Blog Tour: 8/30 - 9/5

This re-initiates my old practice of looking around the web - hopefully once a week - and drawing some attention to things I see there that interest me.

If you want to know where I go, look at the links on the left under "Places I Frequent". From there, I will go places those places may point me. Typically, I will also list three of my favorite posts from the current Christian Carnival - and may go somewhere those blogs take me.

Sometimes they will be topically organized, and sometimes just in order of the links I visited. Enjoy:

Christian Carnival picks:

• Shannon at The Minority Thinker examines why they are "Quitting Small Group". After having read it, I have to agree with these two statements:

  Over fifteen years, I have been part of almost a dozen small groups sponsored by three different churches; my husband has joined me in most of them. Never once have I developed a close friendship through one of these groups.

  and

  We are told to confess our sins to each other [I tore a group up doing this], to restore each other, to love each other, to encourage each other, and to serve together as the body of Christ. I have rarely – if ever – seen these things happen in a small group. And if that kind of fellowship isn’t taking place regularly, why do we keep trying the same methods and hoping for different results? It seems to me it’s time for a new approach.

• Henry at Participatory Bible Study Blog responds to:

  … The problem is this: when one takes a close look at the Bible in its original context, there is no evidence that the Bible is such a historically-situated divine revelation, that it is somehow ontologically different than other texts from antiquity and should be privileged or treated in a special way. …

  with "Indentifying Define Revelation"

President Obama's address to school children: I created a category for this expecting to see a bit of stuff on it - but there really wasn't much:

• Jim at Volokh Conspiracy took a look back at the news articles, etc. connected with President George H.W. Bush's 1991 Speech to Schools.

  On WESTLAW, I looked up other news stories about the speech. It was eported as 10 minutes in some reports and 12 minutes in others. It was carried live on CNN, PBS, and [the NBC] and Mutual radio [networks]. The Secretary of Education sent a letter urging schools to have their students watch, but I didn’t find any evidence of how many schools followed that recommendation. And most striking: Bush laid out goals — to increase the graduation rate, improve student competency and better prepare students for entering school — and said, "Let me know how you're doing. Write me a letter. I'm serious about this one. Write me a letter about ways you can help us achieve our goals." [Written text is here - and wasn't checked against the tapes]

• John Piper weighed in with "I Hope My Daughter Hears the President’s Speech":

  I am stunned at the outcry against the President of the United States speaking to the youth of this nation about the importance of education.
  
  I am embarrassed by the governor of my home state saying, that the president’s plan to address them is “disruptive . . . uninvited . . . and number three . . . I don’t think he needs to force it upon the nation’s school children.”
  
  This speech seems, for me, to be an answer to a prayer that I have prayed for the president repeatedly . . .

Jason S at Fundamentally Changed looks at how extreme fundamentalism can be involved in "Transgressing By Traditions":

Today I call upon all of my fundamentalist brethren to honestly take the time to examine their doctrines and practices and see how they measure up to God’s Word, the five sola’s, and the historic fundamentals. If they don’t fit that, they must be discarded, no matter how old, precious, and dear they are to us.

Iraq the Model this week is focusing on the crisis raised by Syria's apparent complicity in the August 19th bombing which killed 95 people and wounded 600. One of the stories began

Iraq continues to insist on internationalizing the crisis with Syria, which began after Iraq demanded that Syria hands over senior Ba’ath Party members. Iraq now plans to persuade the international community to form an international criminal court, similar to the one investigating the assassination of the late Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stressed at a meeting with the Turkish FM that Iraq “will move forward to demand that the UN forms an international tribunal to prosecute those who committed ugly crimes that target Iraq’s stability and people and killed many innocent lives”.

Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed points to a book by

David Bentley Hart, a historian of ideas, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies , has been our guide into some of the philosophical and historical issues at work among the new atheists like Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens. One of the implicit and sometimes explicit claims is that we are enlightened and that
the secular state is safer than a religious-shaped state. To which Hart makes this statement, and he expresses the growing body of literature that both denies the myth of secularization (that all things are becoming more secular) and reveals the profound mischief of the secular state:

"We live now in the wake of the most monstrously violent century in human history, during which the secular state (on both the political right and the political left), freed from the authority of religion, showed itself willing to kill on an unprecedented scale and with an ease of conscience worse than merely depraved. If ever an age deserved to be thought an age of darkness, it is surely ours. One might almost be tempted to conclude that secular government is the one form of government that has shown itself too violent, capricious, and unprincipled to be trusted" (106)

Jeremy at Parableman points to "Obama's Widely-Unpublicized Backtrack on Stem Cells" - belatedly for sure because it occurred a while back:

2009 -- March 9th: President Obama rescinds Bush’s August 9, 2001 EO with his own EO entitled, “Removing Barriers To Responsible Scientific Research Involving Human Stem Cells.” The revocation of Bush’s EO is heralded as “lifting the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research (ESCR).” (this is the event found in the video offered above)

This EO simultaneously revokes Bush EO # 13435 which has provided federal funding of successful IPSC research. This aspect of the order is not mentioned at the press conference.

