respond and engage (or not) is something we are all free to choose for ourselves. And everyone is going to have their own calculus of which issues are important and which are not.
That is what is fundamentally different from living in a democracy compared to living under the Roman Empire, Communist China, or Theocratic Iran. And even in those societies people are often active in governance at the local level even if they have no role or input at the national level. Even during the time of Jesus local villages and communities largely managed their own affairs and were largely left alone by Rome as long as they paid their taxes and didn't revolt. So many of the early church leaders during the time of the apostles would have been highly involved in the governance of their own local communities even if they weren't engaged in directing the whole Roman Empire. That is how Jewish society worked.
) For the believer this means give Jesus a chance to rule in one's life.