Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
Peter, Peter. Relax. You made a point about what you "saw" Christians doing. My point is that the media affects what you see and how you evaluate what you see. How the media influences your opinion is definitely relevant to this discussion because it totally affects your overall view of what Christians are doing. That's why I brought it up. It just so happens the media's bias is liberal.
I think you are missing a major consideration here. Perhaps these Christians believe such programs as Child and Family Services or expanded health-care coverage are not proper roles for the Federal government. To say that if one protests abortion but doesn't advocate for government welfare benefits for unwed mothers that one is incomplete or unbalanced is simply fallacious. I can be for the welfare of mothers without trying to get the Federal government involved. You see a lack of advocacy for government welfare as a sign of not caring. But who says you have to advocate for government welfare in order to really care? Such is the belief of liberals. This is why I said that you, perhaps unconsciously, have been influenced by them in the media and how things are slanted.
You need to take into account that other Christians may have completely different views from you regarding the proper role of government. Welfare can be achieved without government. Making something illegal cannot.
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Igzy,
My
whole point is that "other Christians may have completely different views from [me] regarding the proper role of government."
And there is nothing in the Bible that proves me right and you wrong. You'd do better to invoke Ayn Rand than Ephesians. Yet I am not invoking my faith
as an argument (even if implicit) to advance my
human political agenda. Christians who get involved in politics
as Christians, on both sides, do. And yet, despite a genuine dispute
amoung Christians about what the Bible "requires of them", each side proceeds as if commission by God in matters that concern a
human government.
You can dance around it all you want, but when Christians
as Christians advance
political arguments, they are
implicitly (in the minds of all onlookers, even if not themselves) saying this is "God's will."
The argument applies equally to
liberal Christians.
I would tend to agree with you that government cannot solve society's ills. Indeed, the liberal Christian who thinks Obamacare is the "Christian policy" and yet doesn't advocate for
empowering people to act for themselves, is just as guilty of internal inconsistency.
But I don't care to discuss the particular rightness of a given stance, except to make the
broader point.
Your post acknowledges that Christians can - and have - taken very different PUBLIC (read: "unbelievers are watching") approaches to what political policies the Bible "requires of them." And yet they contradict each other.
Some testimony.
I am a little suprised that on a forum that comes from a VERY POLITICAL Christian group (in the broad sense of politics - not American politics) and having experienced the damage that comes from invoking God in the service of what is really just politics, there isn't more understanding of the point I'm making.
In Love,
Peter