GVNana, I apologize for my late arrival to this thread, and further I apologize for this post, which will continue to derail a “size of the crowd” thread, but perhaps you won’t mind? Feel free to derail me in the future—I won’t mind.
To all—I have been reading with complete fascination the various comments related to mormonism vs. Christianity, and one thing stands out as something everyone shares and that is a passion for doing right by God. Wow!! That is a beautiful thing!! I can’t tell you how many times I have posted at FR that America needs to turn to God only to be “redirected” back to the economy or liberals or whatever...not God...we don’t want to talk about that!!! But today, on this thread, it’s ALL ABOUT GOD!!! I love it!
Could it be that on this thread we are treating two different concepts as only one concept?
Concept one: “the Body of Christ” specifically, who is in and who is out.
Concept two: “one nation under God” specifically, how do we refine and reinforce monotheism, and who is best to help shape that process.
Regarding concept one: that will not be solved without opening the Bible and seeing only what God says. It would seem that that type of Bible study would be best done as a forum.
Regarding concept two: This is where Glenn Beck was Saturday. Perhaps we can set Mr. Beck aside for a moment, and consult God’s own words on the subject.
Acts 17: 24-29 Time: A.D. Roman Government, Place: Athens, Speaker: Paul by inspiration from God, Religion being addressed: polytheism.
For convenience sake, here is the passage from NKJV:
24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.
Verses 26-27 are key related to out nation. We are a nation whose founding documents allow an individual the freedom to “seek” “grope” and “find” God without interference from government. Our founding documents recognize the universal truth that God wishes people to have freedom to do this. That is why our form of government was called an “experiment” because it sought to do what no other before had done— it put man under God, not man under man.
NOW TO WHERE WE ARE TODAY: (for those of us who still believe the founding fathers got it right.)
The question seems to be...
How do we grow our Republic to a more positive future, while not compromising the original beginning and intent?
For years this has been attempted by expanding on the idea of “liberty.” This has brought us Roe vs. Wade and Prop 8, among other things.
The rub comes in when we start to see expanding on liberty without basing the expansion on universal truths thus causes governing difficulties. Example: Abortion. Think Cain and Abel. From the beginning life was sacred. Why? God put His own breath in the human— not the dog, bird, or frog — into the human. This is a UNIVERSAL TRUTH.
It is my thinking (opinion) that for this republic to move forward while still remaining “under God” we must first KNOW and then have the FORTITUDE to AFFIRM IN GOVERNMENT the universal truths of God. Then-— we CAN productively expand on the freedoms granted by God under the umbrella of Universal Truths.
What are some other Universal Truths? I have already mentioned the sacred nature of life. Would you all be interested in furthering this thought?
Good post!
“What are some other Universal Truths?’
Good Lord, (no pun inteneded), that is a loaded question!
I’ll start by commenting on one of your commernts:
“God put His own breath in the human— not the dog, bird, or frog — into the human.”
IMO, I would say that is not technically, theologically correct. God put the breath of the Holy Spirit into humans. But all life has energy of God in it, and all life breaths, thus all ife has some divine, ie supernatural, energy in it, or it would not be life. So in that sense all life is sacred, but obviously all life does not have the potential man has to realize God.
breath of fresh air
The law is written on our hearts, I can join arms with anyone on affirming those truths.
But I will NOT link arms with someone who claims the name of God, but
-denies the Trinity
-claims that Jesus is the spiritual brother of Lucifer
-believes we can become a god
God put His own breath in the human— not the dog, bird, or frog — into the human. This is a UNIVERSAL TRUTH.
_________________________________________________-
Ah kid not “UNIVERSAL TRUTH”
1. That limits God
2. God is Spirit...
The question seems to be...
How do we grow our Republic to a more positive future, while not compromising the original beginning and intent?
I think your answer was in the passage you quoted: "...and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings..."Acts 17:26
The problem I see here is in the presuppositions. According to Romans 13 "...there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God..." it is rather fruitless for believers to "grow a Republic" particularly if it is outside of God's Will to do so. According to Glenn's own metaphor of our nation on a freeway and passing all of the exit signs - well, we have long passed those exits. The globe is most certainly heading for a thousand years of darkness, only the naive and foolish would argue otherwise.
The fact that we have President Soros and the metastasized cancer of Progressivism at every single level of government and social life, talk about some sort of economic or civil righting of the course is folly. If we agree with Romans 13, then we are left with the stark reality in that God appointed this time and season where we in the US are to be ruled by the wicked. Even under the wildest hopes of a God fearing House and Senate, the best that can be accomplished is putting the brakes on any further encroachment of our liberties in the form of legislation. The dirty truth is that the Beast of regulation will pick up and carry the torch for the final touches on this nation's preordained destruction.
