This assumes that voting for someone who commits evil is the same thing as committing that evil yourself. You may as well say that conservatives are responsible for the Abu Ghraib scandal back in the mid-2000s in Iraq, because they voted for President Bush; or that they are responsible for the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians for the same reason.
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.
You are right, our definitions of politics are vastly different. Politics is simply how human beings order their lives so that they can live together in communities. There are better and worse policies, but it is very hard to find a policy that is completely devoid of good. Even socialistic wealth-redistribution schemes are more than simply theft for the sake of theft.
What does the Bible say about the taking of innocent life? Q.E.D.
Cute, but the average Democrat or leftist is not directly involved in the abortion industry.
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.
The problem is that you cannot prove that liberals are 'striving to move in [Satan's] direction.' Since you cannot prove that, and since you really cannot even prove that conservatives are 'closer to the good,' you cannot say without the shadow of a doubt that you are doing what God wills.
That is true, without in any way supporting your position.
There is where you are wrong. Since human beings can be mistaken about all manner of things, humility demands that we do not impugn false motives to others who view things differently than us. We cannot simply dismiss liberals as vile satan-worshipers with no redeeming value. People are not the enemy, no matter how wrong-headed their ideas. Even if their motivations are sinful, people are still not the enemy, and someone who calls him or herself a Christian should not treat them as such.
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).
The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. I have faith in the Triune God, and insofar as it is faith, I must own that I am not certain. Since I am not certain, it behooves me to allow that I may be wrong, though I am not convinced of it and may never be convinced of it.
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?
Moral culpability requires wrong motive as well as wrong action.
“There is a difference between being angry and despising someone” What is that difference? Consequences?
Sin requires motivation as well as action and consequence. Anger is not sinful only when it is motivated by love. If anger is not motivated by love, then it is hatred.
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.
You paint with such a broad brush, and yet neither of us has any way of knowing just how many leftists would kill people to preserve their access to abortion.
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?
Useful idiots and fellow travelers are not objects of scorn, derision and hatred, but creatures made in the image of God. They were wrong, but if a "Christian" speaks contemptibly of them, they are even more wrong (Mt 5:22).
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.
The issue here is not opposing leftism; it is treating people who are not of your own conservative tribe with Christian love.
I would want to be shown I was wrong. I would not want people holding their tongues out of misplaced concern for my feelings.
There are a lot more options than 'holding one's tongue out of misplaced concern for my feelings' or lashing out in self-righteous anger. The message matters, but so does the delivery. Or as John MacArthur puts it, "Love and truth must be maintained in perfect balance. Truth is never to be abandoned in the name of love. But love is not to be deposed in the name of truth...truth without love has no decency; it's just brutality. On the other hand, love without truth has no character; it's just hypocrisy."
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.
Jesus fulfilled prophecy with that action. He never endorsed it for his followers. In fact, his word to his disciples was "If a man strike you on one cheek, turn the other."
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?
The doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the necessity of repentance and faith and the new birth are all essentials. Political systems? These are not essentials of the faith. A "good Communist" can be as much of a Christian as a "good capitalist"--though both are expected of Our Lord to be a voice against the system's excesses.
“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?
False comparison. Direct personal involvement such as in the examples you cite is not indirect involvement such as voting for a politician on record as supporting immorality.
“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.
I believe the Bible, whose whole tenor is summed up in statements like "The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now" (1 Jn 2:9) and "I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment" (Mt 5:22).
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.
To know is to be certain, and no one can contend that they are certain without abandoning the very concept of faith.
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.
There are many people on the Right who call themselves Christian but aren't, as well. There are those who are conservative because they are Christian, but there are also those who are Christian because they are conservative. And again, I do not see anywhere in the Bible where the mere act of voting for a sinful candidate puts someone in danger of hell.
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.
Politics is a minor thing. One's personal involvement and direct actions/inactions have far more bearing than the guilt by association that comes from voting for 'the wrong guy.'
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.
We are not Jesus, and he is the only one who has the authority to throw people out of the Temple. Instead, we are told, "Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord." (Romans 12:19).
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.
No Christian who reads "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven" (Mt 5:43-45) can ever agree with what you have just written.
“…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.
The sin is to be despised; the man is not.
Literally everything you wrote is wrong.
I thought about explaining why, but when I got to this:
“A ‘good Communist’ can be as much of a Christian as a ‘good capitalist’”
— my heart sank, and I realized that it is just too huge a task.
God help you.