There’s one place, where somebody asked Jesus if God allows divorce. Jesus said that because of the hardness of men’s hearts God told Moses to tell the people that a man could write a certificate of divorce. But it wasn’t meant to be that way. It was supposed to be a man joined to his wife alone as one flesh. It was basically God giving people over to suffer their own consequences because they would not live what was intended.
The Bible addresses some confusing areas, like whether to eat meat offered to idols if there are people who believe that idols are real and that you are worshiping those idols by eating that meat. So sometimes there are questions about which of two actions is more harmful.
But on the whole it is as you say: we are not to deliberately join ourselves to evil. Especially not with mockers. Even the best among us are sinners (except Jesus) so we can’t be totally separate from evil and we do have to bear with the failings of the weak. But to approve the openly wicked is not an option. Rather, we are called to warn them and to take the steps necessary so that they will consider the warning to be serious.
I’m Lutheran so I believe in the left-hand (civil) and right-hand (Heavenly) kingdoms, which are separate. I pray for Obama’s salvation and in the next breath pray that he will be removed from office. There’s no conflict there, to me. Both prayers are for good to conquer evil.
I think right now we’re justifiably angry. Ultimately we need to fight for what we love even more than we fight against what we hate. It’s the flip side of the same coin. We hate lies because we love the truth. We hate murder because we love life. We hate injustice because we love justice. Etc. I think right now it’s easier to be angry than to be hopeful because the world is falling to pot all around us and hope is elusive. I really, really feel for Chris in this; when you first grasp the reality of evil, up close and personal, it can shake everything you believe about people, and crush any desire to deal with people. I think we need to hold Chris in prayer and do what we can to help him know that God’s grace and His love alive within His people is just as real as the evil.
What is sad is that there were churches involved in this - as if not one of them even considered that “Thou shalt not steal” means “You shall not redistribute somebody else’s wealth”. They all just went to the trough to eat the slop that was taken from somebody else and given to them.
It is true that a democratic republic only works with people who are moral. If the souls of people are rotten, the country will be rotten too, and that’s pretty much where much of America is at. We need a turning back to God. It’ll come by not confusing Law and Gospel. Those who are open, mocking, confident sinners need to be brought low to repentance. And those who are broken and crushed by guilt need to be lifted up through the announcement of forgiveness. God’s saving work involves breaking the wrongly-set bone and re-setting it.
What happened in Mississippi was libel - claims that are clearly not true, in order to destroy a man’s reputation. A sin and a crime. That it was done by “Christian” pastors is
sad. That it was done by pastors in order to have more money stolen from some and given to others is disgusting. And that people who claim to be friends to the Republican people of Mississippi would seek to cancel them out - sort of like x-ing them out or silencing/killing them - is dead wrong. They all need to bear fruits befitting repentance. And we are the ones who need to tell them that, in as convincing a way as we can.
Just to be clear, I don’t think myself some paragon of virtue. I have plenty to answer for that I am not looking forward to.
But I do not understand how it can be that a christian of any flavor can openly in public say that ‘some’ evil is OK when we are commanded to fight it.
It’s like a petty crime vs a felony. No one wants ol’ sparky for jaywalking offenses but who thinks promoting jaywalking is a good thing?
No matter how this gets sliced it’s down to good/bad. And 2 years out from the next presidential Why on earth is there a single conservative already making excuses and priming the pump to go ‘evil’ again?
Baffling. Or willful sabotage.