For the sake of relative brevity, we can look at this leadership in two ways:
Concerning the former, the US has already commited itself as a matter of official State policy, to removing itself as that positive force for at least the next two years. Even if Barry or George Soros has a Road to Damascus experience, the machinery is in place to negate any act of repentance on their part. In short, to combat this evil is to polish brass on the Titanic
The other aspect is the "refining fire". I don't feel qualified to comment on the ways the Paraclete moves to sanctify the people of God, but what I do know of aggressive persecution is that it leaves a fairly high body count of martyrs. Second, I am struggling with how an enemy of God (as all of the unregenerate are) even in the form of a Mormon, or Jehovah's Witness, or a religious Jew can somehow find God's blessings, for God does not hear the prayers of the unregenerate. This isn't just to pick on Glenn, there is a new book out called "Almost Christian" which paints a grim picture of the generation that we are depending on to bring us the "next George Washington". The obstacles to acheive any sort of political, cultural or religious revival/reformation are legion, and those skilled in navigating around them are few. This situation is light years away from this country's founding principles. Whereas most if not all of the founders were believers, a minimum of 90% of our political leaders are reprobate.
The problem, for at least this Republic, is that while numbers run as high as 70% of the population claiming a "Christian" faith, for the vast majority of that crowd, their religion is better characterized as "a moralistic therapeutic deism" - Jesus as a cosmic concierge or therapist who exists to be our spiritual Santa Claus. Therefore, events such as 8/28 fit in perfectly with the idea that our pitiful self-generated quid-pro-quos with God, where we dictate the terms and expect God to assume the role of obligation, give all the appearance that we are "doing something", and as a result of our "doing something" God will actually come in and do the heavy lifting.
My question for this group is, what do you think God was doing before we decided to exercise some good ol' fashioned self-righteousness and expect that singing a few hymns with the unregenerate will motivate God to reverse His course with the US? Do we have any example of that in Scripture?
The closest I can think of is Jonah and Ninevah, and even that was temporary. ALL of the other examples show that God still trucks along with His plans: example king Josiah. Here his father was busy running the Sodomites out of the country. When he passed and Josiah took his place, the young king commisioned the dilapidated Temple to be restored. During the restoration, the High Priest providentially found in the corner stone of the Temple copies of the Torah. Josiah was so moved by how far the people of Judah had strayed from the nation's founding principles and documents, that he legislated morality, and tried to compel the people to conjure up some righteousness so that God would not continue in His announced plans through His prophets to destroy Judah and take the people captive.
Even though Josiah and others repented, the die was cast long ago. You know the rest of the story. The point being, even if I am grossly pessimistic about the spiritual nature of this Republic, the examples in Scriptures indicate quite plainly that the land will surely vomit us out - for we haven't even talked about casting out the Sodomites and destroying the temples of idolators.
Those Universal Truths you mentioned - Read Romans 1 and then consider how those Universal Truths are received by those whom God has turned over to a reprobated mind.
About the only bright point I see is that the bogus self-righteousness will most likely amount to strong motivation to cast out the most visibly wicked from office this November. Will the emotional high of 8/28 change our clergy? Probably only a few since most of our clergy is only motivated in generating numbers and spurious conversions. When many in the pulpit don't even believe Genesis 1-11, have a generally low view of God and lower view of the necessity of equiping the saints with the real armour of God, all I can recommend is for each of us whose salvation is secure in Christ to be that last remaining light and salt.
As a parting thought, and in the true spirit of the Blue Bird of F'ing Joy, I submit this disturbing parable, something that would seem to come out of the Gospel According to Claire Wolf:
Matt 12:43-45 "When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. Then he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation."
Consider the person who "empties, sweeps and puts in order" their life through an 8/28 sort of Experience. If this person is a nominal Christian of the "moralistic therapeutic deist" variety (which is the bulk of those within the American Religion) then what happens when the emotional high wears off and the unclean spriti that once troubled the nominal Christian returns with even more wicked friends. I don't interpret this as the foundations of a riot, rather I am looking at this from the eternal perspective: what happens when people who think they are saved go on a self-righteousness Crusade expecting God to "work miracles" and then discover the expected miracles never come. What spiritual crisis then occurs?
People are corrupt. On a human plane, Christians can be very bad and non-Christians can be good. Peter warns believers not to "suffer as a murderer, or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler". (1 Peter 4:15). Christians can be too arrogant and get bogged down in thinking spirituality and doing the right thing are somehow synonymous. Well, they're not according to God.
I recall the famous words to Esther from Mordecai:
It doesn't matter what Glenn Beck's religious views are or standing with God is as long as he brings about God's deliverance. God will judge Glenn Beck. Those of us who sees right from wrong should applaud Glenn for standing up to do the right thing. He is an agent of God's deliverance.