Is Western Liberal Democracy inherently anti-Christ or Satanic?

[BNR32FAN]

It seems bizarre to me how the western, mainly evangelical Christian community sits so comfortably in the liberal democratic tradition.

The thinking goes that the more individually atomized or "open" a society becomes, the more freely the "simple Gospel" message can pass in between individuals, free of any other coercive cultural or religious structures found in pre-Enlightenment society. Ironically, when the Church is cleansed from public life, this is supposed to make the sharing of the Gospel of Jesus more fluid and effective.

You can see this attitude dominate in post-Enlightenment, Americanized Christianity. The Church no longer has any place on a societal or communal level. Society is now nothing more than atomized individuals, therefore the new concept of Church can never rise above the level of individual. In our society there is no longer a Christian Family ruled over by the husband, because this would go against the now sacred tenets of Liberalism, which dictates that a man cannot have any dominant role over a woman in any capacity. They are both equal individual units. The American Church (both Conservative and Leftist) now adopts this essentially satanic dogma into their way of life.

Privately, American Christians can say that they respect the Biblical hierarchy of man and woman, and yet they simultaneously promote a Liberal Democratic order which directly opposes such a hierarchy. This is just one example of many, but it really highlights the double-mindedness of American/western Christianity. In one sense, the Gospel message flows freely throughout the individualized west, and yet it flows within the confined spaces of an ideology that hates and rejects the Heavenly order that that the Gospel descends to earth from. ("...Thy Will Be Done, on Earth as it is in Heaven") And the same Evangelizers that spread the Gospel, turn around and promote the Liberal order as a result of divine providence, and a source of "Freedom" for humanity.

American Christianity wants to combine the Cross with the Statue of Liberty, they want to combine the ultimate hierarchy of Heaven with the perpetual revolutionary shattering of hierarchy via the liberal democratic order.

From what I am seeing, the Gospel of Jesus is inherently hostile to classical liberal ideology in fairly obvious ways. (not only the "Woke" liberal, but the "conservative" 18th and 19th century American style of liberalism also)... The Liberal Democratic order actively promotes the structure of sin (or the rejection of God's order)

I think many American Christians are beginning to realize this but just don't know what to do about it. There does seem to be a 'Reformation out of Liberalism' taking place.

What bothers me is that there are so many other (mostly Boomer generation) Christian leaders who completely drank the Kool-Aid on Americanism and believe that we basically inaugurated a kind of Millenial kingdom of God when America became a hegemonic power after World War 2. They have divinized modern individual American Liberty as a sacred force for good in the world, and the "Spirit of Democracy" as equal with the Holy Spirit itself. They made secularism sacred, which explains why our sense of morality seems to be dictated from the secular world now, instead of the church, (which now begs the secular world for its approval.)

In all likelihood, our way of life is so enmeshed with the liberal order, that it's probably going to take a major social collapse in order for the Church to come out of this. That seems to be the general pattern we see in the Bible as well. We aren't willingly going to give up our Liberty idols.

Well I agree with some of what you said here except the part about the husband ruling over the wife. I love my wife and I choose to consider her equal to myself because I love her. We make our decisions together, I would never attempt to dominate our relationship like some sort of dictator who views her concerns as being irrelevant or inferior to mine. We both love and respect each other the way Paul said we should in Ephesians 5 right after the portion you just referred to.

”Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,“
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5‬:‭25‬-‭29‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

 

[helmut]

Maybe you have absorbed the British viewpoint here. The American colonies were not well governed under the British.

I'm German. The revolution followed the 7-year-war. The most important aspect for Germans is the war between Austria (Habsburg) and Prussia, but of course I know the link to the war between England and France.

The costs oft his had to be paid, therefore either state bankruptcy or new taxes.

One reason is that the British did not have enough currency in circulation for the economy to function.

This was the reason to declare independence?

Don’t believe everything the British say about the American Revolution, or War of Independence.

I mostly read German sources …

BTW, you have a strange habit to write in very big letters …

 

[Dale]

I'm looking at those types of Questions not in terms of how they were done in the past, but in terms of how they could be done in ways that I would find acceptable and worthwhile.

Of course, it must always be acknowledge that human nature always makes anything sticky. This is one of the reasons that Utopian ideas never work and usually end up in complete and utter disaster. The most foundational necessities for any philosophy or worldview in order to have any kind of success are, correct answers to the questions "who is man?" and "who is God?"

I don't personally believe in the separation of Church and State, in the way that it has been practiced. I don't object to there being an "established" religion. I do think that religious freedom is good and necessary, but I also think that religious freedom does not preclude there being an officially established religion, so long as others are not forbidden, and participation is not coerced.

I was trying to point out that it is virtually impossible to respect individual choice in matters of religion when we have both Bible reading and prayer as classroom exercises.

You say that you don’t believe in separation of Church and State or object to “established” religion. Great Britain has an established church, a state church, the Church of England. Also, the Church of Scotland is established in Scotland. In practice, this means that these churches are largely captives of an irreligious government.

I have heard a Protestant evangelist from Belgium, where the Roman Catholic Church is the state church. One reason for being Protestant in Belgium is that with religion bogged down by an established church, the country is very secular, very non-religious. I had a conversation with a lady from Belgium. I asked her, “Is it true that the Catholic Church in Belgium is mostly a place for Christianings, weddings, and funerals?”

Her reply: “Most weddings are civil.” She went on to explain that since the priests are paid by the state, they don’t seem to care about getting people to church, or getting people to live better lives. They get paid either way.

Roman Catholics think a state church is a good idea because they believe that God established One True Church. I don’t believe that God set up One True Church. There is no sign that the seven churches in Revelation were governed by an Episcopal hierarchy, for instance.

 

[Simon_Templar]

I was trying to point out that it is virtually impossible to respect individual choice in matters of religion when we have both Bible reading and prayer as classroom exercises.

It has been said that the devil sends errors into the world in pairs. Those who reject the error on one side may be caught by going to far to the error on the other side.

