Posted on 10/09/2004 6:31:26 AM PDT by RMrattlesnake
I think Abortion should be as ilegal as going over a shooting your co-worker becouse he/she annoys you. Murder is murder it is taking a human life and killing. The Goverments job is to punish evil.
PING!
Give him a break, he's got dyslexia!
To be fair to the Libertarians, they are divided on the issue of abortion. There are many pro-life Liberatarins.
http://www.l4l.org/
..............We Christians 'know' that we here in the U.S.A. are NOT in heaven..............
.........resist 'evil'..............
Maranatha~
..............We Christians 'know' that we here in the U.S.A. are NOT in heaven..............
.........resist 'evil'..............
Maranatha~
"Romans 13, however, clearly says that the government is invested with the authority to legislate as it sees fit, and we must obey them."
No. Romans 13 says that we are to follow JUST leadership. If you believe that RATS are just leaders, then I am sorry. I cannot follow them in good conscience. They must be opposed at every turn.
I am registered non-partisan, but if I did register, it would SURELY by with the CP. And, if I weren't so scared of Kerry, or I wasn't in a "battleground" state, I'd be voting Peroutka. However, I am and I do, so I cannot.
Amen!
And you are wrong.
It depends on the definition of Libertarianism.
Gov't should be limited to using force against evil doers, not as a substitute for Christian charity.
Amen!!!
There are also some good arguments wherein the soul life is not breathed into the human until birth, so abortion, especially prior to the second trimester would be better interpretted as a killing of animal life as opposed to the removal of human life.
No such qualification there. Romans 13 gives no exceptions. Admittedly there is an exception for laws that explicitly countermand one of God's (cf. Ac. 4:19, Daniel 6:10), but Romans 13 allows no other. "No King but Jesus" is an American lie, not a Christian attitude.
Even a postively immoral leader has the right to exact obedience. The Ceasars were hardly fountains of morality. The denarius that Jesus picked up said on the obverse, "Caesar Augustus, son of the Divine Augustus." The inverse read, "Pontifix Maxiumus." And yet Jesus commanded to give to Caesar his due. Similarly, at the time Paul wrote Romans, Caligula had already reigned. Nero was currently reigning, although he had not yet gone off the deep end. Even Caligiula and Nero are included in Romans 13.
I understand that what I am saying is revolutionary, since American Chrstianity has adopted "No king but Jesus," but that owes much more to John Locke than to the Bible. But the American Rebellion has become enshrined in our memories, so that those who broke away from England over a tax-squabble are enshrined as demi-gods. (I concede that the Constitutional Republic they set up was an amazing work of genius.) But the Christian mandate is that Christians are to peacefully pay their taxes, obey the laws, and pray for their leaders. Even immoral leaders have that moral authority to demand such.
Pretty strong argument for your position you gave there.
Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego.......rabble-rousers. ;^)
This viewpoint used to be what Christians always believed:
It is the duty of people to pray for magistrates,[469] to honor their persons,[470] to pay them tribute or other dues,[471] to obey their lawful commands, and to be subject to their authority, for conscience’ sake.[472] Infidelity, or difference in religion, doth not make void the magistrates’ just and legal authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to them:[473] from which ecclesiastical persons are not exempted,[474]
-- Westminster Confession of Faith, 13.4
" Even a postively immoral leader has the right to exact obedience."
I don't subscribe to the 'No King but Jesus' theory, but I do think that we have an obligation to cast aside and oppose liars, cheaters, thieves, adulterers, and the like who bamboozle their way into public offices. Now, I'm not advocating a refusal to pay taxes or some such act, but I as a Christian believe it's imperative to stand up for public policy which best permits me to live a proper Christian lifestyle.
You see, I believe that America was put on earth by God as one final chance for men to govern men justly, fairly, and peacefully while respecting "natural law". The system worked for many years, and America quickly rose to be the best, freest, and most charitable nation in the world. Americans continue to die so that perfect strangers can have a chance at what we have. Our doctors and drug companies have saved countless lives that would have been lost in other countries. We are the last beacon of hope for individual freedom and we are the greatest threat to tyranny and mayhem around the world. RATS like Ted Kennedy, the Clintons, Kerry, etc. oppose all of that as they drive us toward weakness and socialism. They seem to oppose all that is good about America, and they do NOT have my respect, nor are they due honor.
Romans 13 addresses civil authority, but it may also be applied to others in authority, including ecclesiastical authority. John Calvin and John Knox, as well as Luther, Zwingli, et. al., believed the claims of the Papacy to be the heir to Peter and the vicar of Christ to be invalid. Presbyterians, independents, and Baptists even rejected the concept of bishops, as existed in the historic Christian church, as being an ecclesiastic development unsupported by the Bible. Traditionalist Catholics still refer to the Reformation as the "Protestant Revolt." In their viewpoint, while the Protestants had some legitimate complaints about issues such as the sale of indulgences, the actions of Luther, Calvin, et. al. were to defy the duly constituted authority (the Papacy and the RCC) that they believe were both lawful and God-ordained.
If Reformation theology is correct, then there can be, and are, illegitimate ecclesiastical authorities. The Reformers believed the authority claimed by Rome was invalid because it was not Biblical and that certain Catholic doctrines, particularly on the order of salvation, transubstantiation, the role of Scripture vs. tradition, baptismal regeneration, etc., were un-Scriptural. Another Reformation doctrine is the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all areas of life. That lordship certainly encompasses civil government as well as ecclesiastical. Civil magistrates, as much as the elders and deacons of the church, are subject to God's laws.
The concept of a civil government being illegitimate if it was oppressive predates John Locke. Samuel Rutherford outlined the principle in Lex Rex, that the law, i.e., God's law, is sovereign over nations and that both lesser magistrates and the people could lawfully resist a monarch who defied God's law. The Scottish Covenanters defied the kings of England on these grounds. The Puritans under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell rose against the tyranny of the House of Stuart under a similar premise.
John Locke, who was not a Calvinist but an Anglican out of the Erastian school, applied Rutherford's concept to a natural law based civil contract between the people and their government. Locke was an important influence on the American colonists and his philosophy was reflected in the Declaration of Independence. Although it was based in natural law, the concept of the right of the people generally or of lesser magistrates (the colonial governments) to resist lawless authority is not incompatible with the Puritan and Covenanter political thought of the 17th Century.
That said, I nonetheless believe that Romans 13 outlines the normative behavior toward all authority, whether civil, ecclesiastical, and familial, as well as to employer-employee relationships and private associations like fraternities and clubs. However, a modern day Communist or Islamic state by their oppressive nature defy God's commands to rulers (such as in Psalm 2 and Deuteronomy 17:19) would qualify as one where rebellion may be justified. The current Federal government in Washington, for all its flaws, does not qualify.
The Reformation, especially the Calvinist wing, emphasized the liberties and responsibilities of the individual. As Chapter 20 of the Westminster Confession states, "God alone is the Lord of conscience." It was the Biblical teachings of Reformation theology that influenced the movement away from monarchism, feudalism, and mercantilism to representative government and free market economics. It was in the Protestant, and particularly the Calvinist, nations of Europe such as the Netherlands and Britain, that the divine right of kings was successfully challenged and capitalism flourished.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.