200 Christian Theologians & Ethicists Question the Nation's "Theology of War"

These guys/institutions have been leaning "left" for a long time. This was bound to happen. Civil war in the Church is coming, based on the rejection or adherence to Truth.

Excellent point.

It behooves Christians to believe in the concepts of "...turning the other cheek..." and "...going the extra mile...". "As much as it is up to you, be at peace with all people...".

However, we are also called to be good stewards and protectors of those under our household, and the household of God.

As a good steward of my wife and children, the overriding principle would cause me to beat the crap out of anyone wanting to harm them, defile them, oppress them, violate them, ... well you get the point.

I'm fascinated, and disgusted, by these so-called promoters of "Christian" concepts of peace. The illogic of the concept of "Christ love" somehow trumping our responsibility to our families and communities in the face of tangible (read 3000 WTC dead) is impossible to reconcile. Did the God of the Old Testament die on the cross, or did He graciously bring into the world a deeper understanding of the battle between the spiritual and the material?

These people act like the unforgivable sin is to protect your country by fighting evil. Oh yeah, I forgot. They don't really believe in evil. Everybody's good. Just misunderstood.

Ummm....How can you say they're not "real Christians?" I don't know that I agree with their stance on this issue, but many of those on the list are respected theologians and committed followers of Jesus.

Can someone tell me what an "ethicists" actual does?
Do they sit around all day judging the world? Do they get paid for this? Who judges the "ethicist"?

I'm puzzled by your response.
Has something struck a chord that you thought areafiftyone was requiring that the Sojourners, et al, receive his approval?

As for your "who the heck asked for your opinion?", you've been at FR long enough. Nobody asks us for our opinions...we're all just arrogant enough to believe that our opinions are worth the time it takes to post them. Aren't we?

I just reread your post again, and I think I've figured out my confusion.

The "Who the heck asked you for your opinion?" remark above the line in your post was meant to represent a quote from areafiftyone's original quote!

I thought you were commentating, strongly, on areafiftyone's position.

My bad.

Do they also want to edit out the portions of the Bible that assert the divinity of Christ?

"Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners..."

That's all you need to know.

Book Review: Why the Left Is Not RightThe Religious Left: Who They Are and What They Believe by Ronald Nash Published in The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - December 1997 by Doug Bandow http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=3918

When it comes to religion and politics, most media attention is focused on the right. And it usually isn’t positive coverage. Religious conservatives are presented as threatening America’s constitutional balance, women’s right to choose, gays’ civil liberties, and much more.

Yet religious activism runs both ways. As Ronald Nash, a professor at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida, notes in Why the Left Is Not Right, there is an active and diverse religious left in the United States. To be sure, these people, who once “proudly proclaimed their liberal or radical connections,” now “describe themselves as moderates and centrists,” notes Nash. But their policy positions remain unashamedly left-wing.

Nash divides the religious left into three parts: liberal mainline Protestants, liberal Catholics, and left-wing evangelicals. There’s no doubt where Nash stands. He argues that these groups have been used (willingly or unwillingly) by the Democrats for electoral purposes and have helped “demonize politically conservative Christians.” A prolific author and entertaining speaker, Nash obviously views himself as among the demonized right.

In his view, the central argument is not whether people of faith should be concerned about peace and justice, but what those terms mean. The evangelical left has appeared to have simply assumed the standard liberal understanding of the words and then discredited anyone (including their politically conservative brethren) who understood the terms differently and who pursued the objectives of peace and justice in a different way.

Perhaps the greatest value of Why the Left Is Not Right is that it shows how political activism by people of faith is neither new nor restricted to conservatives. Indeed, even as evangelicals were receiving exaggerated public attention for entering the political process, mainline Protestant denominations were promoting Democratic political causes domestically and communist revolutionary movements abroad. It is a story worth remembering when the media and political establishments pour obloquy on traditionally less active evangelicals and fundamentalists as they seek to protect themselves and their values from government intrusion.

Much the same politics has been on display within the Roman Catholic Church. Catholics were once “thoughtful enemies of secularism, humanism, and the liberal welfare state,” writes Nash. Many still are, but as Nash puts it, “large cracks have appeared in the political and social thinking of many educated Catholics.” The 1985 Pastoral Letter on the economy, for example, was as political as anything emanating from the Christian Coalition. Even more radical have been specific segments of the church, such as the Maryknoll Order.

However, Nash devotes most of his attention to the lesser-known left-wing evangelicalism. He argues that the New Left and “the adversary culture” of the 1960s spawned political liberalism among Protestants who purport to hold a more conservative, orthodox theological view. Nash focuses on three leading leftish evangelicals: Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine; Ron Sider, founder of Evangelicals for Social Action and author of Rich Christians in a World of Hunger; and Tony Campolo, sociology professor, well-published author, and presidential confidante.

The scrutiny is warranted, though Nash seems more skeptical of the trio’s good intentions than is justified. Wallis, for instance, lives his beliefs. Two decades ago Wallis moved his magazine to a poor section of Washington, D.C., and formed a community of the same name. At the same time, however, he has, as Nash points out, remained imbued with the leftist Zeitgeist of the 1960s. The boat people fleeing communist Vietnam, Wallis wrote, were leaving “to support their consumer habit in other lands.” Their departure should not be taken to “discredit” Vietnam. Wallis’s views toward Cuba and Nicaragua were similarly skewed.

