Tag Archives: Jesus

Electing Faithfulness Part 6: Civil Rights for the Unborn Class

Posted by Caleb Coy on

[back to part 5: Foreign Policy]

“Civil Rights for the Unborn Class”
or
“Understanding what Abortion means to a Nation and a Community”
or
“Being Pro-Seamless-Garment-of-Life”

Take a moment to, no matter your opinion, erase as much as you can concerning the preconceptions of people who exist on the “abortion stance spectrum”, including the terms we use.

Now I want to tell you that I believe that a sound civil government respects a woman’s right to her body.  I also believe that every person has a right to life, even those who are not yet recognized citizens.  I know that slightly more than half of children conceived in the world are women, and they have a right to live.  Because women and men are equal, I must conclude that all male children conceived in the world have a right to live.  Therefore, I believe all children have a right to live.  The government should not interfere with a woman’s body (or a man’s), but if a woman has another woman inside her, and she is trying to end that life, then the government is at a crossroads, having to make a decision between not interfering with one woman’s body, but also protecting the life of another.
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Electing Faithfulness Part 5: Swords<Ploughshares and The Golden Rule for Nations

Posted by Caleb Coy on

[back to part 4: Economy]

“Swords Into Ploughshares: The Golden Rule for Nations”
or
“Bring the Boys Back Home” (if you really want to honor them)
or
“Can Rambo turn the other cheek?”

Ron Paul has an appropriate understanding of U.S. foreign policy, U.S. defense, and involvement in the Middle-East—far more appropriate than either of the candidates.

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_A Faith Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: A Closure of Thoughts

Posted by Caleb Coy on


“You can kill us, but you cannot hurt us.” -Justin Martyr
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”-Tertullian
*Matthew 5:9; 5:38-45; 26:52; Luke 6:27-28; Romans 12:14; 12:17-21; 1 Cor. 4:12; 1 Peter 3:9; and Revelation 12:11

Having finished the book A Faith Not Worth Fighting For, I have one wish, that it was instead called A Faith Worth Not Fighting For.  I think that phrase is more positive and more accurately reflects the essays within.  The Christian faith is something I will fight for in my heart and in the endeavors of my faith, not with weapons, but with the piercing sword of the spirit that gives new life.  Here the authors explain why they chose the title they did, which I think is justified.
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_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 13

Posted by Caleb Coy on

Chapter 12 was on the alleged violent Jesus in the temple.

Chapter 13 is about the alleged violent Jesus in John’s Revelation.  J. Nelson Kraybill asks “What About the Warrior Jesus in Revelation 19: ‘He has trampled out the vintage’?”

To start with, Kraybill reminds us that “we should read Revelation as reassurance that God has chosen to act and redeem in the midst of a messed up world.”  That’s important, considering some of the weird interpretations of the book that have come up over the ages.  Far too many people still believe that it’s something like the “Left Behind” books that themselves left wisdom and truth behind.  What John writes is in essence a revealing.  In all the troubles Christians were undergoing and about to undergo, we Jesus is revealed.  That is the purpose of the book John wrote on Patmos.
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_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 12

Posted by Caleb Coy on

The last chapter dealt with the centurion.  This chapter deals with the temple incident.

John Dear in Chapter 12 asks, “Didn’t Jesus overturn the tables and chase people out of the temple with a whip?”

Most of the paintings of this incident were done after versions of the Bible were disseminated that translated the word as “whip”.  Like paintings of a white Jesus, sometimes these old images continue through a culture, regardless of what a text says.

However, Dear makes it clear that this incident reminds us that “the nonviolent Jesus was not passive.  He did not sit under a tree and practice his breathing.”  Jesus was very confrontational, and may have seemed angry enough to hit someone or more.  It’s no wonder we may think his actions at the temple prove he wasn’t nonviolent because it was so…action-oriented.  “His nonviolence was active, provocative, public, daring and dangerous.”
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_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 11

Posted by Caleb Coy on

The last chapter discussed what Jesus meant by “bringing a sword”.

In Chapter 11, Andy Alexis-Baker looks at the case study of a Roman Soldier: “What About the Centurion?”

The argument has gone that since the centurion showed great faith, and that Jesus commended him, and did not tell him to leave the service, that it was ok for the centurion to be a soldier, and thus it’s ok for Christians to war.

But if you grew up with the heritage of faith that I did, you are very very familiar with how the whole “making arguments from silence” thing works.  I’ve seen whole debates on whether silence is permissive or prohibitive (or either of these exclusively).  Baker says “Jesus’ silence on the centurion’s profession has become a tacit endorsement of Christians becoming involved in state-sponsored killing.”

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_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 10

Posted by Caleb Coy on

The last chapter dealt with what it meant for “every soul to be subject to governing authorities“.

Chapter 10 Samuel Wells deals with a puzzling statement made by Jesus.  Now we ask, “Didn’t Jesus say he came not to bring peace, but a sword?”

Matt. 10:34-39 is the central text in this chapter.  Jesus did in fact say these words: “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

The irony Wells points out is that nearly every Christian will tell you Jesus didn’t “come to bring the sword”, and yet so many Christians act as if he did, whereas he said he did “come to bring the sword”, and yet his life and the lives of his followers after his ascension show the opposite.  So something’s strange here, right?

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_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 9

Posted by Caleb Coy on

Chapter 8 addressed the violence in the Old Testament and how we reconcile that with Christian nonviolence.

Chapter 9 deals with a single passage that gets abused quite a bit: “Let Every Soul be Subject”.  Lee Camp tackles what this passage means in context, instead of in the absurd isolation in which it is often quoted, violently ripped from God’s word in order to serve agendas of violence.

If you read the entire passage of Romans 13, you realize that this one phrase was never meant to be a military mantra.  We are to “present [our] bodies as living sacrifices” before God, and commanded not to “conform to the age” (often translated “the world”).  Since we are a new creation, we live according to a new age.  So whatever authorities we are under, they’re not ours.
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_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 8

Posted by Caleb Coy on

In the last chapter Greg Boyd argued that God expects all Christians to “turn the other cheek,” but he may not necessarily hold nations to a standard only held within a covenant with him.

Chapter 8 begins the other side of the book.  Before, we looked at “practical” questions that apply scripture to situations.  The second half deals more with interpreting and understanding what scripture says on the matter, beginning with Ingrid Lilly’s question “What About War and Violence in the Old Testament?”

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_Not Worth Fighting For_ Review: Part 6

Posted by Caleb Coy on

“They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.” -Revelation 12:11

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” -John 8:36

Happy International Peace Day, everyone.  A day we should all celebrate.  In part 5 of the review we looked at the difficult question of how to be or work with policing in a peace community.

Chapter 6 is a message easier for me to accept up front, and is a conclusion I have already drawn.  Justin Bronson Barringer asks, “What About Those Men and Women Who Gave Up their Lives so You and I Could Be Free?”  A question which he feels “seems an attempt to shame the one to whom it is directed as one who dishonors soldiers.”  As if to say that the people who don’t love soldiers are the ones who want them to come home, not the ones who want to send them out to shoot and get shot on the sender’s behalf.

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