http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/evil-cannot-make-sense/

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Making Money $150 An Hour

anyway, just a few thoughts.

Consider a parallel. It is a part of Christian discipleship to not commit rapes, but it is also a matter of public justice.

That the Christian Congressman finds it hard to sign off on a bill that furthers abortion rights in good conscience is irrelevant to the question at hand. It’s not because abortion’s against his religion that he won’t sign the bill.

After all, if he’s a Baptist, praying to the saints (a la Catholicism) will be against his religion. But he recognizes that, as a matter of public justice, the Catholic is within her rights to do it, even if it is wrong. He might not want to promote the practice but, as matter of principle, he recognizes your right to do it if you judge it to be good and proper.

Abortion is not like this. Or, if it is rightly to be outlawed in some way, then it is not like this. (And neither is murder and rape.) We have no right to have abortions, murders or rapes done.

The only problem is that Christians are a part of society and must do what their conscience leads them to. For example, it would be difficult for a Christian Congressman to sign off on a bill that furthers abortion rights in good conscience. The public and religious spheres do overlap in certain instances. But, I do think that many Christians highly exaggerate the intersection of the two.

That it might ruin our Christian discipleship, or that it will make God displeased with us, are the wrong sorts of considerations. Heck, lying will ruin our discipleship and make God displeased with us, but we recognize we can’t sensibly use the power of the state to further our discipleship here. That’s not what the government’s for.

Which is not to say that the government doesn’t have role in protecting us from certain kinds of certifiable dishonesty. But the reason won’t be to keep God happy with us, but in order to secure a modicum of justice and social harmony. (Which is pleasing to God, right? These things tend to overlap, right?)

And God has NOT promised our nations temporal blessings for obedience, so we don’t need to worry about special curses from God.

But the mistake here, in my view, is NOT the confusion of a ‘grey’ issue with a ‘back and white’ one. The confusion is over what the government’s responsibilities are.

Ought it to lead us in Christian discipleship?

If yes, then the government is the Church, or is a branch of the Church.

If no, then the matter of whether holy scripture teaches that Christian discipleship requires one to refrain from homosex is (nearly) irrelevant to civil marriage.

Jesus’ teachings on acts of charity are (nearly) irrelevant to the social safety net. The social safety net is not charity, since charity can never be underwritten by violence.

I think a lot of people think that the intersection of their faith and their political beliefs is black and white, but it’s not.

It would be easy for a Christian that leans to the left to say that the social safety net and welfare system are consistent with Jesus’ teachings on helping the less fortunate. But, a libertarian that finds the redistribution of wealth abominable can serve the less fortunate through acts of charity in the private sphere.

Similarly, a Christian on the right can find examples in scripture that indicate that homosexuality is wrong, leading him to believe that gay marriage should be banned. Yet, a liberal Christian may lead a heterosexual life and believe that regardless of what the Bible says on the topic, all people should have equal marriage rights.

So, overall I agree with your thesis. Christians on all sides of the political spectrum must not let these issues divide them. They must also be cautious when they politicize the teachings of Jesus and the Church.

Also, the vertigo video is very cool, in my opinion.

My only question to him would have been, “You say Alvin Plantinga ruined the term ‘warrant’ and that you mean something else by the term. But I can’t see how your position differs that much from Plantinga. Plantinga, like you, grants that warrant is defeasible and comes in degrees. So what is it, exactly, about your account that is different from Plantinga? Plantinga’s use of a ‘design plan’ in accounting for proper function?”

I would have liked to question the questioners. Or, better, two or three of the questioners. Mostly because I’m such a convinced externalist. Though I do admit that you should only belief what is internalistically justified for you. But my account of what this internalist justification amounts to would be drastically different from the typical accounts.

To top it all off, during his talk someone started a snowblower that was so loud that it nearly overpowered him. Embarrassing. It felt like we were some kind of ‘cow college’.

May we all spend our eternities as well as he.

But you are right that the object of faith is Christ, not the Church. I’m sure that’s what you mean.

But I had in mind atheists or agnostics who self-identify as people who live by reason and not faith. My point is that to live by reason is to live by faith. I wasn’t thinking of “Lone Ranger” style Christians.

The idea that, if you don’t belong to a religious community, then you don’t live by faith, is laughable. It is obviously wrong, if you stop and think about it, isn’t it?

A person’s grafting into Christ happens through trust (faith=fides=trust) in Christ, not through trust in the community that calls itself Christ’s Body. If a person truly trusts Christ, that person is part of Christ’s Body — that is, the Church, or Faith Community — no matter their attendence to a specific communion on any given Sunday.

*brief Google search*

“The Hunger” – that’s the name of it.

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The only logic that I can see in it is if he’s thinking about species preservation, or that the crew are a group of something so important that logic dictates that it should be preserved….
I don’t know…

Pentecostals dispense with this entirely. God slams down and the befuddled gibberer is possessed and _anything_ that comes into their head leaves a footprint of Absolute Truth. There is no debating these people. They are saved and you — if, villain, you will not convert — you are damned. I don’t see this as Christianity at all; rather, as a pradigmatic totalitarian mindset that has somehow managed to don Christian trappings.

Are there good pentecostals, kind ones, thoughtful ones? Certainly. But the ones at the extreme have ridden Christianity off the rails, and over the cliff. Caveat emptor; and let society and history beware too.