Wallis’s economic opinions also were long solidly collectivist. The collapse of socialism abroad seems to have chastened himhe now calls himself centrist and asserts that he is independent of Democrats and Republicans alikebut he remains wedded to interventionist policies. Conservatives, Wallis charges, retain an “attachment to institutions of wealth and power, preference for the status quo, and the lack of a strong ethic of social responsibility.” Unfortunately, while Wallis now criticizes abuses by government, he underestimates how the activist state promotes concentrations of wealth and power, supports the status quo, and undermines social responsibility.

Similar is Nash’s case against Ron Sider. Sider is a gentle spirit who has borne substantial liberal criticism for his opposition to abortion and gay rights. Unfortunately, however, on economic policy he has always placed intentions before results. Thus, as Nash documents, Sider has long advocated the sort of government intervention that has been tried and found wanting throughout this century. While criticism is rife of the Christian Coalition for seemingly attaching itself to the GOP, Nash points out that “Ron Sider, the person who comes closest to being a moderate member of the evangelical Left, has himself spent years trying to elect liberal, typically Democratic, candidates to public office.”

Tony Campolo is probably the most public of the three, given his high-profile contacts with President Bill Clinton. Campolo also criticizes government, but seems committed to statist remedies when it comes to solving specific problems. Nash doesn’t stop his criticisms here, however; he goes on to question Campolo’s evangelical credentials, given the latter’s views on such issues as abortion, feminism, and the environment.

Through his analysis, which concludes with chapters on economics and poverty, Nash shows how even the best-intentioned of religious believers can come up with solutions inimical to the interests of those they wish to serve. But Nash, who has been on the receiving end of endless left-wing barbs, puts an unnecessary edge in his own analysis. Perhaps nothing irritates Nash more than the evangelical left’s flirtation with Bill Clinton.

Yet the opinions of Wallis, Sider, and Campolo reflect ignorance rather than malice. I’ve met and debated all three. All want to help those in need, seem to have been affected by the decline of statism, and were willing to acknowledge contrary arguments. They deserve to be criticized, not demonized.

Why the Left Is Not Right deals seriously with an important subject. Despite the public perception that religious activists gravitate toward the right, many people of faith have embraced collectivist remedies despite the ill effects on those most in need. In short, Nash’s basic thesis is correct: the left is not right. []

Zondervan • 1996 • 222 pages • $10.99 paperback

Doug Bandow, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).

As a good steward of my wife and children

Precisely.

If, say, someone slapped me or attacked me in some other non-life-threatening way, my Christian responsibility would be to turn the other cheek.

If that same person did the same thing to my wife or my daughter instead, my Christian responsibility would be to beat them to within an inch of their life.

One has a Christian duty to submit to humiliations, indignities etc. as part of carrying one's cross. One also has a Christian duty to prevent others from being humiliated and treated with contempt and abuse.

Yes. What occurs to the individual is secondary to our responsibility to protect, nurture, and heal others. Sometimes the way to the spiritual is through the temporal.

However, if allowing someone to harm me ultimately harms my family (through denial of my income earning ability, my love as a dad, etc.), then I am in abrogation of my commitment to them. Thus, it becomes necessary to protect myself, as a support to them.

Were I to not have these relationships, my responsibilities are freed to accept whatever denigrations come my way, in order to exemplify the Lord's love, as expressed on the cross.

Since O'Reilly had a couple of guys on his program last night from the Religious Left - one of whom was specifically referred to as being affiliated with Sojourners - the flagship magazine of the Religious Left - maybe we should request that he give equal time to a capitalist like Ron Nash (see post #28).

Saul Alinsky - The Religious Marxist-Left follows him "religiously". Their magazine? Sojourners:
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=Soj0003&article=000311

Saul Alinsky's books: Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals

In the 60's, as a radical hippy-type mentality herself at Wellesley, Hillary Clinton was so enamored of Saul Alinsky and his *methods* she wrote her senior thesis under his mentoring.

Are these "five points" or "five straw man arguments with lots of scare quotation marks"?

Barbara Olson's book, "Hell To Pay" which dissects Miss Hillary, used Alinsky's comments as chapter lead-ins.

(Barbara Olson died in the plane that hit the Pentagon on 9-11)

===
There is a chapter in Rules for Radicals that details how to steal an election.

It was an exact blueprint of what happened in Florida 2000.

1 - Question the validity of the vote - done by pre-arranged phone banks in St Louis calling democratic voters to ask if they had mistakenly voted for Buchanan

2 - Demand a recount.

3 - Try and forment a rabble on the streets - Remember Jesse Jackson's (failed) attempts at that?

4 - Litigate

5 - Obfuscate, keep counting..

If you read the book you will be amazed at how closely the plan was followed..

