“Saying that all have sinned and that sin leads to death does not set aside the fact that there are lesser and greater sins.”
I tend to agree with this. I think semanitically we’re on the same page - I’m just adding the term ‘consequences of sin’ and you’re saying there are greater and lesser sins.
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“Saying that all have sinned and that sin leads to death does not set aside the fact that there are lesser and greater sins.”
I think one of the key differentials between Roeder’s act and the Patriots of the 1775 era was that there was a societal sanctioning of the Patriots declaration of war.
Unless the pro-life movement is willing to declare war and sanction killing to change the laws/government/society (to what end - a new country?), then your analogy breaks down.
But you bring up a great moral issue - when is violence justified - and the old debate about ‘just war.’
I hate to steal someone else’s ad campaign, but......
An Army of One
Sanctioning by whom? The Sons of Liberty probably had the sympathies of something less than 20 percent of the total population in 1775. "While the evils were sufferable," going to war with the Mother Country was unthinkable by the vast majority of Colonials. But the Sons of Liberty were inspired by the Fire of Liberty; and so managed to start a war, and then (somehow) managed to win it — arguably with some highly timely divine interventions along the way....
You want to talk about "just war?" Big topic!!! Can we narrow it down to what the Framers thought would constitute a "just war?"
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. [emphasis added]Not for nothing did Thomas Jefferson say, "The Tree of Liberty is watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
A question SeattleBruce: Do you think the Sons of Liberty, the original American Patriots, were "terrorists?" Or "vigilantes?"