Excommunicating, disfellowshiping or otherwise shunning Christians over politics--separating yourself from a group of Christians over politics is far too close to despising someone for me to ever endorse.
This is not solely a political disagreement, and it is certainly not one over which reasonable men can differ in good faith.
You say this, but I don't think you can prove it from the Bible without resorting to eisegesis. Os Guiness writes in The Call, "The fallacy of particularism stems from the fact that God has not spoken definitively to us about everything. Obviously he did not intend to. It is an error for Christians to make relative what God has made absolute. But it is equally an error for Christians to make absolute what God has left relative."
If you cannot prove that the Bible endorses American conservative capitalism, then you are making absolute what God has left relative.
Evil always attacks good; that is its nature. The demonrats and leftards have been attacking and continue to attack everything good.
Human beings only know in part. We can be wrong about many things, including politics. This applies to Christians as well as non-Christians, conservatives as well as liberals. They are not 'attacking everything that is good'--they think they are doing good. They are wrong, but their motivation is not the problem. (Mind you, there really are those whose motivation is the problem, but they aren't the majority.)
As St. John Chrysostom wrote, “He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices; it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but even the good to do wrong.”
There is a difference between being angry and despising someone; between being anger motivated by God's holy love and anger motivated by political partisanship.
When you treat demonrats and other leftists as you would want them to treat you—Wait. Isn’t that the Golden Rule?—you are displaying unreasonable patience. The Golden Rule, properly applied, would require you to treat them as they would want to be treated **if** they were not blinded to the truth. Enabling is not kindness.
You are right, enabling is not kindness. The Golden Rule, however, has nothing to do with how they want to be treated--it is about treating them as you want to be treated. In other words, it is about loving your neighbor and your enemy, and about blessing those who curse you. It's pretty hard to do either of those things if you're washing your hands of them because they don't believe like you do in the nonessentials.
Do you think that demonrats who knowingly vote for politicians who support abortion on demand are in good with The Lord? How are they going to get back on the straight and narrow?
Only God knows whether they have sinned against him by voting for a politician who supports sinful behaviors. You cannot help them 'get back on the straight and narrow' by being angry with them, and certainly not by separating yourself from those who call themselves Christians but whose politics don't align with yours. Instead, you are to teach them patiently and with God's own love, so that you may "save them from the fire with fear, despising even the clothing stained by sin" (Jude 23).
“Excommunicating, disfellowshiping or otherwise shunning Christians over politics—separating yourself from a group of Christians over politics is far too close to despising someone for me to ever endorse.”
This gives rise to two thoughts:
1. How can baby-killers be regarded as in communion with Our Lord? This is not a minor sin.
2. Your definition of “politics” must be quite different from mine. Politics is one arena in which the war between good and evil is fought.
>>This is not solely a political disagreement, and it is certainly not one over which reasonable men can differ in good faith.
“You say this, but I don’t think you can prove it from the Bible without resorting to eisegesis.”
What does the Bible say about the taking of innocent life? Q.E.D.
“The fallacy of particularism stems from the fact that God has not spoken definitively to us about everything. Obviously he did not intend to. It is an error for Christians to make relative what God has made absolute. But it is equally an error for Christians to make absolute what God has left relative.”
If it is obvious that God did not intend to make everything absolute, then it is equally obvious that He intended for us to apply our reason to the areas left relative, thereby discerning what He would have us do—discerning good from evil, and choosing good for His sake.
“If you cannot prove that the Bible endorses American conservative capitalism, then you are making absolute what God has left relative.”
That is a false duality. All one need establish is that conservatives are closer to the good and striving to move in the right direction, while demonrats are closer to Satan and striving to move in his direction. That’s enough to tell you which side to be on, without in any way asserting that “American conservative capitalism” is perfect, or that conservatives are without sin.
“Human beings only know in part. We can be wrong about many things, including politics.”
That is true, without in any way supporting your position.
“This applies to Christians as well as non-Christians, conservatives as well as liberals.”
Are you seriously saying that non-Christians and liberals have the same access to truth that conservatives and Christians have? That we might as well not even be Christians, because they are as right as we are?
Sure, conservatives and Christians make mistakes and sometimes believe stupid crap. But across billions of cases, Conservative Christians have an immensely higher chance of being right on matters of faith and morals than liberals and pagans (The inevitable rare exceptions are acknowledged).
“They are not ‘attacking everything that is good’—they think they are doing good.”
Yes, they think they are doing good. Does that make their actions good? What effect do their intentions have on the evil consequences of their actions?
“They are wrong, but their motivation is not the problem.”
True again, but again supportive of your position in no way.
“There is a difference between being angry and despising someone”
What is that difference? Consequences?
(There is a difference between)…anger motivated by God’s holy love and anger motivated by political partisanship.”
Oh, really? So, support for abortion on demand, baby-killing, murder of the most innocent, is just a matter of “political partisanship,” is it? Leftards don’t think so. They will kill to preserve their spurious “right” to kill babies if they think they have to.
Back during the Cold War there were “fellow travelers,” useful idiots, as the Soviets thought of them, who asserted that America and the Evil Empire were just two equally valid political systems (except theirs was better), so it was just awful of those right wingers to utter any criticism at all, especially since America was an imperialist bully, blah blah blah blah blah…
Sound familiar?