Late Modernity and the Post-Modern era have been hallmarked by the opposed errors of individualism and collectivism. Western Liberal Democracy errs by exalting individual choice to a virtually insane degree. Totalitarianism is a response to the sickness and destruction that the over exaltation of individual choice creates. Totalitarianism places every good, individual or otherwise, at the service of the good of the political community, and thus is the opposite error.

The Church is the original truth that those two errors depart from, and in a certain sense what they are trying to replace.

Since this thread is specifically on the topic of western liberal democracy, I would say that the individualism of western liberal democracy and its over-emphasis on personal choice is in some ways better than totalitarianism, but as we are going to found out shortly, baring a miracle, the end result is the same. The end result will be the same because the social destruction and disintegration that results from western individualism will lead to a descent into anarchy. That can't be tolerated, and will eventually lead to some form of totalitarian control.

One of the core ideas that has been built into western society since the enlightenment is the idea that people are basically good, and if simply left alone, left to themselves, they will be fine and generally find some goodness and happiness.

This is false. The reality is that people have to be taught and trained in goodness. People do not naturally become good. Human nature is degenerative. Left completely to themselves, without outside forces directing them, people degenerate into wickedness and self-destruction.

IF a society hopes to have any longevity, or be good in any meaningful way, or produce any significant degree of human flourishing, that society MUST have a way of instilling correct values into its people.

If you completely elevate individual choice, over the necessity of instilling correct values, the society will destroy itself, the people will degenerate into insanity, and they will lose the capacity to choose anyway, as they become enslaved to their own passions.

This is a very important point as well. To be free to choose, doesn't just mean that you are not compelled by external forces like the government. It also demands that you have self-control. Self-control is only learned, virtually no one has it by nature. Our nature tends to the opposite. Thus even freedom to choose requires proper training.

As the old quote goes, "men of intemperate minds cannot be free, their passions forge their fetters."

Here is the whole quote, it's worth reading...

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity,—in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption,—in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Contrarily, if you over-balance from training and true education into indoctrination and coercion, it becomes impossible to teach true values, because true values are contradictory to the ideas of coercion etc. Balance is needed, but our society is not balanced. We are heavily tilted to one side.

You say that you don’t believe in separation of Church and State or object to “established” religion. Great Britain has an established church, a state church, the Church of England. Also, the Church of Scotland is established in Scotland. In practice, this means that these churches are largely captives of an irreligious government.

I have heard a Protestant evangelist from Belgium, where the Roman Catholic Church is the state church. One reason for being Protestant in Belgium is that with religion bogged down by an established church, the country is very secular, very non-religious. I had a conversation with a lady from Belgium. I asked her, “Is it true that the Catholic Church in Belgium is mostly a place for Christianings, weddings, and funerals?”

Her reply: “Most weddings are civil.” She went on to explain that since the priests are paid by the state, they don’t seem to care about getting people to church, or getting people to live better lives. They get paid either way.

It is true that no political system, nor even the Church is going to create utopia. Fallen human nature makes that an impossibility. The question is which system is best suited to the realities of human nature and the reality of the world God created. What system would work WITH the principles necessary to maintain a good society, and which systems work against those principles and undermines them. Our system, while it has a lot of good points, ultimately works against those principles and undermines them. Which is why our society has literally gone insane.

It is easy for us to sit here thinking that things aren't so bad, that this is "normal" because we are acclimatized to it. In reality, our society has gone totally insane, and has completely succumbed to moral idiocy.

The charge that the Bible brings against the days of Noah, when God was forced to kill all human life except Noah and his family, was that they were "eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage" even though the world around them had become so bad, that it was impossible for goodness to survive. We are not far off from that. Our western society is the biggest shedder of innocent human blood in history, bar none. We have killed more innocents than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, any of them. Yet even most Christians (including me) in their daily lives don't bat an eye-lash at it. We hardly ever even think about it. We still consider ourselves the good guys. And that is just one of the many issues we have.

Roman Catholics think a state church is a good idea because they believe that God established One True Church. I don’t believe that God set up One True Church. There is no sign that the seven churches in Revelation were governed by an Episcopal hierarchy, for instance.

Arius didn't believe that Jesus equal with the Father, and he didn't see that in scripture.
Marcion didn't believe that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament were the same God, he didn't see that in the Bible.
Korah and Dathan didn't believe that God had given Moses authority over Israel.
Absalom didn't believe that David was God's anointed King.
Pelagius didn't believe that we need Grace to be saved, he didn't see that in the Bible.

The list could go on, and it is ever growing.

Also, for the record, don't think that I just inherited a Catholic view and am sticking to what I was raised with.
I was a Protestant for more than 30 years. I'm the only Catholic in my family. I studied for 7 years before I finally was convinced that Catholic teaching was true. I have argued this stuff countless times.

I hold this view because I was convinced of it, largely because of the Bible, absolutely not in spite of the Bible.

 

[helmut]

I do not want to answer to all your point. You did not write for me, various points we share, others are not that important …

Our western society is the biggest shedder of innocent human blood in history, bar none. We have killed more innocents than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, any of them.

The Western society has killed more innocents that Hitler, Stalin, or Mao? Do you sum up over centuries, or how do you come to that conclusion?

Arius didn't believe that Jesus equal with the Father, and he didn't see that in scripture.

At least, he saw it, but before he could revoke formally, he died, probably poisoned by a person that did not want his public revocation.

Marcion didn't believe that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament were the same God, he didn't see that in the Bible.

He did not see it in the Scripture accepted by him (only two books, with somewhat changed text, not our NT).

Pelagius didn't believe that we need Grace to be saved, he didn't see that in the Bible.

Pelagius was refuted by verses from the Bible.

Everyone with some chutzpa can pick some Bible verses and build an error upon them - it is quite another matter to look into the whole Bible before saying »I can't see …«.

I hold this view because I was convinced of it, largely because of the Bible, absolutely not in spite of the Bible.

