The evangelical third coming

www.townhall.com ^ | March 14, 2005 | Cal Thomas

[beaver fever]

John 18:36
"Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence."

Quoted From:

http://www.bbie.org/WrestedScriptures/A07ChurchofChrist/John18v36.html

The Church of Christ interprets this verse to mean that Christ's kingdom has nothing to do with him reigning from David's throne on the earth, but is rather a spiritual kingdom operating through the "church" since Pentecost.

While this is a citation from a Morman site your question of stewardship is very pertinent.

When Christ said his kingdom was not of this world, he meant that Christians should be indifferent to the secular or natural world.

He did not mean that as a license to willfully destroy that which God had created.

To say that it is perfectly fine to leave the world in ruin because the end is near is blasphemous, bad manners and dreadfully poor housekeeping. IMHO

[xzins]

You are correct. Let the people sort out the religious wars on their own.

So far as liberal evangelicals are concerned, "they tithe mint and cummin but neglect the weightier matters of the law."

It is beyond me how they can condone a party of abortion because of a coral reef that they want to save that is a matter of questionable science.

There's no question, however, that a baby is dead.

[PrepareToLeave]

Amen. Destruction of the earth will come from the hand of the Lord Himself, it's in the book. Unfortuneately, many Christians are sifting out the gnat and swallowing camels.

http://www.preparetoleave.com/home.php

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

I agree with you. I am not bothered by their right to argue their position based on faith. I'm glad to see they are 1) reading the Bible, and 2) giving it authoritative credibility. I don't agree with their conclusions, their reasons, or anything. But the fact that they use faith as a foundation for their views doesn't bother me at all. I think it makes their view interesting and honest; besides, we should weigh these thinks against a moral standard. To the extent that their motive is sincere I think it is very good. Right motive; wrong conclusion.

[SedVictaCatoni]

Like previous efforts - Prohibition in the 1920s

The evangelicals were rather successful with Prohibition, considering that they succeeded in amending the Constitution. It didn't work out well in the long run, but it was a resounding success of political organization.

[bethelgrad]

Cal's disdain for evangelical politics came to light in a book he wrote called "Blinded by Might" (I think) where he chronicles his involvment with Moral Majority. His concern is in seeing Christians spinning their wheels in attempting to change culture by political involvement rather than preaching the gospel.

[MeekOneGOP]

bump!

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

His concern is in seeing Christians spinning their wheels in attempting to change culture by political involvement rather than preaching the gospel.

I take issue with his "rather than" point. Why is it either/or? Anyway, he goes about this little campaign while living completely contrary to his own stated standard. He devotes his life to political issues. Why doesn't he start preaching the gospel instead of writing about politics?

Plus, he thoroughly makes his point using Scripture himself. He is just coming to new conclusions -- rules for others to follow, not himself.

Christians are not really trying to change culture through political means. Christians are just trying to compete in the marketplace of ideas through the same persuasive means everyone else is entitled to use. Most of the time -- as with the Ten Commandments case where three-fourths of the public agree that the display should be allowed -- Christians are just trying to maintain their constitutional rights and the rights of the majority to decide these matters without unelected judges imposing their will on all. The gov't via the courts has grown hostile to religion and morality. We have a right to stand up for ourselves.

Winning hearts is NOT the issue. When the public overwhelmingly supported prayer rights in schools, the courts ruled against them. When the public did not support sweeping abortion "rights," the courts ruled against them. When the public didn't want gay marriage, the courts ruled against them. When Texans didn't want sodomy legal, the courts ruled against them.

We are not the ones abusing the system. We are just trying to be treated fairly. When we lose the hearts of the people on any given issue, then we lose. That's the way it works. We can continue to try and persuade, but we lose in the meantime.

Preachiang the gospel and winning hearts for Christ is a COMPLETELY separate issue. Cal is wrong to mix them up. A person can be against abortion who is an atheist. So when Christians argue for or against a political position (and they can be on both sides), it has nothing to do with the gospel. It just has to do with how "we the people" want to structure our gov't and society. Everyone can draw wisdom from any source they want, and then they work to persuade others on any level they want. We vote and that's it. Their spiritual status is their own business.

That's why you see Jews and Christians and atheists and whoever else joining together on some of these issues. The fact that evangelical Christians are predictable (in that they draw their wisdom and morality from Scripture) on some of these issues does not transform the issue into a gospel message. Nor does it make the Christian's political position a violation of the establishment clause.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

What the left has been doing for years is establishing the precedent -- through the courts, not the people -- that the only valid politcal ideas are secular, defined as having absolutely no tie to Judeo/Christian values whatsoever. So what if the values of the majority are rooted in Judeo/Christian tradition!! According to the left, they can't constiutionally compete in the marketplace of political ideas. Cal is helping them.

