I agree with what you say about Derbyshire (I suppose it's possible he knows the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary's conception, but it does seem likely he's confused it with the Virgin Birth). And it certainly seems wrong to blame Christianity when it is our much more secular age that is having trouble defending ourselves.
But what do you do with this? "But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."
I'm asking because I really do want to know how you interpret it, not as a challenge. (I can't imagine that there would be a Western world or an America as we know it without Christianity, and I think it is quite possible that without reinvigorating Christianity, the West will not be saved, so I've never been sympathetic to people who are downright hostile to Christianity)
But the Sermon on the Mount seems... problematic.
Vanishing American,what an excellent and thorough post. Though I would say that I am not 'Christian Left' and I'm as zealous as any of them and in some ways those of us who fight on this side of the line must be more so because we're basically surrounded by those who'd love to tear strips off of us (at least I am in my workplace).
As I said on another blog recently, as far as I'm concerned there are Christians and non-Christians; they either believe and follow Christ and the Bible or they don't. What's the use of labels like 'fundie' or 'evangelical' etc. etc.? It's time we stopped letting others define us and instead banded together.
I used to be a devout, practicing Christian. Today, I cannot recognize myself in any brand of Christianity currently available. Nor am I alone. Many of my friends tell me: "I can't enter any church now without having to leave my brain at the door."
In this regard, the evangelist, fundamentalist churches are no better than the liberal ones. I once attended a presentation at a nearby Pentecostal church about Third World poverty. The cause? Lack of infrastructure. All we had to do was dig deeper into our pockets and the problem would be solved.
I'm sorry to say this but the cause is deeply rooted and largely intractable, at least in the short term. We will not help the world's poor by welcoming them to our shores. We will simply destroy ourselves in the process.
John Derbyshire is more right than wrong. Yes, medieval Christianity had no qualms about resisting invaders, but medieval Christians (as Protestants love to point out) had adulterated their faith with pagan beliefs. Over the past few centuries, Christianity has stripped itself of its pagan accretions. In the process, it has become as much a threat to ourselves and our loved ones as Marxism used to be, if not more so.
That sounds like a harsh judgment. It is.
Robert Spencer is a hero! Islam as practiced by the Islamofascists will never be peace because if Earth ever became ruled by Sharia Law all the multitudes of Islamic factions that hate each other would keep fighting each other forever.
Educate yourself:
The Religion of Peace
Hard To Swallow
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
allow religions to kill
believe its followers
when they claim to be peaceful
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
never criticize prophets
there is no hateful scripture
claim it can't be translated
Do American Liberals Want a Taliban Europe?
.
USpace, very interesting link. Thanks for your comments also.
Aurora, I agree, real Christians who are not empty professors of the faith should all be on the same page.
However it does seem we are being sifted now, and there are many who are Christian in name only. I think we are in the age of the 'falling away.'
-VA
En voie de disparition, I am in much the same boat as regards finding a faithful church. I live in a town which has almost literally a church on every other corner. Now some might say I am being too much of a 'purist' but I haven't found one which has not bought into a lot of the trendy heresies of the day: the 'seeker-sensitive' trend, the liberalizing multiculti social gospel trend (which as you say has not left the more conservative churches untouched), the Warrenite trend. There are more churches studying various popular Christian self-help books than the Bible in their 'Bible study groups.' There are more sermons being preached about money management and other such topics than about sin and repentance.
I do believe we are in a time of apostasy and we need our discernment now more than ever.
However, was it really the purging of pagan elements from Christianity that led to its present wimpiness? As far as I am concerned, the pagan elements were purged out by the Reformation, at least from a Protestant perspective this is true, and the church did not then believe in blending all nations and religions together, as now. I still point the finger of blame at the 'higher criticism' and the rise of leftist worldviews. If Derbyshire is right, then nations and races would have disappeared centuries ago, and we would be living in a borderless, socialist world. Instead, Christians held to tradition and as a result we are still divided into 'nations, kindreds, tongues.' But now both secular and many 'Christian' people are feverishly working to eliminate all those natural divisions which God ordained.
-VA
Cassandra, those are the difficult issues, which divide many Christians. I struggled considerably with those questions at one time, but less so now.
