AlAyeti wrote:Your post was impressive until the last paragraph.
Cowardice is the unwillingness to give up your life for others. You want paved peaceful streets first? That is exactly the way I painted anti-war cowards. Now, Christian missionaries are heros. They go to where the evil is and try to do something abiout it. And suffer.
Who do you think is doing the 'paving'? Who do you think it is who goes over to the troubled regions of the world with humanitarian aid? Among them are people who (here) would be pacifists, and well you know it. And you're calling them unwilling to give up their lives for others? I don't know how much more crass or how much more blind you can get, in all honesty.
Missionaries are heroes when they are doing good for people as well as preaching. I'm iffy on proselytisation especially when it has so often in Western history gone hand-in-hand with cultural imperialism, but when missionaries are actually helping people live their lives a little easier, they are actually improving the world and doing God's will on earth.
AlAyeti wrote:The Bible is clear on not yoking yourselves with unbelievers. Only if the acurate perception is held, and that being wheat and tares, is there any sense to be walking with unbelievers.
They can seek us out for advice and support but not the other way around. We live by faith but that doesn't mean by trusting in fairy tales. We should be the example and indeed we are. Schools, hospitals and universities all have the fingerprint of Christianity in the US. We are the greatest nation for a reason, and it is not our secuar licentiousness and psuedo goodness.
When Christians lean to far towards the darkness, then Pastors should do the right thing, and ask them to go. Look at Paul's suggestion of turning over the sinful believer to Satan.
We cannot be an example by diluting Christ in a bunch of Christ-hating hypocrites.
Look, scripture is not the only guide. Historically speaking, there have been three authorities: scripture, tradition, and the teaching
magisterium of the Papacy. Most Protestants have discarded the last authority and replaced it with common sense.
Firstly, on a purely pragmatic basis, when committing to a venture it's always sensible to enlist as much help as possible. It shouldn't matter where that help comes from, so long as it's given and taken honestly. Also on a purely pragmatic basis, knowledge and reason are to be valued for their own sakes. Should we throw out relativity because the mind which bore it forth into physics was not Christian? Of course not.
I would disagree with the assertion that the United States is the greatest country in the world (that being a purely subjective measure), but if you're talking in terms of wealth and political power, you'll find that historically speaking that has more to do with an isolationist foreign policy and massive investment in industry than anything else.
Schools and hospitals all bear the mark of Christianity because there was no alternative. No other religious or non-religious entity in the United States had the resources with which the mainline churches (the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists and the Episcopalians) were endowed. Schools were actually vital to church life and churches invested heavily in their schools because most schools in this country actually started off as seminaries. It actually is worth noting that all of the good schools in this country bear the mark of liberal-mainline Christian thought. Harvard's a Unitarian-Universalist school, Yale's liberal Congregationalist, Princeton's Presbyterian, Brown is American Baptist (as is my own college, Kalamazoo), Columbia is Congregationist, Earlham's Society of Friends, &c. And all of them are now hubs of liberal thought.
As to that last statement, I only reiterate that it is the poor shepherd who does not go out after the missing sheep and it is the poor pastor who makes no effort to ensure all his flock are accounted for. It is repugnant beyond words for a shepherd to actually turn sheep out of their field.
AlAyeti wrote:Though "seperation of church and state" is no where in the constitution, it is clear that the government as defined in the constitution, can do nothing to a religious institution.
Taxing a church is anti-constitutional.
Religious freedom shouldn't cost anything and indeed the constitution mandates that it will be left alone.
Taxing religious organisations without political affiliation is anti-Constitutional. But when a church becomes an entity which by policy endorses a particular party, candidate or interest group, it ceases to function wholly as a religious organisation and becomes subject to the same rules which govern all other political organisations.
Religious freedom and economic and political liberty are separate issues and should be treated as such - what is at issue here is not whether religious institutions should be tax-exempt, what is at issue here is whether this particular Baptist church should count as a wholly religious institution (as opposed to a political one).
In my opinion we should be calling a spade a spade and recognising this Baptist church as an outgrowth of the Republican Party (since
de jure, so to speak, it is now actively excluding members of the opposition).