Leftards are not on the same moral footing as conservatives. On that continuum with Satan on the left and God on the right, Leftards are to the left of conservatives and trying to drag us all leftward—with, obviously, a good deal of success. You don’t have to be perfect to have standing to oppose them; you just have to see, “Hey, God doesn’t want us to do those things and go that way; He wants us to do these things and come this way.” And God has gifted us with the reason, faith, and Scripture we need to see that.
“You are right, enabling is not kindness. The Golden Rule, however, has nothing to do with how they want to be treated—it is about treating them as you want to be treated.”
I would want to be shown I was wrong. I would not want people holding their tongues out of misplaced concern for my feelings.
“In other words, it is about loving your neighbor and your enemy, and about blessing those who curse you.”
Our Savior also gave us the example of the moneychangers in the temple. Ignore that one at your peril, because your enemies will cheerfully cut you down.
“It’s pretty hard to do either of those things if you’re washing your hands of them because they don’t believe like you do in the nonessentials.”
Nonessentials?
We are on the same planet, are we not? Discussing the morality explained to us by God? How can these things be dismissed as “nonessentials” by any Christian or conservative? Twenty years ago I would have typed in a long list of “nonessentials,” but neuropathy is slowly making my hands go numb.
I’ve already talked about abortion. This time let’s take disarming the American people for our example.
Since you seem to like foreign non-Christians so much, let me start with something Ghandi wrote, “Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.”
Do you really fail to understand the enormity of depriving the world of a nation where the people are armed against the establishment of tyranny?
“Only God knows whether they have sinned against him by voting for a politician who supports sinful behaviors.”
Really? You never learned anything from the Bible that allows you to understand how God views such things? So, you might as well go out tonight, sniff some cocaine, lie with a naughty lady of the evening, then pay for her abortion, because you have no idea whether that would be sinning against God? That about it?
“You cannot help them ‘get back on the straight and narrow’ by being angry with them”
Seriously? You believe that to be true?
My word.
Robert A. Heinlein wrote, “Anyone who clings to the historically untrue—and thoroughly immoral—doctrine that violence never solves anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor; and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms.”
Leftards live and breathe that doctrine, although in their case it is framed in different words that give it a false glow of rectitude.
On an individual level, you never know whether a given person will respond better to sugar or vinegar, if they respond at all, but joking and glad-handing just establish the precedent that they are not to be treated as a person guilty of serious crimes against humanity should be. On a larger stage, sides must be taken. You don’t have to pretend that your side is perfect; you just have to know that it is closer to scripture and God.
“and certainly not by separating yourself from those who call themselves Christians”
Boom! Shaka laka. Who *call* themselves Christians. Calling yourself a Christian doesn’t make you one (I’m sure you know where that is in the Bible). Rebuking sinners is one of the seven spiritual acts of mercy. Acting as though the things that are sending them to hell are “nonessentials” is merely enabling them.
“but whose politics don’t align with yours.”
You say that as though it were such a minor thing, as though the demonrats were not strongly influenced by Satan. I think perhaps they are influenced more by Satan than we are by God, seeing as how some of us are so eager to betray Him rather than endure opprobrium.
“Instead, you are to teach them patiently and with God’s own love”
Like Stalin taught the Ukrainians, right? Good grief, man, can’t you see that we are in just such a fight today? There are powers who evince a design to reduce us under absolute despotism, which will of course be accompanied by the inaugural bloodbath. It is long past time to chuck the money changers out of the temple.
Stalin starved 20 million Ukrainians. Mao killed 40 million Chinese. All told, leftism killed 100,000,000 innocents in the 20th century.
How many babies have been killed in this country since Roe v Wade? How many innocents will die in the coming upheaval, which Satan, through his useful idiots, has been laboring to bring about?
It is long past time for decent people to wake up and realize that when dealing with scumbags, civility is nothing but a self-imposed handicap.
After a hundred million innocent dead in the twentieth century, no liberal is entitled to the slightest consideration, courtesy, or civility. Liberals should be reviled, abominated, spat upon, even beaten, whenever they have the gall to show their faces in the presence of decent people.
Evil should never be allowed to masquerade as a “responsible opposing viewpoint” to good, in any of its manifestations.
All leftist thought, from the limousine liberalism of a George Clooney to the murderous horrors of Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot, is of and from Satan. Leftism is a contaminant in the human cognosphere, not a natural component of it.
Satan is smarter than we are, and he never sleeps. Those over whom he has the most influence are like maniacally evil energizer demons.
Every once in a while one of them escapes, like David Horowitz, but who knows how or why?
The notion that his own society is evil and unjust is the bedrock of the leftist’s vision. Wicked capitalists trample on the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden; the leftist appoints himself to rescue these victims. He is a self-styled social redeemer, leading a movement to liberate the masses, even if it results in the destruction of his own society. This political mission provides him with immense moral indignation and, therefore, moral superiority, dispositions from which, in turn, he derives emotional self-gratification. His whole belief system provides him with a sense of belonging; he joins other social redeemers, as well as the victims, real or imagined, who wait for him to break their chains. (This paragraph plagiarized.)
“…so that you may “save them from the fire with fear, despising even the clothing stained by sin” (Jude 23).”
This tells us we should despise even clothing stained by sin, but you seem unwilling to despise even the sin itself.