the main difference is that I am willing to call "foul" when governments act outside of their ordination
A difficulty here is that then you must build a moral philosophy for what you think governments are and aren't allowed to do. You then become necessarily enmeshed in politics.
Not necessarily.
There are some standards that are universally agreed upon and enshrined in international law. For example, the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of Genocide was passed in 1948 and most if not all nations are signatories. One does not need to become "enmeshed" in politics to oppose genocide.
By contrast, there are other standards that some might find compelling but aren't universally agreed to. For example, universal public health care. Some nations including most of Europe and Canada have universal national health care programs and many people believe it is a human right. But there is not universal consensus on this point. So someone arguing for universal health care here in the US is most certainly engaged in politics.
0 x
A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
the main difference is that I am willing to call "foul" when governments act outside of their ordination
A difficulty here is that then you must build a moral philosophy for what you think governments are and aren't allowed to do. You then become necessarily enmeshed in politics.
Not necessarily.
There are some standards that are universally agreed upon and enshrined in international law. For example, the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of Genocide was passed in 1948 and most if not all nations are signatories. One does not need to become "enmeshed" in politics to oppose genocide.
By contrast, there are other standards that some might find compelling but aren't universally agreed to. For example, universal public health care. Some nations including most of Europe and Canada have universal national health care programs and many people believe it is a human right. But there is not universal consensus on this point. So someone arguing for universal health care here in the US is most certainly engaged in politics.
1) The teachings of Jesus about non-resistance and enemy-love are normative and universally true as God's will for the World even now - thus Paul's teaching about the God-ordained Governmental use of the sword is either misunderstood or overridden by the teachings of Christ.
I would rewrite and add a bit like this:
The teachings of Jesus about non-resistance and enemy-love are normative and universally true as God's will for the World even now. They are the most effective means of combatting evil in the world and serving a salvific purpose in both the individual and society. This is an important part of the good news. One doesn't need a big defense department to effectively combat evil. Thus Paul's teaching about the God-ordained Governmental use of the sword is properly understood in that context and is therefore exclusively descriptive with regard to how God can use evil things for his own redemptive purposes (see the crucifixion of Jesus by the state as exhibit A) as opposed to divinely sanctioned as "godly" in some way.
Further - I think Gary's critique of position 2 is valid. There is not a coherent way to assess when a government is acting "right" with regard to use of violence (that is godly use - except this also doesn't make sense because we know God is like Jesus =) versus when it is acting "wrong" (except they always act against the principles of Jesus because their ethic is fundamentally a violent one).
I just can't quite get over that cognitive dissonance hump in position #2 yet --- maybe I will once I am older like =). Further, I don't see a big problem with taking Paul's statement purely descriptive about what is, not what ought to be.
Lastly, Dan, I don't see how if you are position 2 guy you can ethically oppose the death penalty in all cases.
Last edited by joshuabgood on Thu Mar 31, 2022 7:27 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Certainly being a suffering servant is how Jesus wants us to live, but it seems absurd to expect this of people who are not born again. It is rather important to preach Jesus’ gospel of being baptised and filled with the Holy Ghost and believing in the promise of eternal life, and then the details of living a Christian life are consequential to that.
Josh wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 7:13 pm
Certainly being a suffering servant is how Jesus wants us to live, but it seems absurd to expect this of people who are not born again. It is rather important to preach Jesus’ gospel of being baptised and filled with the Holy Ghost and believing in the promise of eternal life, and then the details of living a Christian life are consequential to that.
It is not clear to me that in fact discipleship and the things you mentioned are really two different things. I think they may be the same thing. Jesus said after all go and make disciples. So why wouldn't we do our best to disciple everybody and every institution in the way of Jesus which is better, more effective at combatting evil, brings a more abundant life, is a lighter yoke etc...right now?
When one person kills another, the person who killed the other is profoundly damaged. Men are not made to do violence to each other. It damages them, their relationships, their self worth, etc etc etc. It doesn't matter if they are executing the worst criminal - it damages them because we aren't made for that. So I say we advocate for the way of Jesus to soldiers, presidents, prime ministers. His ways work. As we make disciples we baptize et al. But it isn't one before the other or one or the other. It is both immediately perhaps.
