[ChemistCat]

I've been saying for some time that a good case can be made against an American military attack on Iraq, but that nobody is making one that doesn't hinge on inflated partisan rhetoric and ad-hominem, ignorant, morally bankrupt arguments. Here at last is a good stab at making such an argument, written by the friend of a friend of mine. I don't AGREE with it but I'm pleased to have read it, and I hope FReepers will have some good insights on its point of view.

I think its main weakness, as my friend pointed out, is that the churches so far have been pretty weak at providing "security, militarily and economically."

[happygrl]

Render to Caesar that which is Caesar's, render to God that which is God's.

The author compares the U.S. to Babylon, Tyre and Hitler and cautions that we could be in for a fall.

Are we like those three ?

[Texas_Jarhead]

"Rather, I want to argue that these legitimate functions of government have been corrupted and misdirected by America’s messianic identity"

Of course it is the left (or modern liberalism) that lies at the root of the modern 'messianic identity'. The left wants America to fix all the world's problems. I think many on the right would have no problem with America pulling back internationally across the board so long as we remained strong economically and militarily.

[Check6]

Sorry to see PCA wobble into waffling mode. Iraq/Iran is not a difficult problem to understand: they are the state sponsors of a terrorism that has now impacted directly on our shores. They are messing up our sandbox now, and we need to put a stop to that pronto. We are going into their sandbox, in their face, to deliver a message that they will understand. That is all they understand.

Incidentally, too bad our President let the Colin Powell crowd get him all tied up. Now he is right where the Rats want him: getting it from all sides.

[docmcb]

I don't know the author, but I do know folks at Covenant College, which is a fine school, and my daughter (PhD candidate in religious studies) believes very much as this sermon argues. I don't agree, however.

We have to distinguish between individuals and nations. That God loves each and every individual human, loves each enough to have sent Jesus Christ as savior, is our Gospel at its most basic. If an idea of American exceptionalism contradicted that, it would be antiChristian and therefore something that must be rejected.

But God is also "Judge of the nations" and Scripture makes clear that whole peoples may be blessed or cursed, may themselves BE the source of blessings or curses (i.e. the Jews). So it seems to me possible to argue that America is, in some real sense, a people assigned certain responsibilities by God, and accountable to Him for how we discahrge those responsibilities.