When the Government – or Society – Is Against You: What Should Christians Do?

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Some American Christians worry that we are being “persecuted” and that our “freedom of religion” is being infringed. That’s always true to some extent – and the idea is scary.

How did Jesus deal with it?

Jesus practiced non-violent non-cooperation toward evil persons. The results of his courage were both short-term and long-term, mostly good, some brutally bad.

Jesus’ immediate followers – the Christians of the first century, also faced lots of suffering.

  • They suffered government harassment, even arrest and execution.
  • They suffered from neighbors and fellow-citizens – the insulting or aggressive behavior of others around them in society.
  • They suffered all the normal pains and sorrows of human life, of which there are many. Continue reading →

PublicChristian.com is Coming Back to Life

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With lots going on in our culture – and in our politics -
that begs for discussion
among those interested in being Christ-followers,
and among those concerned to understand what the Bible actually teaches
on these various matters of current concern,
it seems time to revive this blog.

And there have even been requests to that effect!

This post is to let you know we’re firing it up. You may subscribe to receive notifications of new posts here, which may amount to two or three a week. The subscribe / unsubscribe buttons are in the right column under the heading “Subscribe2″.

Limbaugh Has Judgment Problems? That’s Dangerous to Us – and Not a New Discovery.

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I think the (verbal) behavior of Rush Limbaugh is a moral issue, and has a strong negative impact on the quality of citizenship in society. So, that needs to be said. This is my letter to the editor published in May 2006 in a small-town Nebraska newspaper.

Some of my best friends are Limbaugh addicts (“dittoheads”). You don’t always agree with all your friends, right? I personally am sad to hear Rush is coming back to McCook airwaves. I fear he will undermine habits of good citizenship, and will damage families and spiritual lives.

Unfortunately, he behaves like what Isaiah calls a “scoundrel.” Continue reading →

The Two Most Obvious Facts of Life

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Here’s my ex-temp ramble in response to the line “momentum succumbs to entropy” seen elsewhere . . .

+ and you can say entropy succumbs to momentum.
- but you have to have an energy source for momentum.
+ well, the plants and animals find energy to bloom and bear seeds and run and climb; so can we
- but they all die
+ and more come
- but the energy-supply machine (the sun) is running down
Continue reading →

America’s Problem & Blessing: People Who Take the Bible Seriously (with 2 Rules of Interpretation)

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Frankie Schaeffer grew up in a modern, politically radical, Americanized “Christianity”. He is not pleased with what it teaches or how it operates. In a recent article he gives a fairly thorough explanation of his concerns and how they relate to current political personalities – e.g. Michelle Bachmann.

I have to agree with much of what Schaeffer says. Here’s an example:

America has a problem: It’s filled with people who take the Bible seriously.
America has a blessing: It’s filled with people who take the Bible seriously.

Continue reading →

A Covenant for Civility (Sojourners)

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[You can sign this covenant online at the Sojourners site. I have added underlines and bolds to the version below.]

How good and pleasant it is when the people of God live together in unity. -Psalm 133:1

As Christian pastors and leaders with diverse theological and political beliefs, we have come together to make this covenant with each other, and to commend it to the church, faith-based organizations, and individuals, so that together we can contribute to a more civil national discourse. The church in the United States can offer a message of hope and reconciliation to a nation that is deeply divided by political and cultural differences. Too often, however, we have reflected the political divisions of our culture rather than the unity we have in the body of Christ. We come together to urge those who claim the name of Christ to “put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:31-32).
Continue reading →

Security – and Moral Bankruptcy

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there is no way in which a country can satisfy the craving for absolute security

“No way.” No way. As in not possible in this world.

but it can easily bankrupt itself,
morally and economically,
in attempting to reach that illusory goal through arms alone.
- President (& General) Dwight D. Eisenhower

In other words, you can’t buy enough guns (etc) to make yourself safe. But you can go completely nuts trying.

Eisenhower quoted by Brian McLaren in Everything Must Change, p 167.

 

Heat Makes Things More Complicated – That’s One Reason Global Warming is Dangerous

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How many times this winter did you witness something like this: you’re watching the snow fall straight east instead of to the ground and someone says, “Wow, that’s a hot batch of global warming isn’t it?” The intention is to mock the idea that the global climate system is actually warming up – because look how COLD it is right now!

But think a minute. If there has been heat added to the incredibly complex global weather system, what should we expect? Certainly not more uniformly balmy sunny days. Add heat into a complex and volatile system like earth’s weather system and you will get MORE volatility and unpredictability. Continue reading →

An Outside View of US Health Care Reform Efforts

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Here’s an Australian paper quoting today from a speech by the French President (Nicolas Sarkozy) at Columbia University (New York City).

Welcome to the club of states who don’t turn their back on the sick and the poor

The very fact that there should have been such a violent debate simply on the fact that the poorest of Americans should not be left out in the streets without a cent to look after them … is something astonishing to us.

Continue reading →

Does Anyone, Biblically, Have Authority to Interfere in Economic Matters?

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I’ve experienced it a number of times – many of my Christian acquaintances can get so worked up with contempt and even hatred for their government. They often seem to have no respect at all for the idea of government interfering in people’s lives in any way – or at least not in well-off or successful people’s lives.

We’ve all heard it – something like:

I. It is NOT the government’s place to tell people how they should spend their money or how they should treat their employees. That’s an abuse of freedom and a terrible threat to all of us. So it is anti-American and very unChristian. And it will lead to socialism and Communism and fascism and tyranny. Continue reading →