Show some Biblical arguments, then.

 

[mindlight]

It seems bizarre to me how the western, mainly evangelical Christian community sits so comfortably in the liberal democratic tradition.

The thinking goes that the more individually atomized or "open" a society becomes, the more freely the "simple Gospel" message can pass in between individuals, free of any other coercive cultural or religious structures found in pre-Enlightenment society. Ironically, when the Church is cleansed from public life, this is supposed to make the sharing of the Gospel of Jesus more fluid and effective.

You can see this attitude dominate in post-Enlightenment, Americanized Christianity. The Church no longer has any place on a societal or communal level. Society is now nothing more than atomized individuals, therefore the new concept of Church can never rise above the level of individual. In our society there is no longer a Christian Family ruled over by the husband, because this would go against the now sacred tenets of Liberalism, which dictates that a man cannot have any dominant role over a woman in any capacity. They are both equal individual units. The American Church (both Conservative and Leftist) now adopts this essentially satanic dogma into their way of life.

Privately, American Christians can say that they respect the Biblical hierarchy of man and woman, and yet they simultaneously promote a Liberal Democratic order which directly opposes such a hierarchy. This is just one example of many, but it really highlights the double-mindedness of American/western Christianity. In one sense, the Gospel message flows freely throughout the individualized west, and yet it flows within the confined spaces of an ideology that hates and rejects the Heavenly order that that the Gospel descends to earth from. ("...Thy Will Be Done, on Earth as it is in Heaven") And the same Evangelizers that spread the Gospel, turn around and promote the Liberal order as a result of divine providence, and a source of "Freedom" for humanity.

American Christianity wants to combine the Cross with the Statue of Liberty, they want to combine the ultimate hierarchy of Heaven with the perpetual revolutionary shattering of hierarchy via the liberal democratic order.

From what I am seeing, the Gospel of Jesus is inherently hostile to classical liberal ideology in fairly obvious ways. (not only the "Woke" liberal, but the "conservative" 18th and 19th century American style of liberalism also)... The Liberal Democratic order actively promotes the structure of sin (or the rejection of God's order)

I think many American Christians are beginning to realize this but just don't know what to do about it. There does seem to be a 'Reformation out of Liberalism' taking place.

What bothers me is that there are so many other (mostly Boomer generation) Christian leaders who completely drank the Kool-Aid on Americanism and believe that we basically inaugurated a kind of Millenial kingdom of God when America became a hegemonic power after World War 2. They have divinized modern individual American Liberty as a sacred force for good in the world, and the "Spirit of Democracy" as equal with the Holy Spirit itself. They made secularism sacred, which explains why our sense of morality seems to be dictated from the secular world now, instead of the church, (which now begs the secular world for its approval.)

In all likelihood, our way of life is so enmeshed with the liberal order, that it's probably going to take a major social collapse in order for the Church to come out of this. That seems to be the general pattern we see in the Bible as well. We aren't willingly going to give up our Liberty idols.

There is a good kind of freedom in the gospel, freedom from sin and the influence of the world the flesh, and the devil. The framers of the Constitution saw freedom in terms of freedom to worship God as you wish and in whatever cultural form. There is a bad kind of freedom that is in effect license to do whatever you want. LGBTQ and transgender are symptoms of a version of freedom that has no boundaries.

The progression of the idea of freedom from good to bad is the basic issue in American post-war history. But the need to fight for freedom remains and tyrannies like China, and Islamic countries for example do not allow Christian worship and evangelism in the gospel forms. Russia does not persecute all Christians but it does persecute conservative evangelicals and Pentecostals for example.

The value of an American-led world order remains:

1) Because the alternatives are worse e.g. China or Russia

2) Because the transition to alternatives always involves seismic wars - and in the modern era that could tally to millions maybe even billions of lives,

3) Because gospel freedom is possible under the umbrella of liberal freedom of license at least in the short to medium term.

 

[mindlight]

There has been a while during which the United States had a conservative church culture. It has not continued. So, it did not work to keep itself going and to increase. God increases what He is doing, I would say. And possibly what came before is what has helped our present situation to develop. Yes, I mean the Bible claiming culture has helped to produce what we have now.

I didn't say the obedient church of Jesus has caused what we have now in the United States, but the culture has been at least an accomplice.

Ones have been claiming endlessly that America is a Christian foundation nation. But what is functionally Christian keeps growing and increasing. God gives "increase" (1 Corinthians 3:5-7)

So, yes, now we have the really Christian church growing and developing, maturing in Jesus. But this is better than what the church culture has been pushing and failing in doing. And yes, in the culture we can see quite a variety show of people switching around, going conservative and then liberal . . . maybe on purpose acting as though they have come to believe or come to be conservative, so then they can pretend to see the light and switch to liberal or whatever.


Yes, in the United States there is the idol of independence which can isolate individuals in their own so-called "free wills", instead of functioning and sharing as family in Jesus. But there are more than 330,000,000 people living in the United States, including our border-crossing people. How many of these people you are talking about do you know personally?? I would offer that we can not make statements about people we don't even know. And you might be making statements about only certain ones who show.

The Christian church functional and obedient might not be making a big show, but is working deeper. God is succeeding, I offer. But yes we do need to be warned not to let ourselves be "atomized" so then we could be condensed by the coldness so we drop in with the liberals and atheists . . . and the church culture show.


Here you say "Privately" . . . how many people do you know well enough to know what is happening . . . "Privately"?? And how do you know that statistics are really getting info - - on what is private?

There are people who can make a public show, so we suppose they represent everyone else in some group. Activists seem to be pretty good at this. One screaming face on a ten-second news clip on TV can pretend to represent a lot of people.

We have people saying America has a Christian foundation. Of course, ones have used bloodshed a number of times, including with massacres of people of the land, in order to establish the United States . . . not how I have understood that Jesus does things . . . on His foundation.