The only quick answer I can provide is that we have to know the 'whole counsel of God', the whole Bible, and when you look at the Bible in all its teachings, Old and New Testaments, you don't come up with a pacifist or universalist world view. To believe that 'turn the other cheek' teaches pure pacifism is to disregard many, many other parts of Scripture in both testaments. That's why the whole book is important, rather than just the New Testament or 'just the words of Jesus only' as some liberal Christians I know insist. They think that what Paul said, for example, or the other NT books, can be discarded as not inspired. So if you strip the Bible down to the words of Jesus, that might give you a very different kind of Christianity. Yet Jesus said Scripture cannot be broken.
And as for the Sermon on the Mount, I have heard it taught, plausibly I think, that it represents an impossible standard, one by which Jesus sought to show his listeners that their own righteousness was not sufficient to the ideal.
It's also often said that the 'turn the other cheek' ethic was an ethic for personal, one-to-one relationships, not nation-to-nation. The Bible in general allows for self-defense, especially where innocent life is at stake.
-VA
Reading these comments about how difficult people find it to find a church makes me very sad. I've never been able to find a synagogue that I feel at home in, but I never realized American Christians with traditional values were in the same boat. I must have gotten this idea because at college the one group who seemed to have successfully escaped the lack of moral values so widespread on campuses these days were the devout Christians who were particularly active in their church groups. But it seems I read too much into that.
Thanks for you thoughts on the Sermon on the Mount, VA. I hope that most people interpret it more the way you do. I have met Christians who say they don't believe in self defense at all: that it is immoral to kill someone even as he is in the act of murdering you. I suppose those must be the type you mention, that believe Christianity is the words of Jesus only, or even just some words of Jesus only. That was just shocking to me, and I do hope such Christians are the minority.
Interestingly enough, I was first introduced to the Sermon on the Mount by a Jewish ultra-liberal, who made a great point of saying that it is only the words of the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus really said, and that other things in the New Testament that seem to conflict with it can be disregarded, as not the real message of Christianity.
@ En voie de disparition
" In the process, it has become as much a threat to ourselves and our loved ones as Marxism used to be, if not more so."
What doe you mean: "as Marxism used to be"? Marxism still is the greatest threat to our freedom. Political Correctness is nothing other than cultural Marxism, product of the Frankfurt School. PC aims for the destruction of western society, nothing else, which is why it advocates Islam as the perfect means to its goal. View this video (22:24) and see how it came all about.
Fundamental Christianity may not be as bloodthirsty as fundamental Islam (although the Inquisition would lead you to believe otherwise) but it's almost as bad in terms of violating individual freedom. Now the Islamists are so forthcoming to all Islamic demands that violate IF, Christian parties and advocates are starting to press for stricter implementations of Christian beliefs and values upon society as well (no more shop opening on Sundays, for one).
Religion is a personal conviction, that should not impose on the freedom of non-religious people, or of people that have a different religion. The Dutch constitutional right to Freedom of Religion means no more than that anyone is free to adopt any religion desired, without having to fear prosecution because of it. It does not mean that a religious person has the right to bestow his demands based on that personal conviction upon society, which also consists of people that do not share his convictions. But the Freedom of Religion article is continually abused as claimed to mean just that.
I don't need to be religious to be moral, to respect ethics, on the contrary, I would almost say. The fundamentalist, most intolerant religious are commonly the most hypocritical. Do as I say, not as I do. Anyone is entitled to his or her religious beliefs, but do not force it upon others.
R Hartman, I have a feeling I will not persuade you just as you will not persuade me.
It's a facile thing to say that 'the fundamentalist, most intolerant are the most hypocritical' but it's another thing to back that up. Anecdotes don't count.
In fact a real 'fundamentalist' Christian (the word fundamentalist is so misused and misapplied, it is not even meaningful) believes that he is a sinner . He knows he is a sinner. On the other hand, the liberals, and the secularists, are the ones most prone to proclaim their own virtue and right thinking. Their frequent denunciations of others for 'intolerance', 'racism', and ironically 'judgmentalism' are evidence of their belief in their own moral superiority and their tendency to condemn the 'fundamentalists.' Is the irony in this not apparent? That to me is hypocrisy personified. Now I know liberals who are basically well-intentioned people but they literally cannot or will not see the plank in their own eye while they condemn the mote in the Christian's eye.
