Posted on 05/31/2009 12:15:41 PM PDT by Crazieman
No article link, just headline
Saying that all have sinned and that sin leads to death does not set aside the fact that there are lesser and greater sins. Jesus’ words about it being worse (in hell) for Sodom than for unbelieving Jerusalem (in hell) must mean that worse sins get worse punishment. That is hard to contemplate, and modern Christians simply won’t receive it, even though it is biblical.
I could make a biblical case that Roeder’s action was not sinful, depending on his intentions. In the same way, the Founders of our republic justified overthrowing God’s requirement that they obey the government by claiming that God did not support despotic regimes.
They began a war that killed thousands over taxes and faulty imprisonments.
Roeder MIGHT have killed one man to prevent thousands from being killed; killed DUE to a despotic government allowing it.
What evidence do we have that this government is more despotic than revolutionary England?
What evidence do we have of Roeder’s intentions?
Betty: “You [Bruce] appear to want to say Let’s cut through all the B.S. and simply say that both men deserve(d) the electric chair”
Bruce: “Betty, I have clearly said that I supported the electric chair for Tiller, if our laws were just, and that I wouldn’t convict on 1st degree murder for Roeder, as I believe that his religious duties led him to a place that society was not willing to take up for him - and should have. I still believe however, that he made the wrong choice.”
Betty: Well, Duh!!!!”He made the wrong choice.” Are you under any illusion that I disagree with that assessment?
Bruce: Duh, what? We pro-lifers are all trying to makes sense of it - so what sense of ‘duh’ is there in that? Quite a few people in this discussion are saying something like “I don’t support or condone what Roeder did, but I’m glad he did it...and/or Tiller had it coming to him.” IMHO, those people really *do* condone Roeder’s vigilantism, even if they wouldn’t be a vigilante themselves.
People can’t have it both ways - either Roeder’s action was morally wrong or morally right for the pro-life movement. I maintain Roeder was morally wrong - however tortured his own morals and feelings may have been. I also maintain, that on balance, what he and the other vigilantes did harms the pro-life movement more than helps in the long term, especially if others copycat him - justify more violence/murder in the name of Life.
“Saying that all have sinned and that sin leads to death does not set aside the fact that there are lesser and greater sins.”
I tend to agree with this. I think semanitically we’re on the same page - I’m just adding the term ‘consequences of sin’ and you’re saying there are greater and lesser sins.
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“Saying that all have sinned and that sin leads to death does not set aside the fact that there are lesser and greater sins.”
I think one of the key differentials between Roeder’s act and the Patriots of the 1775 era was that there was a societal sanctioning of the Patriots declaration of war.
Unless the pro-life movement is willing to declare war and sanction killing to change the laws/government/society (to what end - a new country?), then your analogy breaks down.
But you bring up a great moral issue - when is violence justified - and the old debate about ‘just war.’
I hate to steal someone else’s ad campaign, but......
An Army of One
Frightening, but true.
All our unalienable rights are direct gifts of God, not grants of government. "What the government gives, the government can take away."
Fewer and fewer understand this fundamental truth. When the immoral is forced upon us and our God given rights are denied us some will fight and others will surrender. The toughest question is what form that fighting should take.
If we look at his actions, it is clear he intended to stop Tiller from killing anymore babies. He did not shoot someone walking into or out of an abortion clinic. He identified the DR. that performed the abortions. He calculated the easiest way to get close to him and did not shoot any else.
“When the immoral is forced upon us and our God given rights are denied us some will fight and others will surrender. The toughest question is what form that fighting should take.”
Are you saying this applies to Roeder’s action or are you speaking more generally?
Not only would it be best (IMHO) for you to “lose” the “T-word”; but I think it ill-advised to use the “V-word.”
Both.
In the case of Roeder the only reason I can see that he shouldn't have done what he did is anarchy will lead to even more innocents being killed.
“What evidence do we have of Roeder’s intentions?”
He intended to act alone if necessary, without the backing of the very movement he intended to assist - damn the consequences. He wanted to be, or thought he was, some sort of hero or messiah.
When you read what other pro-life leaders say of their interactions with Roeder (mainly by phone and correspondence vs. in person), it’s clear he was on the fringe of the pro-life movement. He certainly did not seek the counsel of pro-life leaders, even local pro-life leaders who have condemned his action.
I have sympathy for him but in my view, he damaged the pro-life cause more than he (may have) helped by moving ahead without the sanction of his own cause’s leaders, and (righly or wrongly) bringing a blithe, easy accusation from naysayers of hypocrisy to the entire movement.
“In the case of Roeder the only reason I can see that he shouldn’t have done what he did is anarchy will lead to even more innocents being killed.”
That’s a pretty huge reason...that and ceding the moral high ground of pro-life to the pro-death/pro-abort crowd.