But I note how the "Christian America" people I am seeing and hearing also have a connection with supporting Israel politically . . . right while it seems Israel is not obeying the LORD >

Ones talk about the "fear" in Israel . . . when actually Jesus says not to fear. And there seems to be an active slaughter house in Gaza, now, when Jesus says He did not come to destroy people's lives, but to save > Luke 9:56.

So, there seem to be some things which don't match, between the bloodshed involved in founding America and defending Israel, and how and why Jesus shed His blood.

So, I can see the trick . . . make public Christianity seem like it is the only and real Christianity, then make it fail so everyone supposes it was all fake. And it was produced from the earlier form, of "conservative" Christianity which has not grown and increased like, I consider, God's thing always does. And so now we have the product of what was never real in the first place. And ones are now decrying and trying to fry what they have helped to produce!

If you don't like the product, we need to stop what has helped to produce it, or else "it" will keep coming from the source.

So, what is the problem, then? Character has not been truly corrected. There have been conversions, but not of character but only of the acting and what people are "trying" to do. And with this comes the worship of one's own "free will" as being able to do what is right, when God alone is able to do anything right and keep it growing. And ones are not ministering the curing of character which is the hotbed of evil emotions and thinking and feelings. So, then ones suffer and are desperate for pleasure to try to feel something nicer > and we are seeing where desperation for pleasure is going with people now. But it has had the help of church culture people who don't believe God corrects and cures us of what makes us able to give in to cruel and brutal and stupid emotions and feelings and ways of a selfish personality.

They expect the behavior to get better, but they don't expect the deeper personality to change. Meanwhile, they are arguing and complaining, and the horrible example of this can help keep their kids from finding out how to love in a close relationship. And then comes the divorcing and other results. But God's word says what to do >

"Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation," (in Philippians 2:13-16)

"Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice." (Ephesians 4:31)

God's word says to put away those evil and cruel emotions and feelings of a selfish personality. And grow in Jesus, instead.

Deal with the cause, not just the product. Our character makes us able to give in to negative and nasty stuff; but as we grow in Jesus, we grow in His peace and how we can love and care for any and all people. And we discover others who are into this, obeying Christ in His rest.

The atomization of Christianity into individual professions of faith is distinctively American and problematic. Maybe the church-state separation enshrined in America's DNA contributes to this. Russia and British Christianity have a more corporate feel at the societal level but are so also vulnerable to the faults of that society as a result : nationalism in the case of Russia, and LGTBQ culture in the UK.

 

[John G.]

The value of an American-led world order remains:

1) Because the alternatives are worse e.g. China or Russia

2) Because the transition to alternatives always involves seismic wars - and in the modern era that could tally to millions maybe even billions of lives,

3) Because gospel freedom is possible under the umbrella of liberal freedom of license at least in the short to medium term.

Some of us do not want an American-led or an anyone-led world.
We prefer our own governments to act for our own people's interests without any influence from a decadent, greedy superpower or their invisible elite.
I'd rather take my chances in a multi-polar world than continue in the direction we are heading.

 

[Hazelelponi]

It seems bizarre to me how the western, mainly evangelical Christian community sits so comfortably in the liberal democratic tradition.

I see in Scripture the church to be a completely different entity from the world system which includes government and the like.

On a certain level, anything created by man is inherently anti-Christ because man is fallen so I would say yes to your main question but on the other hand God has given a certain authority to government for the safety of populations and punishment of evildoers and the like.

However Paul describes the church as being something other than the world when he speaks about expelling members of the church thereby "delivering them to Satan" 1 Corinthians 5:3-7

This shows clearly a delineation between church and everything else.

Jesus Testified (and His Testimony is True) before Pilate that His Kingdom was not of this world. John 18:36-37

That Kingdom comes into this world, and is above this world, but the Bible never speaks of “advancing the kingdom". The kingdom will come Luke 11:2 and we must receive the kingdom Mark 10:15 but the kingdom is currently “not of this world” John 18:36. Jesus’ parables of the kingdom picture it as yeast in dough and a tree growing. In other words, the kingdom is slowly working toward an ultimate fulfillment

That Kingdom comes ever more fully into this world one saved soul at a time and this is why the Christian mandate is to share the Gospel. The more devoid of the Triune God anything is, the more evil it can be.

The more godliness you see in a society at large the better governance you will see, but regardless it's still not possible for perfect just the best we can do in this fallen world.

In other words, the main of the belief is that we cannot immanentize the eschaton. That's all God, all we can do is emulate to the best of our ability all we have been taught in our physical bodies, those who belong to Christ, in a world where not everyone does.

Since I had so much to say here, I'll end my reply to this point. But I would be happy for the discussion. It's a positive one to have.

 

[helmut]

The progression of the idea of freedom from good to bad is the basic issue in American post-war history.

This is not specific to America. I remember the shock when I read in the newspaper that one of the first signs of freedom in Spain was the open advertising of inappropriate contentography. This was rather long ago (short after Franco, in the 1970s), and LBTQ was a theme still to come …

The value of an American-led world order remains:

1) Because the alternatives are worse e.g. China or Russia

Only if USA stay better. I have doubts whether this will be so in the future, especially if Trump gets president again.

And there is always the difference between interior and exterior - the USA have often (almost always) supported dictators for tactical reasons, sometimes even to protect US money.

2) Because the transition to alternatives always involves seismic wars - and in the modern era that could tally to millions maybe even billions of lives,

This is not as clear as you think. The abduction of the US-world-rule has already begun, e.g. with the withdrawal of soldiers from Syria (under humiliating terms!). The next step would be a Russia victory in the Ukraine, which would open new possibilities for Russia, especially in Moldavia, Serbia and her neighbors, or in the Caucasus … The friends of Russia in the Congress work for that, though it seems this has been stopped this at least partially.

3) Because gospel freedom is possible under the umbrella of liberal freedom of license at least in the short to medium term.

