See? That is why Jesus was so much smarter than I am! That is probably why He was: the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God; begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. Thank you for the correction, that was an important detail that makes the story much better and I missed it.
(I knew I should look up the Matthew quote but I just wanted to shoot from the hip on that one. I had a pretty good track record of remembering things more or less accurately in this particular thread. In addition to that error, in this response I had all the phrases except one from the Creed, but in the wrong order. Now I will be checking myself.)
I am constantly trying to save the puppies! But I am a very slow learner so please bear with me as I move toward proper grammatical practices. (And I am pretty sure that in this case I did not mean: bare with me – I have got there, their, and they’re down but have been known to hilariously appropriate the entirely wrong word before.)
I am going to pick a nit with you over this quote, and possibly go into a bigger debate on the entirety of your post. You know how I love to mount my soapbox and bloviate as if my opinions mattered!
Really I want to discuss one word, I believe compatible is the wrong choice for this sentence. I am not well enough informed to know if the Greeks had any form of Democracy operating during the time of Jesus, but I would say the writers of the New Testament were not greatly aware of the principals of democracy at the time of their writings. Rome had emperors at that time, but I don’t know if they had a Senate yet or what the role of a Senate would be to a place ruled by an emperor.
For the sake of this discussion, I will concede that the Israelites (who are BEGGING for an apostrophe here!) and the entire Old Testament do fall into your contention quite well. But as you say in this very post, the Kingdom of Jesus is not of this earth. It seems to me the very scripture from Matthew discussed above kind of said: “Earthly rulers are not important, give to Caesar” (be a good citizen) — if God is displeased with a ruler, He will take care of it himself. And that again was Jesus himself talking. There is no compatible or incompatible; there is temporal and (for Christians) real, or eternal. It reads to me like obey laws, even unjust ones-- don’t be a jerk, it will all be okay in the end. To obey is better than sacrifice (no idea where any scripture may be that addresses that, but pretty sure Keith Green didn’t pull it out of . . . nowhere.
To say democracy as a system is foreign to Christianity is a true and fair statement as far as I can tell, but to say it is not compatible is taking it too far. Less than ideally suited, foreign, or other comparisons work better than the word compatible to make your point. It sounds to me like someone saying: spark plugs are not compatible with the color orange- they are on two different planes of existence (and now I am worried- planes of existence, plains of existence- you know what I mean, right?)
I would say the framers of the US Constitution would take issue with this statement-- but not with the concept itself. In the Old Testament yes, that is pretty much how it went. But in this country, when they decided to plan out and launch an entirely new, fair, and lasting government, they decided that the power from above was distant and remote. (You caught me, those two words mean the exact same thing!) They believed, it seems to me, that whatever the origins and whatever forces have been placed on the universe and all it contains- that is already in motion. They believed life is fluid, dynamic, and limited neither by fates nor by whims of the divine. The divine has done His and/or Her part and given humankind dominion over creation. Interventionism was dismissed and discouraged. Now white, landowning men could create (being made in the image of the creator) whatever government he sees fit to make.
And the framers were astute enough to allow pluralism. People were free to live and decide and worship or not worship as they saw fit. And the only rule was that your freedom ended where it harmed someone else’s freedom. (Ironically, most of them were slave owners.) And for a good long while everyone respected everyone else’s freedoms because they knew if freedoms start being cancelled - - sooner or later my freedom may be in jeopardy.
Of course, there were always those who tried to leverage their freedoms at the expense of others. But enough of us respected the views of the “others”, the opposition, to keep things going along in the more or less correct direction. But then . . . .
I really believe that once Christians decided that they KNEW and also OWNED the one true morality in a corporate sense (I am fine with and encourage every believer of any faith to be true and faithful and loyal and obedient to their own faith) but once the religious right decided everyone would benefit from living by their rules, their morals, and no one else’s – well, things started to go to hell. If the apostles could be true to Jesus and their faith in Corinth where temple prostitutes (I was told) descended on the city each night, and where believers were literally fed to lions in Rome, how is it such an outrage when someone who has an entirely different faith system wants an abortion? Or some form of Sex Ed? Or responsible gun ownership? Immigration, collective bargaining, racial justice, and a hundred other issues? Martyrs do not seem to be filling the ranks of believers like they used to. Apparently decorating a cake for a gay wedding is worse than being martyred.
I find it amazing that the same people who were up in arms over Sharia Law a few years ago now want to make a Christian Theocracy in America. Do they not realize the similarity of their restrictions to the other guy’s restrictions? (Control of women’s bodies, militaristic stance, rejection of inconvenient science, enforcing modest clothing restrictions, control over education and fear of new information, etc.) I actually occasionally pity some of the (in my opinion) very misguided modern day believers. (Certainly not you Velocity, you and I have had way too many good exchanges to lump you in with those I am talking about now.) Just as often I am frustrated by them and wish they could be reasoned with, but it is seeming more and more that some are just beyond reach. They are living in a fabricated world of Democrats who put children into ovens or who turn into werewolves in order to consume those kids sexually then, actually. And the “Socialist Agenda” they are so very concerned about.
Well, I warned you about my soapbox. I also see JRDelirious has addressed many of the issues I have been going on and on about. (I didn’t get notifications so I found it when I read it, same with Velocity.)