Archive for Random Thoughts
John Howard Yoder on “Managing the World”
Posted by: |Tim T. points us to a great quote from John Howard Yoder:
“And might it be, if we could be freed from the compulsiveness of the vision of ourselves as the guardians of history, that we could receive again the gift of being able to see ourselves as participants in the loving nature of God as revealed in Christ? Perhaps the songs of the earliest church might restore this to us if the apostolic argument cannot. A church once freed from compulsiveness and from the urge to manage the world might then find ways and words to suggest as well to those outside its bounds the invitation to a servant stance in society.”
–John Howard Yoder
This certainly applies to the current same-sex marriage issue, as Tim explains:
There is a fundamental problem with the current marriage debate. The question is not whether marriage means this or that or whether the government should do this or that. The fundamental assumption that both sides share is that those who have a vision of an ideal society have the right and duty to take the reins of power and history and make that vision reality through the use of political power.
That assumption is wrong. History is God’s, not ours.
Tim is part of the Christian libertarian Facebook Group. You should be too!
Tags: ethics, government, John Howard Yoder, theology
Teach Your Children Well
Posted by: |There is nothing wrong with letting kids play as heroes fighting monsters, but sometimes you have to wonder what sorts of messages toys send to kids. For instance, if you need to teach your children about the virtues of remote warfare the recent release of die-cast aerial drone toys:
Seriously, this exists. And the reviews on Amazon are just hilarious. My favorite: “This is the best toy ever. Finally, I can pretend that I’m a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize! It’s like I’m sitting right there in the White House with my very own kill list!”
(By the way, you could alternatively demonstrate to your kids that you care about peace by joining the Clear Skies Initiative.)
Or perhaps you want to show your child that it is perfectly alright to submit to a naked-body scan at an airport or to get felt up by a TSA agent. In that case, I suggest the TSA checkpoint kit:
Really, who comes up with this stuff? There is wisdom in the book of Proverbs: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Tags: children, culture, drone strikes, TSA, war
Roadside Christian warmongering
Posted by: |Recently seen deep in the heart of Texas…
Umm… Yeah. I guess the snipers are like little projectiles of Christ’s love and forgiveness aimed at whoever the U.S. government thinks needs it most?
Many thanks to Laurence Vance for posting this to the LRC blog as well.
Tags: Christian Right, Christian warmongering, Christianity, militarism, snipers, war
Militarism is the Devil’s Work
Posted by: |Joel Poindexter writes:
The Great Commission, as described in the gospel of Matthew, has been perverted by these Right-Wing warmongers. It’s gone from a mission to "go and make disciples of all nations," to go and invade all nations. Instead of encouraging people to help spread the Word, so often we see them advocating the spread of death and destruction, thus condemning the victims to an eternity in hell.
Admittedly, I was once of this mindset. I saw no contradiction between my role as a flesh-and-blood soldier, serving in the infantry, and as a Christian who was supposed to be fighting spiritually in the Lord’s army. Indeed, I saw my role in the military as one wholly compatible with Biblical teaching. The reason I arrived at this disjointed conclusion so easily was that I never questioned it. I never gave pause to consider the moral implications of walking into some foreign land with a gun in my hands, rather than a Bible. The blame for this is entirely my own.
For its part however, the church has done little to quell the appetite for war among its members and the public at large. The situation is so backwards that it’s practically considered laudable when a pastor ignores the military and doesn’t go out of his way to celebrate the troops at every opportunity. Too often Sunday services – in particular those around the state’s designated war holidays: Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veteran’s Day – become a celebration of all things war.
Joel is right: it makes little sense to say we are about the work of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ when we support such dastardly military conflicts at every opportunity. Check out more at LewRockwell.com.
Tags: church, culture, ethics, militarism, war
Norman Horn is the creator and primary writer for LCC. Learn a little bit about him in the 