This may change. In Europe, there is a tendency to »cancel-culture« a clear statement for the laws of God. In France, the mended constitution now declares the right to abortion as a human right, activists wants this for the whole EU. So pro life would be considered anti-human-right, extremist and the sort …

I can't subscribe to »at least in the … medium term«, though I hope it will be not that short-termed.

 

[helmut]

However Paul describes the church as being something other than the world when he speaks about expelling members of the church thereby "delivering them to Satan" 1 Corinthians 5:3-7

It is not clear what he meant by this.

The Hebrew satan means opponent or accuser, there are verses that use that meaning to describe men (e.g. 2.Sa 19:22). Job 1 describes an heavenly accuser (sort of »public prosecutor«).

Since the incest mentioned by Paul was a crime according to Roman law, Paul may be speaking of accusing this person, so that he will get punished (maybe even death penalty), so the body (flesh) is destructed, but his soul will be saved …

The more godliness you see in a society at large the better governance you will see, but regardless it's still not possible for perfect just the best we can do in this fallen world.

True.

 

[mindlight]

Some of us do not want an American-led or an anyone-led world.
We prefer our own governments to act for our own people's interests without any influence from a decadent, greedy superpower or their invisible elite.
I'd rather take my chances in a multi-polar world than continue in the direction we are heading.

The choice is not national sovereignty versus a version of hegemony, it is which version of hegemony is the least worst.

 

[mindlight]

This is not specific to America. I remember the shock when I read in the newspaper that one of the first signs of freedom in Spain was the open advertising of inappropriate contentography. This was rather long ago (short after Franco, in the 1970s), and LBTQ was a theme still to come …

Only if USA stay better. I have doubts whether this will be so in the future, especially if Trump gets president again.

And there is always the difference between interior and exterior - the USA have often (almost always) supported dictators for tactical reasons, sometimes even to protect US money.

This is not as clear as you think. The abduction of the US-world-rule has already begun, e.g. with the withdrawal of soldiers from Syria (under humiliating terms!). The next step would be a Russia victory in the Ukraine, which would open new possibilities for Russia, especially in Moldavia, Serbia and her neighbors, or in the Caucasus … The friends of Russia in the Congress work for that, though it seems this has been stopped this at least partially.

This may change. In Europe, there is a tendency to »cancel-culture« a clear statement for the laws of God. In France, the mended constitution now declares the right to abortion as a human right, activists wants this for the whole EU. So pro life would be considered anti-human-right, extremist and the sort …

I can't subscribe to »at least in the … medium term«, though I hope it will be not that short-termed.

You might be right that the tendency towards lawlessness is a deeper cultural phenomenon than that occurring just in American culture indeed the scriptures anticipate this is in the longest term.

Trump has not won the election and will be smeared with a lot of soiled personal revelations and convictions before the vote takes place. Biden beat him last time and there is little reason to believe he will do any better this time either. The USA has never been a product of top-down choices anyway but rather of a broad culture that still has a healthy Christian vibe to it as well as some awful rubbish. This war could still go either way but it will not help the Christian cause if Trump wins 2024.

The abuse of American power in pursuit of higher ends such as the defeat of communism or Islamic terrorism has fallen in recent years to a consideration of economic advantage but this does not have to remain the case.

The destruction of Iranian weaponry launched on Israel tells a different story about the American presence in the Middle East. They remain dominant.

European Christians are very comfortable compared to Americans and especially poor Europeans who are cosseted by the state. But the shake-up of the European order by the pandemic, inflation, the threat of war after decades of peace and by mass immigration is causing Europeans to reach for alternate sources of trust as the secular level ones lie broken all around them. There is an openness that is unprecedented in recent decades although witness to older Europeans remains a tough call. So do not write off Europe yet, it is more a case of 'watch this space.'

 

[ViaCrucis]

"False"

God's people don't sit comfortably with killing the unborn (Abortion) or homosexuality in (Same Sex Marriage), with that mentioned being two foundations in the liberal platform

You might have those claiming to be Christians in agreement with that mentioned, but the Bible speaks of wolves in sheep's clothing that aren't part of Christianity or the Church

Jesus Is The Lord

How do God's people sit comfortably with systemic injustice and oppressing the vulnerable and the marginalized? Which is the foundation of the conservative platform.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[helmut]

Trump has not won the election

He has not lost it, either. The voting did not even start!

… and will be smeared with a lot of soiled personal revelations and convictions before the vote takes place.

There will surely be some soup to support Trump, like the emailgate in 2016. We don't know what kind of coup it is (Putin will not tell if you ask him), so we cannot be sure how effective that will be. I hope you will be correct, but we cannot be sure.

The abuse of American power in pursuit of higher ends such as the defeat of communism or Islamic terrorism has fallen in recent years to a consideration of economic advantage but this does not have to remain the case.

Oh, some examples of the abuse of power for lower ends like advantage for, say, the United Fruit Company, go back to the 1950. Such things are no new phenomenon (maybe this is new to you, but it is not new to many people outside the USA).

The destruction of Iranian weaponry launched on Israel tells a different story about the American presence in the Middle East. They remain dominant.

»Dominant« is an exaggeration. Iran has many enemies, they now even co-operate with Israel, Jordan shot some drones.

The attack was almost phony: Iran warned the USA in advance (and anyone could tell this warning will be given to Israel), drones are rather easy to defend from, only few cruise missiles and rockets were launched. Iran did not want to launch a full-fledged attack, which would be much harder to repel.

It seems some very hard Iranian hard-liners were made happy with as little provocation as possible. It was (indirectly) a demonstration what Iran could do (they could have sent 300 rockets, they could have made a coordinate attack with hezbollah, …). And perhaps it was a test how other countries in the region will react (given the situation in Gaza: would they support Israel or join the Iranian side?).

European Christians are very comfortable compared to Americans and especially poor Europeans who are cosseted by the state.

We Europeans don't see this as cosseting. It is a question on social justice. Justice (often »judgement« in KJV wording) is not a minor theme in the Bible.