I have also often heard the facile claim made by atheists and secularists that 'we don't need religion to be moral; I'm a moral person and I am not a Christian or a believer in God.' To that I say: there is absolutely no way for the atheist or secularist to know how moral he or society would be without our Christian heritage. The one thing we can judge by is history: we can look back at pre-Christian eras and pagan countries and we usually see a system of morality that little resembles our modern ideas of right and wrong. I maintain that none of us can know for certain that morality as we understand it today could have developed in a Christless world.
-VA
VA,
I followed the link from Gates of Vienna to your blog and what a great surprise! The questions your are asking are central to so many things that are happening in our world. I have a couple of comments which I hope you all find interesting.
You said:
"JKayce is right; the weakness of Europe, and the rest of the West, is not due to Christianity, which is very attenuated and divided within right now; the weakness is due to a fragmenting in which there is no common belief system and strength deriving therefrom."
I agree with that statement and would like propose that the driving force (the fault line if you will) between those Christians have confidence and those who just seem to have given up is their view of scripture. Those who have a high view of scripture and believe it to be the infallible word of God are willing to stand up and defend it. Those with a low view of scripture (all of the main stream denominations plus some of the new Christian movements) have no confidence and have a much more difficult time defending their faith. If a person believes in eternal truth they are usually willing to defend it.
American Cassandra,
I have always understood the Sermon on the Mount to apply to individuals and not the nation. People have spilled mountains of paper and ink on the subject and will probably continue to do so. However, if you read the Sermon on the Mount along with these two passages from the book of Romans it may help:
17 Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men.
18 If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceable with all men.
19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written "Vengence is mine, I will repay" says the Lord.
20 Therefore " If your enemy is hungry feed him; If he is thirsty give him a drink; For in doing so you will heap of fire on his head."
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:17-21 (NKJV)
Then, just a few verses later, when Paul is speaking about the government:
4 For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
Romans 13:4 (NKJV)
There is a striking contrast between what we, the individual, are permitted and what the government is required to do.
VA is right, it is extremely difficult to find churches anymore that are faithful to the Word. There are some out there but they don't get much press.
R. Hartman,
You said:
"Religion is a personal conviction, that should not impose on the freedom of non-religious people, or of people that have a different religion."
There are two things that I would like to point out about your statement. First, by stating that religion is a personal preference you are denying there is such a thing as truth (if everything just comes down
Glenn W., thanks so much for visiting and commenting. I appreciate the points you are making.
I think your quotes from Romans 12 and 13 are very appropriate. I have often noticed in Romans 12:18, Paul qualifies his injunction to live at peace with others; he says 'IF it is possible, as much as depends on you...' as if to acknowledge that it does not always depend on us; we may try our best to live peaceably with others but they refuse to deal similarly with us. This can be true with individuals and with nations.
And I think you are right about the dividing line between the two groups being their view of Scripture, whether they have a high or a low view of Scripture.
Again, thanks for your comments.
-VA
If you want an eye-opening interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount from a non-Christian perspective, try this:
http://tinyurl.com/3cst33
You'll never see Jesus the same afterward.
>>>"Look at the evangelicals today who have turned into globalist open borders wackos."
Wow. You couldn't have gotten that more wrong if you'd tried.
Xenophon, been there and done that; I studied every exotic religion under the sun for some years, and practiced my own custom-made syncretic 'religion' for quite a while until I came to a knowledge of the truth.
I no longer believe that there is some kind of superior 'Eastern wisdom.'
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; he is not a way, or one possible way of many, but the way. The Swami has nothing to add to that.
-VA
Carlos, are you quoting me, and saying I am wrong?
Where is the falsehood in that line you quote? That evangelicals (at least many of them) are open-borders globalists? That statement is true.
-VA
These comments are helpful. It definitely makes sense to me that some things the government ought to do, and some things individuals ought to do.
Retribution is something I do think the government has a duty to do, but if individuals all did it, we'd be living in a very unpleasant place.
Physical force ought to belong to some neutral party.
However, it still seems like there ought to be a limit to how forgiving we are in our personal life. Too much forgiveness of people who wrong us seems to invite us to be taken advantage of. But it is a nicer way to live to let go of anger and bitterness.
Commenting by HaloScan
