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terror and freedom

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dan
Nov 11 2003
04:01 pm

Bush said today that “terror is not the tool of the free.” Turn the sentence around and it reads, “terror is the tool of the unfree.” Somehow I doubt if Bush thought through the implications of that sentence.

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Dave
Dec 10 2003
01:52 pm

Somehow I think this conversation just got alot more relevant – I have lost interest in CINO over the last several months largely because it often degenerates into a bad episode of Hannity and Colmes.

Grant, I think you?ve injected something that wouldn?t be found there and that really should make CINO more interesting. I can have conservative-liberal debates with anybody on the train in the morning. This place should be different because we should have a common ground to start from. I know I?m not doing this idea justice. What?s missing?

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grant
Dec 11 2003
08:00 am

I responded to Dave’s comments in a new topic, “An Alternative to Conservative vs. Liberal” because I don’t want to get off-track concerning the topic at hand. If we don’t deal with this issue of God using terror in the Bible, we’re going to look like cowards. We might seem afraid that our great and all-powerful God doesn’t have a good answer for our question, which can be worded as so: “Why, God, do You dare to use terror when, in this day and age, it has become so unfashionable with freedom-lovers yet so popular with evil criminals and insane fundamentalists?!”

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dan
Dec 11 2003
01:05 pm

Actually it’s not just a new fashion. The Mennonites have been anti-terror, anti-violence Christians since the 1500s when it was fashionable among Calvinists to terrorise Mennonites. It just so happens that the ethic of the Mennonites has become more prevalent, while burning people at the stake has lost considerable popularity.

People interpret everything, including history and scripture, through the spectacles of their beliefs and experiences. Killing a lot of people in the name of God isn’t fashionable today. It was fashionable 4000 years ago. I’m not sure why we must assume that the new fashion is worse than the old one. I prefer the new. Does God adjust to the values of the cultures he is working with, or must it be assumed that since God never changes, he could order Christians to slaughter thousands of “Canaanites” today as well?

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grant
Dec 12 2003
08:42 am

So you’re saying that we can either judge based on some underlying principle of what’s wrong and right, which would hold across all times and all places, or we can judge according to the perspective we have right now. Well, the perspective we have to work with right now is that the “new” is the best way because it is “new”, which is a very American postmodern way of thinking about history. Looking back on history from our own “new and improved” perspective, then, WE have to make a choice, a judgment, whether Calvin’s decision to burn his doctrinal enemies at the stake was right or wrong. Either Calvin should be judged according to universal principles or we should judge him from our own contemporary perspective, which is the fashionable perspective of our time, the one that you “prefer” for no other reason except that it seems preferable, more tasteful. We’re doing the perspective of our time now, so…if we judge according to the fashion of our time, we are judging according to our own life experiences and perspectives, which is all we have to use. But if our judgments are based on our own life experiences and perspectives, how are we to judge someone else who was operating according to different life experiences, different perspectives, different fashions. If we hold our own experiences and perspectives to be sacred, what right do we have in saying Calvin’s own experiences and perspectives, which were sacred to him, were wrong? We have no authority to judge Calvin’s actions as wrong because he himself was just following the perspective of his own time and place. In that case, you can’t blame the Jews or God either, because God was just going along with the fashion of the Jewish perspective of that time. And because it made sense according to their own life experience, mass killing wasn’t wrong THEN. It’s only wrong NOW, now that we have seen the light. But if mass killing wasn’t wrong THEN, it wasn’t wrong FOR THEM. So are you just saying, dan, that mass killing is wrong NOW, is wrong for our own time and place, but that it was ok for them THEN?

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DvdSchp
Dec 12 2003
12:15 pm

But by WHAT authority do we (Christians) judge actions? Christ’s? I would say yes, but isn’t this confessional?

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anton
Dec 13 2003
03:50 pm

Dan, sorry to leave off our conversation, we’ll have to continue it later.

It is incorrect to say that the sort of killing demanded by God was fashionable about 4,000 years ago. Saul did not kill as God demanded, and this is the very reason he was rejected by God. God commanded Israel to destroy everything (1 Sam 15:3), but Saul spared the King of the Amelik and all the good livestock (2 Sam 15:9). Thus, he was rejected (v 23).

Saying that mass killing is not fashionable to day is also too simplistic. The sort of mass killing undertaken in this century alone almost makes Israel seem tame.

The real issue is why God commanded the Israelites to kill everything, and why he does no command nations in the same way today.

One thing we have to gaurd agaisnt is the Christianity of German liberalism. We are influenced without knowing it. Geram liberalism taught the infinite value of the human soul. Scripture nowhere teaches that the infinite, inherent value of a person (such talk is reserved for God alone). So we think it is the greatest travesty when one person kills another, or when one nation undertakes to kill many people. This is a healthy ethic, if it is believed for the right reason. It is healthy if we believe it because we fear God. As Jesus taught, do not fear those who can kill the body, but him who can throw body and soul into hell (Matt 10:28). If we believe in the infinite value of the human soul, we are likely to conclude that God is the most unjust of all, for he throws body and soul into hell.

The mass killings commanded by God are a foretaste of coming judgment. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven agaisnt all unrighteousness and ungodliness (Rom 1:18). Soon God will destroy the earth and all its works (2 Pet 3:10-11).

I forget where it is, but those who were killed in the mass killings where those who earlier rejected God and settled. Their judgment is implied, and the mass killing is fulfillment of this prophecy. God is clearing the promised land of unbelievers for his people.Thus, we are taught that the Lord will clear this earth and the heavens for us, his people. We should not be so myopic as to believe that this life and its people are all that matter.

At the same, God commanded it in a specific context and to teach us about his coming wrath. What God did then, he no longer does, because Christ has come. The shadows have given way to the reality. No longer will God judge people in the flesh alone, but he will judge all people on the last day.

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grant
Dec 15 2003
12:35 pm

I do think we are continuing the same conversation from the beginning of this topic. This is about defining freedom, defining tactics of terror. Where do we get such definitions? Yes, definitions depend on confessions. If we believe that the Word of God through which everything was created is the same Word of God that died and rose again as a human being, we are consistent in saying that all things in this world are defined according to the Word of God, according to Jesus Christ: the way, truth and life. This is confessional, but just because this is confessional does not mean it’s only based on some groundless faith. God doesn’t expect us to believe something for no good reason. The Bible shows us a history that we can believe. Murder is defined by God early in Genesis. Love, hate, friendship, the reality of cross-cultural conflict, righteousness, disobedience are all defined for us through God’s dealings with people. If someone (Bush) is going to try to define something in a different way than God defines things, they had better give some kind of alternative authority that is equal or greater to that of God the Creator.

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DvdSchp
Dec 15 2003
02:46 pm

Right. I don’t think because this confessional, we have nothing to base knowledge upon. My point was going to be exactly what you brought up


If someone (Bush) is going to try to define something in a different way than God defines things, they had better give some kind of alternative authority that is equal or greater to that of God the Creator.

So what authority is he or are we claiming? I guess I brought that up so he/we can try to avoid being bombastic. Sorry for getting off topic,

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anton
Dec 15 2003
09:43 pm

Grant, I agree that God has authority to define all things, but I’m not sure what you mean. God has not revealed the way he defines all things (Deut 29:29). Has God revealed his definition of freedom in the political sense we are discussing in this thread? Has he revealed his definition of tactics of terror for us today?

I don’t deny that God reveals many things relevant to our discussion, but which things are referring to?