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American Christians very often tend to vote “one of their own” in political elections. No doubt this is more a result of in-group/out-group mentality than Biblical doctrine. Nevertheless it is a powerful force, once for socialism, and more recently with the revival of Evangelicalism for social conservatism. And what would evince Christian bona-fides better than [...]
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Last month, I asserted that the Bible speaks nothing about how society should be governed, but has political implications only so far as it binds the conscience of the voter. Here, however, let us move beyond particular issues to whole ideologies. Scripture says nothing about Capitalism or Socialism. But can a Christian in good conscience [...]
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This is a revision of my thoughts on the intersection of faith and politics that I first essayed in The Just Society. Where these two differ, this post, despite the less grand title, supersedes the old. The Independence of Faith and Politics Nothing is easier, it seems, than to draw political implications from scripture. The [...]
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For as long as there have been social conservatives, there has been the threat of chimp marriage, or dolphin marriage, or christmas tree marriage. Judging from the news, one could even allege these fears have borne out. Let’s start out with a definition of marriage. “Between a man and a woman” is not it. Lots of things happen between a man and a woman that are not marriage, from business relationships to one-night-stands…
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The civil rights movement of the 1960s was a resounding triumph for justice. Though it ended up swinging in the opposite direction and actually outlawing a lot of private discrimination, it was a systematic breakdown of the walls which kept blacks from justice in the courts and from equal treatment by the state. Perhaps, given [...]
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It’s not uncommon to hear people sanctimoniously condemning evangelism as forcing one’s religion on another. In their mind, religion is a purely private matter; a preference, like what flavor ice cream one likes. Rhetoric like this comes alike from the “Spiritual but not religious” crowd, the New Atheists, and pretty much anyone with a measure [...]
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Somewhere along the way, American Christianity became affected of the idea of family friendliness. Perhaps the rise of the Family Research Council in the 1980s and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family radio programs were influential in this regard; perhaps they were merely symptomatic. Perhaps Christians were en masse enchanted by the idea; perhaps there [...]
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Let us for the sake of argument grant that homosexuality is unnatural in some meaningful way. Guess what else is unnatural? Monogamy. Certainly the proportion of animals in the animal kingdom practicing monogamy is lower than that which practices homosexuality: Neither is unheard of, but both are comparatively rare. And if one can make an appeal to naturalness without reference to animals, then what constitutes naturality?…
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This post is to justify and expound upon the leap from the individual to the corporate – from “Love your neighbor as yourself” to Capitalism – that I made in
The Just Society. “Love your neighbor as yourself” is not only a command, but a definition. What is love? It is not replacing your own interests with someone else’s (indeed we would not be human if our own interests could be displaced), but defining your own interests as coincident with someone else’s…
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Two and a half years ago,
Saving The Church Part II set off a systematic decoupling of faith and politics. This is my attempt at reintegration. There is in the Bible a distinction between morality and justice: Morality is rightness before God; justice is rightness before other men. To a certain degree they are not separate: justice is attendant to morality. Loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind entails that we will love our neighbors as ourselves. Yet justice can exist on its own:…
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The foundation of liberal (in the classical sense) thought is freedom, for the purpose of the maximization of the happiness of man. Unfortunately happiness isn’t exactly a cut and dry concept. Libertarians of the Subjectivist school (Mises and his followers) believe happiness is maximized when man is free to do as he pleases: value, something’s [...]
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Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment. -Mises, Human Action, Chapter 3 This statement was in regard to goods and services: the subjective theory of value breathed new life into classical economics – that goods [...]
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Or, How God Works Through History to Suppress Bad Theology. The history of the Church over the past few centuries may be surprising to many who consider the world to be in a perpetual state of moral decline. The 18th and 19th Centuries were particularly dark times for Protestantism and Evangelicalism worldwide. Having fully accepted [...]
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It must be taught that patriotic loyalty must not be identified with Christianity. -Francis Schaeffer, The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century In America and throughout the world, it is not at all uncommon to find that nation’s flag flown prominently in the churches. In certain “conservative” circles especially in America, faith and [...]
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Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone. -Mitt Romney This is shaping up to be one of the most interesting elections in recent memory, with three [...]
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See Faith And Activism, Or, The Bible is Not a Blueprint for Society for an integrated doctrine regarding the Church and political issues such as this. Abortion is unique among the “social” political issues in that a strong argument can be made against it without appealing to any particular religion. But the traditional tactics of [...]
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For all the talk by and about the “Christian Right” as a political force in modern America, one should be inevitably drawn to question their very premise: Should Christians intentionally affect worldly governments, and what would be the ultimate goal of their action? This article is the conclusion in specific terms of Saving The Church, [...]