“Not only would it be best (IMHO) for you to “lose” the “T-word”; but I think it ill-advised to use the “V-word.
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LOL, you’d basically really like it if I wouldn’t speak...:)
Sanctioning by whom? The Sons of Liberty probably had the sympathies of something less than 20 percent of the total population in 1775. "While the evils were sufferable," going to war with the Mother Country was unthinkable by the vast majority of Colonials. But the Sons of Liberty were inspired by the Fire of Liberty; and so managed to start a war, and then (somehow) managed to win it — arguably with some highly timely divine interventions along the way....
You want to talk about "just war?" Big topic!!! Can we narrow it down to what the Framers thought would constitute a "just war?"
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. [emphasis added]Not for nothing did Thomas Jefferson say, "The Tree of Liberty is watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
A question SeattleBruce: Do you think the Sons of Liberty, the original American Patriots, were "terrorists?" Or "vigilantes?"
Not so, SeattleBruce. I'd like only that you would speak prudently. If someone wants to pour gasoline all over this fire, let it be some pro-abort on the other side, not one of our own.
“I’d like only that you would speak prudently.”
I’d say Mr. Roeder did a much more effective job of pouring gasoline and lighting this fire than anything I’ve ever said or done.
Yes, I will attempt to speak prudently, as I’m sure will you...we’re both commanded to do that! (Eph. 4:29)
“Do you think the Sons of Liberty, the original American Patriots, were “terrorists?” Or “vigilantes?”
Now, now - you just used the ‘t’ and the ‘v’ word after making them strictly off limits to me...lol...:)
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“The Sons of Liberty probably had the sympathies of something less than 20 percent of the total population in 1775.”
That’s way, way more than Roeder ever had. Name one local or national pro-life leader that publicly supports what Roeder did.
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“it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
The very fact that these recognized colonial leaders deliberated, wrote and agitated to stir up sympathies, etc., leads us to ask about this greatly stretched analogy - what along these lines could Roeder have claimed to do?
*Was he a leader of a movement?
*As such did he stir up sympathies toward his take on the cause?
*Did he have reason to suspect that a much broader swath of the pro-life masses would join with him in his just fight, and be willing to pick up arms and lay down their lives for it?
None of this rings true with Roeder, and as I told xzins, this is where that analogy breaks down completely.
No, the Patriots weren’t ‘Ts’ or ‘Vs’ in that they were deliberately sanctioned by a wide swath of the American public, which while perhaps not a majority at first, grew to encompass a victory over the British crown.
No, no, and no.
Very little is known of him — he's being kept under very tight wraps. Yet from what little is known, one surmises that Roeder is a very private man who ended up doing a very public thing. One senses he was acting out of conscience, imagining that he alone would pay the inevitable price. And for whatever reason, he was willing to bear that price. Whatever it is to be.
This strikes me as being something very like what the Framers had in mind when they pledged "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor" to the cause of Liberty. Only Roeder evidently has staked his ground on Life.
Actually in the case of late term abortions, I do not believe that to be true. Tiller's death was a targeted assassination of a man who was illegally performing late term abortions.
If anything this incident will bring a lot of attention to the practice of late term abortions and the fact of the matter is that anyone who actually sees the remains of a late term aborted baby cannot pretend in their mind that this was not the premeditated murder of a live baby.
Americans hate baby killers and by and large I suspect that Americans secretly admire people who kill baby killers. I think that this incident will bring a lot of attention to the horrors of what Tiller was doing in Wichita with the tacit approval of the State of Kansas (which had laws specifically protecting the lives of viable babies in the womb). Since the state had abrogated it's lawful duty to stop Tiller from performing illegal abortions and killing viable infants, I believe this justifies "taking the law into your own hands."
What had happened in Kansas was that the laws protected the unborn, but the people in charge of enforcing those laws had deliberately looked the other way (mostly because Tiller had been greasing the palms of those charged with executing the laws that Tiller so brazenly had violated.
I think it is wrong to call Roeder a "Terrorist" (the "T" word).
Roeder was not a terrorist, he was an assassin. There is a monumental difference. What he did was not a terrorist act, it was an assassination. No collateral damage was anticipated or intended and none occurred. The purpose was not to terrorize anyone. It would appear that it was to end a practice that the Governor of the State of Kansas had categorically refused to end.
Frankly Kathleen Sebelius bears most of the responsibility for this incident. She took blood money from Tiller in exchange for giving him freedom from prosecution for illegally killing viable human fetuses.
Ultimately when the government fails in its duty to enforce the law or to secure the blessings of liberty to our posterity, then the people have a right and a duty to "Take the law into their own hands".
The more I think about this case, the more I find myself having a lot of sympathy for Roeder.
Thank you for all of your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
Thank you for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!
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