Sometimes division is necessary in Christianity. Consider the circumstances of Christians in the time of American slavery. Within various churches, some stood strongly and formally on the side of slavery, and backed that stance with Bible and church tradition. Others saw no way to square "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" with the institution of slavery. The country itself divided, and so did religious denominations. To paraphrase Lincoln, 'both read the same Bible and prayed to the same God', but the particular fact of what each said that God was telling them to DO, plainly and clearly "in the Bible", made the other utterly evil, indeed a servant of Satan.
Well, when the Bible does support its regulated ameliorated form of slavery as contextually morally tolerable, not as a imperative command but as "thou mayest" in a world in which slavery was an established institution and an integral part of the ANE economy, then it takes study to justify (versus simply call for) an unconditional ban on it in today's world.
A good concise description of slavery in the Bible is
here, and a more in-depth examination is
here, by the grace of God.
Yet while many evangelical-types supported Biblical slavery, esp. as conducive to their conversion, many notable
Christian evangelicals were at the forefront of the movement in the West. with such primary men whom we highly esteem such as William Wilberforce who wrote in his diary when he was 28 that, "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and Reformation of Morals.
The famous English preacher Charles Spurgeon had some of his sermons burned in America due to his censure of slavery, calling it "the foulest blot" and which "may have to be washed out in blood."[93] Methodist founder John Wesley denounced human bondage as "the sum of all villainies," and detailed its abuses.[94] In Georgia, primitive Methodists united with brethren elsewhere in condemning slavery.
Many evangelical leaders in the United States such as Presbyterian Charles Finney and Theodore Weld, and women such as Harriet Beecher Stowe (daughter of abolitionist Lyman Beecher) and Sojourner Truth motivated hearers to support abolition. Finney preached that slavery was a moral sin, and so supported its elimination. "I had made up my mind on the question of slavery, and was exceedingly anxious to arouse public attention to the subject. In my prayers and preaching, I so often alluded to slavery, and denounced it.[95] Repentance from slavery was required of souls, once enlightened of the subject, while continued support of the system incurred "the greatest guilt upon them.[96]-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_slavery#Christian_abolitionism [not to exclude the Quakers who in particular had a profound influence.]
However, it is true that Southern white evangelicals overall resisted the threat of changing of the status quo of their society, with those who advocated desegregation were a minority,
though "when Graham determined in 1952-53 that he could no longer preach the Gospel to segregated meetings because that would represent a betrayal of the Gospel itself, younger southern Presbyterian conservatives nodded their heads in agreement."
And for the record, though the church of Rome promotes itself as the solution to such disputes, its actual record is inconsistent. As no less than the anti-Protestant RC apologist Jimmy Akin stated in response to another RC who wanted to impose his desire view of his church upon history,
Shane, your mistake is just what I noted. One Pope out of 265 Popes condemns slavery as intrinsically evil in the ordinary magisterium and you call it Church Teaching without ever using your own brain to see if he might have overstepped in his late years... and you are prepared to throw God Himself and His estimation of slavery overboard. The Prots are not 100% wrong when they fault us for Pope worship. You just did it....
The list of bulls against slavery occurred over a time span that included 44 Popes but only about 7 of them denounced slavery of sorts....one was against slavery in the Canaries but only of baptized natives....the next one by Paul III was against the enslavement of the Caribbean natives but not against that of blacks....another was against the trade, but not against the domestic slavery of blacks born to slave mothers and held by religious orders into the 19th century, with [the] Bishop [of] England who knew the Pope [was][ writing for domestic slavery after the bull and not being gainsaid by the Pope. The most complete one was finally at the end of the 19th century by a Pope...Leo XIII this time... who claimed that the Church was the great liberator from slavery, and he gave a papal list which left out the six Popes from 1452 til 1511 who literally turbocharged the slavery by Spain and Portugal that involved millions. [FONT=Liberation Sans, sans-serif] — Soups Re-Redux[/FONT]
I'll quote Lincoln again, because he got it exactly right, in all of its terrible divine logic:
"The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'"
Oh for wise and moral men like Lincoln today!
The same terrible divine logic applies to the Reformation and its wars, to the perennial wars with Islam and their outcomes over time. When men open their books and, fired by the passions it arouses, reach for the sword to go and defeat the evil heathen, they had the decision over to the Lord God of Hosts, who makes his judgments of such cases manifest on the battlefields of history and in the results that come thereafter.