My point is that the Constituion establishes the right of all to compete. The gov't can't say "You must be a Christian" or "You must be baptized" or things like that. But it does not ban politcal activism while Christian either. Religious people have just as much right to persuade the public of the rightness of their political ideas and the wrongness of other ideas (barring only things like sacraments, church membership and things like that) as anyone else.

Thus people from various faiths or no faith at all can find themselves on the same side politically, joined only by values and political philosophy. Faith and morality are guides, not mandates. What is mandated is only the right of all to compete in the persuasion/debate process. No one's faith is established, but the general, structural morality of the majority is put into law (I say this because many moral issues are of the lower kind, where culture has its own way of stigmatizing behavior without actually making it illegal. A person is motivated to not behave a certain way because it brings public embarrassment.)

Also, God can be honored anywhere and at all times, including in gov't. Our political oaths are taken in His name; our rights come from Him alone; in freedom we answer to Him alone; why would a gov't such as ours want or need to dishonor Him? That's an important principle.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

I'm going to bother you one more time because I think Dennis Prager makes an important point that Cal Thomas completely misses. Our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian values, NOT on Christianity. It is a very important distinction.

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Part VIII: Judeo-Christian values are larger than Judaism or Christianity
Dennis Prager (back to web version) | Send

March 15, 2005

Some Jews and Christians object to the term “Judeo-Christian.” How can there be Judeo-Christian values, they argue, when Judaism and Christianity differ? In a previous column, I explained that one should not confuse theology with values. Theological differences are not the same as value differences.

Nevertheless there are some value differences between the religions.

But that is precisely the greatness of Judeo-Christian values: They are greater than the sum of their parts. That is why in this series of essays I have been making the case for Judeo-Christian values, not for all Christian values and not for all Jewish values.

The combination of Jewish Scripture (the Old Testament) and Christian thought and activism – as worked out mostly in America and mostly by Judeo-based Christians – has forged something larger and more universally applicable than either Judaism or Christianity alone.
Let me give two examples of specifically Jewish and Christian values that are not Judeo-Christian values.

As Judaism developed, it developed a legal system (Halakha) that increasingly aimed to separate Jews from non-Jews. One purpose was to keep Jews from incorporating pagan practices and values into the one monotheistic religion. Over time, however, it was also a result of the constant decimation of the Jewish people by antisemites. Jews, for good reason, feared disappearing. Thus survival – in part through avoiding social contact with non-Jews – became the primary concern of Jewish life, not influencing the world. Whatever the reasons, Judaism retreated from the world. Judeo-Christian values bring Jewish values back into the world.

An example of a Christian value that is not Judeo-Christian is Christianity’s traditional emphasis on faith above works and on an exclusive credo. Many Christians, including those who forcefully advocate Judeo-Christian values, believe that one must profess faith in Christ in order to be saved, that no amount of good deeds a person may perform, even if that person also has a deep belief in God (the Father), suffices in God’s eyes. And though Catholicism has emphasized works along with faith, for most of Church history, the importance of works was restricted to Catholics. Non-Catholics, no matter how good, were often denied salvation and frequently persecuted solely for their different faith (e.g., Huguenots and Jews).

Until the twentieth century, European Christianity, as embodied in the Church, de-emphasized its Jewish roots, and it usually persecuted Jews (though never ordered, indeed opposed, their physical annihilation – annihilation required a secular ideology, Nazism). No Christian state referred to itself as “Judeo-Christian.” That identity arose with the Christians of America, who from the outset were at least as deeply immersed in the Old Testament as in the New.
The American Christian identified with the Jews rather than saw himself as simply superseding them.

These American Christians chose a Torah verse – “Proclaim liberty throughout the land” – for their Liberty Bell; learned and taught Hebrew; adopted the Jewish notion of being chosen to be a light unto the nations; saw their leaving Europe as a second exodus; had every one of its presidents take the oath of office on an Old and New Testament Bible – and while every president mentioned God in his inaugural address, not one mentioned Jesus.

Of course, most Protestant Christians who hold Judeo-Christian values continue to believe that there is no salvation outside of faith in Christ. But precisely because they do hold Judeo-Christian values, they work hand in hand with others whose faith they deem insufficient or incorrect (e.g., Jews and Mormons). So while they theologically reject other faiths, evangelical Christians are the single strongest advocates of Judeo-Christian values.

They are what can be called “Judeo-Christians.” Since they founded America, such Christians have recognized the critical significance of the Jewish text – the Old Testament – which forms the foundation of Judeo-Christian values. It provided the God of Christianity, their supra-natural Creator, the notions of divine moral judgment and divine love, the God-based universal morality they advocate and try to live by, the Ten Commandments, the holy, the sanctity of human life, the belief in a God of history and that history has meaning, and moral progress. All these and more came from the Jews and their texts.