There have been cuts to the welfare system in many European states, including Germany. The most drastic cuts were, to my knowledge, in Sweden, which had been a democratic-socialist country until 1976. The result was, naturally, that the number of poor people surged, and as a consequence from that the number of right-wing voters.

There is an openness that is unprecedented in recent decades although witness to older Europeans remains a tough call.

The openness is more to non-christian religions or philosophies. But there is always some openness if there are believers with an »authentic« life.

So do not write off Europe yet, it is more a case of 'watch this space.'

I don't claim to know the future. Maybe Putin will be for Europe what Nebuchadnezzar was to Judah, or maybe the fascist Putin system will collapse within 5 years. Who knows?

Certainly Xi watches »this space« and try to draw a lesson from what happens there.

 

[Truth7t7]

How do God's people sit comfortably with systemic injustice and oppressing the vulnerable and the marginalized? Which is the foundation of the conservative platform.

-CryptoLutheran

I Disagree With Your Claims

It's conservatives that protect the vulnerable and marginalized, namely the unborn innocent children in the womb from being murdered (Abortion)

 

[mindlight]

I Disagree With Your Claims

It's conservatives that protect the vulnerable and marginalized, namely the unborn innocent children in the womb from being murdered (Abortion)

In the German constitution protection of the weakest is from conception to grave. It has a lower rate of abortion than the USA but also provides full comprehensive care for the sick, the old, the widow and the orphan not to mention those stuck in poverty. Aside from the super-rich in the USA, who are after all less than 1% of the population, I would suggest that most Germans enjoy a higher standard of living even despite their compassion, they live longer and live healthier longer in a cleaner environment.

Greed and selfishness may work as a generator of wealth but needs to be balanced by care for those who get left behind.

 

[mindlight]

He has not lost it, either. The voting did not even start!

There will surely be some soup to support Trump, like the emailgate in 2016. We don't know what kind of coup it is (Putin will not tell if you ask him), so we cannot be sure how effective that will be. I hope you will be correct, but we cannot be sure.

Oh, some examples of the abuse of power for lower ends like advantage for, say, the United Fruit Company, go back to the 1950. Such things are no new phenomenon (maybe this is new to you, but it is not new to many people outside the USA).

»Dominant« is an exaggeration. Iran has many enemies, they now even co-operate with Israel, Jordan shot some drones.

The attack was almost phony: Iran warned the USA in advance (and anyone could tell this warning will be given to Israel), drones are rather easy to defend from, only few cruise missiles and rockets were launched. Iran did not want to launch a full-fledged attack, which would be much harder to repel.

It seems some very hard Iranian hard-liners were made happy with as little provocation as possible. It was (indirectly) a demonstration what Iran could do (they could have sent 300 rockets, they could have made a coordinate attack with hezbollah, …). And perhaps it was a test how other countries in the region will react (given the situation in Gaza: would they support Israel or join the Iranian side?).

We Europeans don't see this as cosseting. It is a question on social justice. Justice (often »judgement« in KJV wording) is not a minor theme in the Bible.

There have been cuts to the welfare system in many European states, including Germany. The most drastic cuts were, to my knowledge, in Sweden, which had been a democratic-socialist country until 1976. The result was, naturally, that the number of poor people surged, and as a consequence from that the number of right-wing voters.

The openness is more to non-christian religions or philosophies. But there is always some openness if there are believers with an »authentic« life.

I don't claim to know the future. Maybe Putin will be for Europe what Nebuchadnezzar was to Judah, or maybe the fascist Putin system will collapse within 5 years. Who knows?

Certainly Xi watches »this space« and try to draw a lesson from what happens there.

The neo-colonialism of American capitalist firms like United Fruit in South America at least organized these countries to produce useful products e.g. fruit. The alternative in context was probably communist hegemony of the region - which was unacceptable. Now the various organized crime families that control much of these countries trade sell drugs instead. Maybe some countries have to be dominated by others to function usefully. Responsibility for homegrown freedoms and justice must come from the people themselves. Armed interventions on behalf of elected governments against the cartels and corrupt politicians look like a way forward so long as there is local buy-in to these but I suspect the cultural change has to happen first.

I agree that Iran's attack was telegraphed and amounted to nothing much. But American capabilities in the region are not in doubt.

Also, agree that hard capitalism needs to be balanced by social concern. I am a fan of German social democracy although I suspect the German economy needs a bit of a boost right now if the welfare state is to continue to thrive. In the USA it is the other way around.

Putin is no Nebuchadnezzar and has no chance of sacking Brussels and transporting its treasures and ruling class to Moscow. His power in Russia is pretty much absolute and I believe it could survive a ceasefire.

Swedish per capita income has more than doubled since 1976 from a high base, neo-liberal policies helped with its growth rate but it remains one of the most egalitarian societies in Europe. So not sure why you used it as an example.

Openness to the spiritual realm in Europe is a potential blessing and a curse - agreed. The battle is still being fought and we agree that authentic Christian living is a crucial witness.

 

[Dale]

I'm sure I am. One of the basic realities of human nature is that it is impossible to escape bias. The closest we can come is to be aware of our biases and to try to remind ourselves of them.

The most biased people in the world, are those who think they are not biased.
This has actually become my biggest pet peeve when talking to many Protestants. The extremely common attitude that they just take their view of scripture as simply what scripture means. There is no question of bias or interpretation. They are just right and everything they believe comes right from the Bible.




The break down of late antiquity was real, caused by plague, endemic war, leading to mass migration and resulting collapse of Roman administrative and economic infrastructure. However the change in philosophy and worldview was nothing remotely like the change that happens going from Medieval to Modern.

It is true that many of the sources of classical knowledge were lost, particularly Aristotle, but not all. The Medieval mind was still extremely heavily based on the surviving Platonic documents, even though some of these were only fragments that were preserved in commentary from other authors etc.