44 posted on 04/09/2003 3:27:55 AM EDT by Wil H
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/886451/posts?page=44#44

===
GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS, UNBELIEVABLE NEWS compiled by James W. Harris
Hillary Clinton's Mystery Thesis

Recently syndicated columnist Jack Anderson was doing a story on Hillary
Clinton, and in the process his staff requested a copy of her 1969 senior
thesis from Wellesley College. It was a seemingly simple request, since
normally college theses are public record, available to anyone.

Not, however, in this case. Anderson was told that the current Wellesley
president had created a new rule in 1992. The new rule, Anderson says, is
that "...the college would seal the senior theses of any Wellesley grads
who were either the first lady or the president of the United States."
(Perhaps not coincidentally, the president of Wellesley is a long-time
friend of Mrs. Clinton's.)

Okay, Anderson asked, can you just tell us the *subject* of the paper? No.
Well, was the new policy enacted at Clinton's request? Again, no answer.

Perplexed and intrigued, Anderson contacted Hillary's White House press
corps. He was assured it was no big deal, and that he'd be sent a copy of
the paper, along with an explanation of why it had been sealed. Several
weeks passed, however, and no thesis appeared. Finally he was told that no
copy would be coming -- and no explanation would be given.

Eventually Anderson and his staff discovered some answers on their own.
Hillary's thesis, it turns out, was a critique of Lyndon Johnson's "War on
Poverty" programs. Her conclusion: community-based government anti-poverty
programs don't work.

Which may explain all the secrecy, since President Clinton recently called
for federal funding for a number of... community-based government
anti-poverty programs.

(Source: column by Jack Anderson and Jan Moller)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/886451/posts?page=32#32

===

I have often looked for her Senior Thesis and have only read Class of 1969,
on the occasion of Wellesley's 91st Commencement, May 31, 1969.
Where she followed Senator Brooke 'in attack mode'.
34 posted on 04/08/2003 6:37:29 PM EDT by fight_truth_decay

===

She's not the only disciple:

Daley, Jackson, and Sharpton appear to be following the revolutionary
tactics advocated by yet another Chicago militant: the late Saul Alinsky.

Alinsky, a life-long Marxist, was a Chicago organizer who was dedicated to
winning at all cost. He once wrote, "The most unethical of all means, is
the non-use of any means." In simple terms, "Do whatever it takes to win."
If that means lying, cheating, and stealing--so be it. Win at any cost.

Alinsky dedicated his book, Rules for Radicals, to Lucifer, who, notes
Alinsky, "is the first radical known to man who rebelled against the
establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own
kingdom."

Saul Alinsky's strategies are clearly at work in Florida. One of his
teachings is that "Truth is relative and changing." We are seeing this in
the behavior of Gore operatives who change election rules after the fact
and redefine "dimpled chads" as votes for Al Gore. Another Alinsky dictim
teaches that "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." The vicious attack
against Katherine Harris is a prime example of this tactic. One of
Alinsky's more memorable comments is this: "To hell with charity. The only
thing you get is what you're strong enough to get--so you had better
organize."

The spirit of Saul Alinsky is alive and well in Florida's election battle.
His spirit is also alive and well in the heart of Senator-elect Hillary
Clinton. Alinsky was a friend and mentor to Hillary. In fact, she adored
this Marxist so much that she wrote her senior college thesis on Alinsky's
organizing tactics and strategies.
http://www.worthynews.com/commentary/chicago-politics.html

35 posted on 04/08/2003 6:48:55 PM EDT by fight_truth_decay

Hmmm - separation of church and state? Respect for Israel? Respect for Life? Defense of one's family? I keep forgetting that 9/11 didn't happen - we Americans are so imperialistic and arrogant and need to "invade" a country just because we are morally superior! Terrorism is a myth (as Michael Moore testifies)! How dare we not join in unity with other nations, even those we "consider" against us? (I'm being very sarcastic because I'm so sick of THEIR arrogance and self-righteousness).

On occassion, I read old U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Here's a quote from the majority opinion in U.S. v. MacIntosh (283 US 605-635), May 25, 2931:

"We are a Christian people (Church of the Holy Trinity v. U.S., 143 US 457, 470, 471, 36 L. ed. 227, 231, 232. 12 S. Ct. 511), according to one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God. But, also, we are a nation with the duty to survive; a nation whose Constitution contemplates war as well as peace; whose government must go forward upon the assumption, and safely can proceed upon no other, that unqualified allegiance to the nation and submission and obedience to the laws of the land, as well those made for war as those made for peace, are not inconsistent with the will of God. Makes for interesting reading...

http://www.kfuo.org/ie_main.htm has the audio of an interview with Ron Nash about "Everything you need to know about The Religious Left." Scroll down to October 11. You can download an MP-3 also

These are Leftist that act like termites inside the Church - they want to hollow theChurch out until it is nothing more than a vessel for Socialist Claptrap. It's a mix of heresy and pure ideology, masked by phony theology.

On the subject of whether it is morally right or wrong to declare war on the terrorists, I say kill them all and let God or Allah sort it out.

As usual, nary a Missouri Synod Lutheran in that bunch of liberal agonizers.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

Leni

These guys are not real Christians anyway.

Not only would they bare their thoats to the Fanatic's knife
but ours as well.