But while the Jews provided the text, the Christians brought the text and its values into the world at large and applied them to a society composed of Jews, Christians, atheists, and members of other religions.

Those Judeo-Christian values have made America the greatest experiment in human progress and liberty and the greatest force for good in history.

And they are exportable. In fact, they are humanity’s only hope.

©2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Contact Dennis Prager | Read Prager's biography

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[JenB]

So, God won't care whether we believe or take seriously a clear and foundational — but unfashionable — part of His Word, so long as we buy into liberal orthodoxy.

I had a rather amazing conversation with a friend a few days ago. She claims Christianity, and in the course of our conversation it came out that she doesn't believe the Creation account at all (and thinks this makes her more spiritually aware than me, go figure). But because she doesn't believe that, she also doesn't believe in the story of the Fall (because Adam and Eve couldn't have been the only humans around) and so not in human sinfulness, and that leads to her pluralism....

And she'd probably call herself an evangelical and thinks she's a conservative Christian. I just don't know... what are these churches teaching? Anyway, in my view it's another reason to homeschool. Obviously you can't count on churches to educate your kids in Bible stories.

[1stFreedom]

>>Do evangelicals have time on their hands because they've finished the mission to "go and make disciples of all nations"? Is this not a great enough commission that "global warming" and a host of other "issues" must be added to make evangelicals contemporary and relevant?


LOL.. I think they are probably a few centuries behind the Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox, etc, in making disciples of all the nations...

[BibChr]

Oh golly, there's so much in what you said. We could start with people being unclear on what it means to be a "Christian," let alone an "evangelical." If the former means anything, it means affirming the Lordship of Jesus. And if that means anything, it will mean agreeing with Jesus, learning to see things His way.

So the rational approach to Genesis would be to ask how Jesus approached it, how He saw it. Do that, and you'll never find anything but a straightforward reading of the text as God-breathed this-world history. But that isn't the fashionable view. It isn't the popular view. And that's where our real loyalties revela themselves.

Viewed one way, you could truthfully say that everything in the Bible after Genesis chapter twelve is a development of themes, seeds, found within the first twelve chapters. So naturally, if we botch our handling of those chapters, we're going to go wrong somewhere in our handling of the rest.

I wish I could remember verbatim the way I heard this, but I loved something a fellow said once. He was responding to the notion that the story of the Fall is figurative. He said something like, "Figurative of what?" If it's a figurative story of the entry of sin and death, then why tell a figrative story? Why not tell the actual story? Doesn't the actual story tell, well, the actual story? How would a figurative telling improve upon it?

WHen men try to twit God, they only succeed in twitting themselves.

Dan
Biblical Christianity BLOG

[JenB]

That's a good way to put it! I'll have to try to remember it. Because I was brought up in a Bible-believing home and around Bible-believing Christians, I tend to think all those who call themselves Christians believe the way I do. Sure, atheists might not believe in a Fall, but Christians must, no?

I get a lot of weird looks these days when people realize I really do believe that "silly Bible stuff". But I think they're the ones who are going to have to answer for their figurative interpretations or multicultural views... Even if evolution were the truth of what happened, it's safer to take the Bible literally and be wrong than to say God doesn't know what He's talking about and be right.

[BibChr]

(Seemingly-unrelated-question-alert in three... two... one....)

Have you seen Pirates of the Caribbean?

Dan

[bethelgrad]

I'm inclined to agree with you. All I was doing was attempting to state his position. He comes across disgruntled by mixing politics and religion yet continues to do so. BTW--thanks for your well thought out responses.

[JenB]

Uh, yeah... forced to by a fan of Orlando "I'm prettier than a girl" Bloom...

[BibChr]

Oh, now, don't be a sourpuss.

So, you remember when Will Turner says, "You cheated!", and Captain Jack shrugs, gestures to himself, says, "Pirate."

Well, when people register surprise that us for believing all that silly Bible stuff, the proper response would be shrug, gesture to ourselves, and say "Christian!"

Dan

[TomSmedley]

My point is that the Constituion establishes the right of all to compete. The gov't can't say "You must be a Christian" or "You must be baptized" or things like that. But it does not ban politcal activism while Christian either.

The constitutional prohibition on test oaths basically spelled the end of federalism, and asserted America's destiny as a French-style secular republic. Note the depressing progression:

• The Mayflower Compact was made in "the name of God, Amen."
• The Declaration of Independance referred to "the laws of nature and of nature's God."
• The constitution was a new covenant made in the name of a new deity, "we the people."

Between 1776 and 1789, our nation consisted of 12 Christian republics, most of which required a test oath of office holders, and one secular republic, the despised and bankrupt Rhode Island.

Once upon a time, civic office was reserved for confessing Christians who recognized a transcendant power beyond their own ambitions.

[JenB]

Ah, I see your point. Yes, I like that better than letting them get to me.