If you want a good overview of this, I would recommend C.S. Lewis' book The Discarded Image. It is based off of the lectures that he gave to his Medieval Literature students preparing them to read medieval literature by giving them a crash course in Medieval thought, cosmology, and worldview.

I don't mean to say that the Medievals were exactly like the Ancients. There obviously was development and change. The Medieval Mind was not exactly the same as the Ancient Mind, but there was a basic continuity of thought and belief. They had the same fundamental beliefs about the world and the nature of reality, and those formed the basis of everything else.

The Aristotelian works were rediscovered in the 13th century through contact with the Islamic world, particularly Averroes in Spain. This produced an immediate reaction in the Scholastic community (the Christian universities of Europe). This reaction included not only those who wanted to redefine Christianity based on Aristotle, but also a strain of Islamic influence that creeps in as well.

Thomas Aquinas basically refuted those scholars who were too heavily influenced by Averroes and he reconciled Aristotle and Plato with Christian doctrine, producing what is, to this day, viewed by many as almost definitive Catholic thought. this isn't quite right because Catholic thought is much broader and multifaceted, but absolutely Thomas was and is a central figure in Catholic thought.

The destruction of medieval thought began within a generation of Thomas Aquinas' death. By the mid to late 1300's William of Ockham, Marsilius of Padua, and their fellows introduced the ideas that would pave the way of Modernism, and destroy medieval and ancient thought.

One of the changes that usually goes unnoticed in this process was the change in how language was taught at the universities. Prior to this time Metaphysics had been the dominant branch of philosophy and language was taught based on metaphysical thought. The idea being that words are properly related to things, that words are almost incarnational. The thing is present in the word. This relates to Platonic/Aristotelian/Thomistic concepts of how the Forms are present in the intellect etc.

Around this time, Logic began to supplant Metaphysics as the dominant or foundational discipline in philosophy, especially at Oxford. This began to change how language was taught. Instead of thinking that words are directly tied to things, words began to be viewed as essentially logical tokens which were either validly used or invalidly used.

This, together with Nominalism, which lead to words being viewed as only labels that are applied to things only by human convention degraded our whole concept of language and though mostly overlooked, was absolutely foundational to the change of thought that happened.

The influence of Islam also showed up in the rise of Voluntarism. Basically resulting in the view that God's sovereignty means that his decisions, including what is good and what is evil, are totally arbitrary, simply resulting from whatever God happened to choose.

William of Ockham, for instance taught that God could have made murder good, and could have made martyrdom sinful. He could have made us hate a virtue instead of love, and could have ordered us to hate him. This idea, in particular radically changed views on how salvation worked.

It would probably not be correct to say that most of these ideas had never existed before, but they had never been the mainstream before for certain. They radically changed how the world was viewed. Keep in mind that this was in the 1300's Before the Renaissance really got rolling and certainly before the switchover to modernity. But they laid the foundation. They essentially destroyed what went before.

For example, Luther considered himself to be a devoted student of William of Ockham and even referred to Ockham as his master.

Nominalism and Voluntarism alone were earth-shattering. But you also have the origin of the modern conflict between science and religion. Both William and Marsilius promoted the idea of duplex veritas "two truths". They argued that there could be religious truths of faith, which contradicted the truths of natural philosophy known by reason and observation, and that both could be believed simultaneously.

This was the beginning which would eventually lead to the secularist dismissal of the supernatural as "superstition".

The renaissance was a further nail in the coffin, because of its obsession with elegance and style over substance. As you mention the scholars of the renaissance, fell in love with the Latin style of Cicero and the other classical era writers. They loved the poetics, etc. Nothing wrong with that of course, but it lead them to mock and dismiss the intellectual work of the medieval scholars simply because the Latin was clunky and inelegant. In education they tended to replace philosophy with poetics and the like.

By the time you get to the 1500's you have large movements going on in the Universities of Europe that don't resemble orthodox Catholicism at all.

For example, most people don't realize that the doctrine of salvation that Luther reacted against, wasn't even what the Church taught. It was a new idea, born out of Voluntarism and the Via Moderna, which was being taught in the universities, and had particular control over the university where Luther was educated.

This view taught that it was impossible for man to bride the gap between God and man due to sin. So, because God could arbitrarily do whatever he wanted, they taught that God had put in place an economy of salvation that required man to "do his best" and then God would make up the difference, because man could never do enough.

This places all the emphasis on Man's action. It also puts you in an impossible quandary because any person really ever say "I did my best". Could you have prayed 1 minute more? Could you have given one more penny to charity? and so on. This is why Luther struggled so badly with scrupulosity and feared so much for his salvation.

His eventual break with this doctrine produced an overreaction that caused a break with the Church. Luther also, following his master Ockham also rejected Aristotle and Plato, which put him at odds with a variety of things, most importantly the Eucharist.

there would never have been a Luther, without Nominalism, Voluntarism, Duplex Veritas, Caesero-Papism, etc. These had nothing to do with the Bible, except in the sense that they influence how you understand it.




I would admit that I overstated the case deliberately for effect. I grew up Protestant, and my subsequent study showed me that I was basically lied to. Not literally, in that the people who taught me didn't realize that what they were teaching was unntrue. However, it is accurate to say that he Protestant version of these events is heavily augmented by myth. The way protestants tell it is not accurate.

In reality both sides were arguing from scripture. The point I am attempting to get across, admittedly using some exaggeration is that the common notion that the Protestants just returned to the Bible and the Catholic teachings were all just accretions that ignored and contradicted the Bible is false.

There were, of course, legitimate complaints against the Church at the time. Even the Catholics of the time admitted this.

One of the things that ultimately was most influential in my returning to the Catholic Church was that I saw how much sense Catholic Teaching made biblically. It fit so much better with and made so much more sense of the Bible. One of the reason I had begun to look towards leaving my church tradition that I grew up in was because I began to run into questions about things that I was reading in the bible that no one could answer and that just made no sense in the context of our doctrines. I began to see things that our doctrines just dismissed and ignored, that Catholic teaching made sense of.

