As I understands,
I have been listening to Jay Smith, David Wood, Sam Shamoun, and other Christian apologetics, but they don't seem to invoke this watertight defense re the concept of the covenant.
I believe the concept of the 'covenant' is the most watertight defense for Christianity against any negative accusations that it is associated with evil and violence based on the acts committed by SOME 'Christians' such as in the crusades, inquisition, Salem, pedophiles priests, and the likes.
I note there is a
general covenant between God and the Jews in the OT and this is extended to the prophesised New Covenant in the NT.
For a person to be defined as a Christian, the individual must establish a personal relation with God and Christ via an agreement, i.e. a
specific personal divine covenant.
I have argued and defended this definition of 'Who is a Christian-proper' in the following thread;
Who is a Christian?
A Christian is a person who;
- Believes in Jesus as son of God and his teachings, i.e. accept the offer re John 3:16, etc.,
- is Baptized accordingly,
- Surrender to God via Jesus as Son of God,
- Entered [explicit or implied] into a covenant with God to comply with God's words [the covenanted terms] in the Gospels [supported by the epistles, acts and relevant verses from the OT] to the best of his/her ability.
In term of weightages, I understand 4 - entering into a
covenant with God, is most critical which I would place at 75%. The covenant if not explicit is implied. Without a covenant [divine contract], then no true relationship is effected between God [& Jesus] and the believers.
The balance of 25% is divided among the others. Baptism is common but it is a ritual and form which can be abused. There could be some special exceptions to the above but regardless an covenant must be implied upon the circumstances.
Any one can declare a belief but it has to be reinforced with an actual covenant. It would be very fatal [no eternal life] for a Christian to insist there is no covenant [contract or agreement] between him and God or insist he will not enter into a covenant with his God.
If there is no agreement and relationship, there is no way - in principle - God can exercise any promise to him of salvation and eternal life. Any serious Christian will accept this principle if the point is explained clearly to him.
Therefore the covenant is the primary and ultimate factor in deciding 'who is a Christian' regardless of whether they are conscious of it or not.
The above elements are based on genuine intentions from the believer and not on pretense which cannot escape God omniscience [all knowing].
Where the concept of the 'covenant' can be used as the most watertight defense for Christianity against any negative accusations that Christianity is associated with evil and violence based on the acts committed by SOME 'Christians' such as in the crusades, inquisition, Salem, pedophiles priests, and the likes, is argued as follows;
P1 A Christian is one who has entered into a covenant with the Christian God of Christianity.
P2 The covenanted terms of that a Christian must comply has a overriding pacifist maxim of love all, even one's enemies, thus a Christian cannot commit evil nor violent acts on any human being.
C3 Therefore any evil or violent acts by 'Christians' cannot be attributable to Christianity proper.
The point is if Christians as defined above commits evil and violent acts, they could NOT have done it in the name of Christianity per se since the covenanted terms within Christianity has absolutely no provision to allow the Christian-proper to be evil and violent to any human, rather it is love all even one's enemies.
Often when I discussed with Muslims, others and even Christians about the terror, evil and violent acts committed by SOME evil prone Muslims, they will readily use the Tu Quogue fallacy, and countered so confidently -what about the Bible??, by accusing SOME Christians and Christianity as evil and violent by pointing to the many of such verses in the OT and some in the NT.
Thus the effective defense is the above syllogism, i.e.;
A Christian is one who had entered into a covenant with God to comply with the covenanted terms that has an overriding pacifist maxim, i.e. love all, even one's enemies, neighbor, give the other cheeks etc. Thus even if a Christian has hatred for his enemies and others s/he by doctrinal principles and obligated by the covenanted terms, cannot kill, harm or commit evil acts against any one.
Of course, Christians being human beings and given free, SOME will be not be able to resist certain primal impulse to kill, harm or commit evil. But their acts cannot be attributable to Christianity itself since Christians must comply to the overriding pacifist maxim of love all.
In this case, we cannot blame Christianity itself but the blame should primarily be directed at the guilty Christians who acted on their own free will.
Fortunately the all knowing Christian God is all-merciful and will likely forgive [even the worst sin] if the guilty person repented sincerely and do not repeat the sin.
If the Christian apologetic is faced with accusations by Muslims that Christianity also has evil and violent elements in the Bible, NT and the other books, the counter attack would be;
P1 A Muslim is one who has entered into a covenant with the Allah of Islam.
P2 The covenanted terms of a Muslim contain loads of evil and violent element in the Quran and Ahadiths and the Muslim is exhorted to comply with them to gain greater merit and rewards. [evidence available]
C3 Therefore any evil or violent acts by SOME Muslims are inspired by the ideology of the religion of Islam itself.
One point to note is we must differentiate the ideology of Islam from Muslims as believers, thus
we should not lay primary blame on the guilty Muslims rather we must trace the evil and violent acts to the ideology, note this thread;
Islam - Do Not Bash Muslims
The guilty Muslims must answer for his crimes within the law of the land, but the primary blame is on the religion of Islam itself and not on the guilty Muslims who was unfortunately born naturally with active evil proclivities.
Would you agree the concept of the imperative covenant a Christian has to establish with God as a watertight defense for Christianity in a Christian Apologetic scenario as above?
If not, your views?