A difficulty here is that then you must build a moral philosophy for what you think governments are and aren't allowed to do. You then become necessarily enmeshed in politics.
Not necessarily.
There are some standards that are universally agreed upon and enshrined in international law. For example, the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of Genocide was passed in 1948 and most if not all nations are signatories. One does not need to become "enmeshed" in politics to oppose genocide.
By contrast, there are other standards that some might find compelling but aren't universally agreed to. For example, universal public health care. Some nations including most of Europe and Canada have universal national health care programs and many people believe it is a human right. But there is not universal consensus on this point. So someone arguing for universal health care here in the US is most certainly engaged in politics.
The UN is not my standard for right and wrong.
The UN is just a reflection of world consensus. It doesn't make it. But OK, tell us how the Genocide Convention of 1948 was wrong-headed.
0 x
A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
I think you raise some good points Gary. I would like to respond in more detail in a bit, but I did want to tell you that I have corrected the issues with the sentence structure in position #2
Josh:
The UN is not my standard for right and wrong.
There is great irony in those who go to every length to upend universal law they-do-not-like, at which time, they do a complete reversal, suddenly loving+glorifying in (new, untested experiments) they’ve succeeded in labeling law.
It seems beyond them to realize, once universal law is defeated, overturned, replaced with untested unproven experiments,
“all bets are off,” there is no human law that can’t be overturned.
They seem sincerely shocked. Even insulted. Alarmed.
Josh wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 7:13 pm
Certainly being a suffering servant is how Jesus wants us to live, but it seems absurd to expect this of people who are not born again. It is rather important to preach Jesus’ gospel of being baptised and filled with the Holy Ghost and believing in the promise of eternal life, and then the details of living a Christian life are consequential to that.
It is not clear to me that in fact discipleship and the things you mentioned are really two different things. I think they may be the same thing. Jesus said after all go and make disciples. So why wouldn't we do our best to disciple everybody and every institution in the way of Jesus which is better, more effective at combatting evil, brings a more abundant life, is a lighter yoke etc...right now?
When one person kills another, the person who killed the other is profoundly damaged. Men are not made to do violence to each other. It damages them, their relationships, their self worth, etc etc etc. It doesn't matter if they are executing the worst criminal - it damages them because we aren't made for that. So I say we advocate for the way of Jesus to soldiers, presidents, prime ministers. His ways work. As we make disciples we baptize et al. But it isn't one before the other or one or the other. It is both immediately perhaps.
The Bible makes it clear sin exists and no one can overcome it without Christ’s power. “Ye must be born again.” Attempting to make unsaved people live like Christians is a wholly unsuccessful endeavour.
Josh wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 7:13 pm
Certainly being a suffering servant is how Jesus wants us to live, but it seems absurd to expect this of people who are not born again. It is rather important to preach Jesus’ gospel of being baptised and filled with the Holy Ghost and believing in the promise of eternal life, and then the details of living a Christian life are consequential to that.
It is not clear to me that in fact discipleship and the things you mentioned are really two different things. I think they may be the same thing. Jesus said after all go and make disciples. So why wouldn't we do our best to disciple everybody and every institution in the way of Jesus which is better, more effective at combatting evil, brings a more abundant life, is a lighter yoke etc...right now?
When one person kills another, the person who killed the other is profoundly damaged. Men are not made to do violence to each other. It damages them, their relationships, their self worth, etc etc etc. It doesn't matter if they are executing the worst criminal - it damages them because we aren't made for that. So I say we advocate for the way of Jesus to soldiers, presidents, prime ministers. His ways work. As we make disciples we baptize et al. But it isn't one before the other or one or the other. It is both immediately perhaps.
The Bible makes it clear sin exists and no one can overcome it without Christ’s power. “Ye must be born again.” Attempting to make unsaved people live like Christians is a wholly unsuccessful endeavour.