While Islam needed to be defeated, physical church armies or theocracies obeying the church to enforce doctrinal conformity are not Biblical, and the use of the sword of men in the name of Christ, whether to discipline members for doctrinal offenses or punish or rule over those without - whether Catholic or Protestant - leaves a negative testimony.
While the state can and will indirectly support the teachings of religion on morals - since beliefs are behind moral laws, reflecting the beliefs of their founder and interpretive leaders - it is not to require or punish theological beliefs that are behind the works it may support in the interest of the common wealth.
But that's another thread.
Today, as in all of the past 14 centuries, our war with Islam continues on battlefields all over the world.
Meaning mad Muhammad Islam, which advocates carnal force and religious bloodshed against her theological foes and seeks physical rule over the the over all, and to overthrow the West, which is obviously opposed to it.
In this realm, fundamentalist, sharia law Muslims theocracies are a problem to be dealt with by those who want their freedoms, while the post-Christian, increasingly immoral nature of the West has worked to justify the moral premise of Muslim conquest. Yet Muslims who want freedom and escape the Taliban can be good citizens, though it is may be hard for them to support an increasingly immoral country they were not raised in, and if push came to shove, they can be expected to side with Muslim conquistadors, whom they seldom speak out against.
Christian on Christian war has diminished to harsh words at each other through the various media. Christians are as dug in on every little detail as they were in 1861, but none of the issues move them enough to draw the sword and kill each other. The antagonism of their words makes it clear enough that some of them, if given the power, WOULD draw the sword to settle issues, but most people are just not into religion sufficiently to form any sort of army, so the would-be crusaders are left to fire verbal barbs at one another.
While i have no doubt that traditional RCs such as who defend the Spanish Inquisitions (which was in obedience to papal requirement) and seem to long for those days and means would both ban all that that theologically opposes Rome and use the sword of men against them, yet the antagonism of their words simply does not mean that, if given the power, they WOULD draw the sword to settle issues. If my foes here were my neighbors I would like to shovel their driveway or change their tire, give them food, etc. by the grace of God, but in the realm of doctrinal debate this is indeed war btwn Truth and deception, and one cannot esteem the former without opposing the latter.
But I do not find evangelicals defending the killing of witches or Catholics or others for theological offenses by Protestant theocracies as was done in the past in copying Rome and the world. Obeying "whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake, (Titus 1:11) is not by the sword of men, but by overcoming error with Truth from the wholly inspired source of it above all on earth.
Christian Forums reveals the depths of antagonism and antipathy between Christians.
And when you have everything from the justification of abortion and fornication (if "loving" and not part of idolatry) to teaching born again Christians cannot sin (though trespasses against others do not count as sin), or that they essentially much confess every sin they ever committed as Christians to be saved, and the promotion and defense of distinct "one true (organic) churches," or who exalt the Quakers today as valid prophets, and attack those without who use the wholly inspired record of the NT church as the standard for this, then what do you expect?
- Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee. (1 Timothy 4:16)
- Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)
- Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. (Jude 3)
- Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. (Ephesians 5:10-11)
Since the CF criteria for "Christian" is simply intellectual assent to the Nicene Creed then all sorts of absurdities fly around under that umbrella.
Already in Europe the battle of the future is visible. Christianity is going the way of the faith in Odin and Thor - a dwindling fringe. Islam is aggressive, but ultimately superstitious and ignorant. Will the Europeans choose the God of the Koran, or will they choose the God of Spinoza and Einstein? My bet is on Spinoza.
No, the disciples of Spinoza are mostly in The Pill and appeals mainly to the intellectual, while it lacks the substance and certitude of Scripture and to a lesser extant, the Qur'an, but the disciples of the latter procreate the most, and Islam appeals to the flesh from whence it came and receives sympathy from the liberal West which rejects the supreme standard of God and thus critically lacks judgment overall.
Yet Christians "wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6:12) and to know where the train of post-Christian society is headed one must consider that the devil want to rule and receive obeisance.
What I foresee is increasing secularism as well as adherents of Islam, leading to a dictatorship brought to power thru the demonic seduction of the liberal victim-entitlement mentality/share the wealth "justice," but which, as in Communism, results in dependence upon and thus obeisance to the State, which supports the devil's alternative society with its perverse alternatives to what God has ordained, true worship of the God of Scripture and in the moral realm, the placing together of what God has sexually placed asunder.
Now I am not sure what all this to do with the OP?