As a result I am passionate about the fact that Catholic teaching IS biblical and is biblically accurate. Thus it has become a pet peeve that I constantly get the attitude from Protestants that Catholicism is just unbiblical and Catholics don't believe the bible and don't know the bible and if they did they'd just become Protestant.

I do tend to hold a similar view myself, originally stated by John Newman "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant". It is one thing to know historical facts and timelines. It is another to begin to put yourself into the thought and mind of historical cultures and try to see the world through their eyes. I am convinced that Protestantism can only exist because of our modern, and now post-modern worldview.




This is beside the point of the political conversation here, but one of the problems with Protestantism is that it makes ever person their own Pope. Catholics have one Pope. Protestants have a hundred million. My point being, why is Wycliffe or Hus right about what the Bible says? When I was a Protestant I literally spent years arguing with other Protestants and all of us were convinced that we had the correct understanding of scripture?

I have a high view of reason, but your own reason is not sufficient to understand scripture. Perhaps ironically the Bible itself showed me this. If you go through and look in the New Testament at all the cases where it says that OT prophecies were fulfilled and how they were fulfilled, I am 100% convinced that no human intellect would EVER have come up with those interpretations or properly understood those scriptures.

I was also raised Charismatic, so of course we believed that the Holy Spirit would give us understanding, and speak to us individually, etc. The problem there was that in my own church, which was tiny, we routinely had people conflicting, claiming that the Holy Spirit had told them completely opposite things... so who is the Spirit speaking to? any of them?

The Biblical answer to this conundrum is that the Church is imbued with authority to interpret, to teach, and to judge in such matters and the Holy Spirit leads the Church.

Regarding this history you point out and its bearing on my previous argument. I'm sure the Reformers were influenced by Hus and Wycliffe. But using Luther as an example... did he read Hus's letter before, or after he was taught at university? Was that letter formative on his entire worldview for years? or did it come after his worldview had already been formed?

I would submit that it is just as possible that he only agreed with Hus, because he had already had the foundation laid in his worldview.
But this, ultimately is exactly what I'm getting at. Protestants like to think that the Reformers were just drawing from forerunners like Wycliffe and Hus. In reality the ideas of William of Ockham and Marsilius of Padua had greater influence and more far reaching effects.

This is they mythology of the Reformation.

Of course, it is foolish to think that anything in history has one and only one cause. People and ideas are complex, there almost always many factors involved.




I think I just showed that this notion is more true than you previously admitted.

CONTINIUED in another post, because I got too long winded...

Simon_Templar excerpt

<< This is beside the point of the political conversation here, but one of the problems with Protestantism is that it makes ever person their own Pope. Catholics have one Pope. Protestants have a hundred million. My point being, why is Wycliffe or Hus right about what the Bible says? When I was a Protestant I literally spent years arguing with other Protestants and all of us were convinced that we had the correct understanding of scripture?

I have a high view of reason, but your own reason is not sufficient to understand scripture. Perhaps ironically the Bible itself showed me this. If you go through and look in the New Testament at all the cases where it says that OT prophecies were fulfilled and how they were fulfilled, I am 100% convinced that no human intellect would EVER have come up with those interpretations or properly understood those scriptures. >>End Excerpt



You say that Protestantism makes everyone their own Pope. Are you aware of the magnitude of division and animosity between Roman Catholics these days? We have the sedevacantists bitterly arguing with the “recognize and resist” camp, and many who think that Pope Francis is okay, or at least survivable.

Simon_Templar: “My point being, why is Wycliffe or Hus right about what the Bible says?”

Do you know why John Wycliffe broke with the RCC? At that time, the Catholic Church charged a fee for baptisms. Most people were serfs, tied to the land, to their feudal lord, and had very little money. About half of the children died in childhood. To the average serf, paying to baptize a child that might not live was a waste of money. The RCC taught that a child who dies unbaptized goes to hell. Although the population of England and Scotland was much lower then than it is today, over a century or so, millions of unbaptized children would be going to hell because of the fee for baptisms, according to RCC theology. Wycliffe revolted at this and founded a sect called the Lollards, offering baptism without a charge. Baptism was free so that poor serfs could afford it.

Why is Wycliffe right? Wycliffe is right because he had compassion. The Roman Catholic Church did not.

On Jan Hus ...

Summary of the first of the Four Prague Articles put forward by followers of Jan Hus:

“The Word of God is to be freely examined by Christian priests throughout the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Margravate of Moravia.”

At the time of Jan Hus, the right of individual Christians to read the Bible for themselves wasn’t even being discussed yet. They were still fighting for the right of the parish priests to read the Bible for themselves.

Why is Jan Hus right? He died a martyr’s death. He fought for the contents of the Bible to be more widely read, studied and understood. This outweighs any errors he made.


Link on Jan Hus

The Four Articles of Prague - John Hus

The “Four Articles of Prague” were a set of demands set forth by Hussites. It originated from Jakoubek of Stříbro, Hus’ successor at the Bethlehem Chapel, and the faculty of Charles University in Prague in 1420. Emperor Sigismund refused to accept the Articles, and instead asked Pope Martin V...

johnhus.org

 

[Truth7t7]

In the German constitution protection of the weakest is from conception to grave. It has a lower rate of abortion than the USA but also provides full comprehensive care for the sick, the old, the widow and the orphan not to mention those stuck in poverty. Aside from the super-rich in the USA, who are after all less than 1% of the population, I would suggest that most Germans enjoy a higher standard of living even despite their compassion, they live longer and live healthier longer in a cleaner environment.

Greed and selfishness may work as a generator of wealth but needs to be balanced by care for those who get left behind.

Associated Press​

Shelters for migrants are filling up across Germany as attitudes toward the newcomers harden​

Sep 28, 2023

PoliticsGermany​

German commission recommends officially legalizing abortion​

April 15, 2024

A commission appointed by the German government has recommended officially legalizing abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.