2009 -- March 11th: President Obama signs and renews the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which continues the ban on federal funding for ESCR that Obama claims to have lifted 2 days earlier. No announcement is made and no press conference is called.

Notice that now not only is there no federal funding of ESCR - President Obama removed President Bush's mandate of federal funding for IPSC research as well. Incidentally, Jeremy did what anyone should really do when confronted by such a reported contradiction between stated positions of politicians and their actual actions:

When I first read this, I immediately wanted to find something to verify it. It was incredibly difficult to find an actual news story on it, since the mainstream media either suppressed it or never got the information on it. The one news story I could find was from a partisan organization, but it does give chapter and verse for where to find the language in the bill that does indeed do exactly what the story says it does. It's in Title V, section 509 of the Omnibus spending bill (page 128 of this PDF; it appears in full here). It repeats verbatim exactly the section that since 1996 has appeared in every such spending bill under President Clinton and President Bush.

Rick at Rightwing Nuthouse as been writing a whole series of articles about conservative reform - three in the last week. All of them are, to me, important for both folks on the right and the left to read.

Orin at Volokh Conspiracy looks at "al-Kidd v. Ashcroft: Is Pretextual Use of the Material Witness Statute Unconstitutional?":

The Ninth Circuit handed down a fascinating and important case on preventive detention on Friday, and one that I suspect added a new case to the Supreme Court's docket next year: al-Kidd v. Ashcroft. The basic holding of the opinion is that the post-9/11 practice of using the material witness statute to detain suspected terrorists is not only unconstitutional, but clearly unconstitutional, and that former AG Ashcroft can be personally sued for his role in it. The majority opinion was written by Judge Milan Smith and joined by Judge Thompson; Judge Bea wrote a partial concurrence and partial dissent.

There's a lot of coverage of the case in newspapers and around the web, but nothing that really delves into the legal questions. That's understandable, as the opinions in the case fill about 100 pages. But in this post, I wanted to delve into the legal questions and see if the court's opinion holds up to scrutiny.
. . .
Fortunately, this case is perfect for Supreme Court review: If the en banc Ninth Circuit passes on it, this case will give the Supreme Court an ideal opportunity to evaluate the very important question of how the Fourth Amendment applies to preventive detention.

Read more!

WSJ: "Why the Surge Worked"

The Wall Street Journal has an interview with retired 4-star general Jack Keene - the architect of "The Surge" in Iraq. It is an interesting read.

Keene is asked about why the surge worked, and what the current threats in Iraq still are. These are critical things to understand as whoever wins in November takes control of Iraq policy in January.

In late 2006, after the midterm election debacle for Republicans, pressure rose for a quick if dishonorable exit from Iraq. Gen. Keane met Frederick Kagan, who was putting together a report on an alternative strategy for Iraq at the American Enterprise Institute. On Dec. 11, both men found themselves at the White House to push the plan. Congress, the Joint Chiefs, Iraq commander Gen. George Casey and the Iraq Study Group all wanted a fast drawdown. President Bush ignored their advice. Gen. Petraeus was sent out in February to oversee the new, risky and politically unpopular surge.

Even Gen. Keane didn't expect the new strategy to work so fast. "It's a stunning turnaround, and I think people will study it for years because it's unparalleled in counterinsurgency practice," he says. "All the gains we've achieved against al Qaeda, the Sunni insurgency, the Iranians in the south are sustainable" -- a slight pause here -- "if we're smart about it and not let them regroup and get back into it."

Gen. Keane wants to make sure people understand why the surge worked. "I have a theory" about the unexpectedly fast turnaround, he says. "Whether they be Sunni, Shia or Kurd, anyone who was being touched by that war after four years was fed up with it. And I think once a solution was being provided, once they saw the Americans were truly willing to take risks and die to protect their women and children and their way of life, they decided one, to protect the Americans, and two, to turn in the enemies that were around them who were intimidating and terrorizing them; that gave them the courage to do it."

For the future, he noted some items:

1. Gen. Keane still considers a robust American ground force "the secret to success" in Iraq.:

   "It is a myth for people to assert that by pulling away from the Iraqis, by pulling away from the Iraqi political process, that somehow that becomes a catalyst to do things that they would not do because of our presence. That is fundamentally wrong. It is our presence that is helping Iraqis move forward."

2. helping the Sunnis back into the political system.



3. Sectarian tensions remain a worry:

   "It appears that Maliki is using the guise of security to enhance his political base and to diminish his political opponents," says Gen. Keane, citing the Baquba incident. "That is a danger and that is something we should not tolerate."

4. Another potential threat looms from Iran.

   Iran wants a weak Iraqi central government unaligned with America. "We know that they intend to come back on the kinetic side, attack U.S. forces exclusively with less attacks, but more spectacular. I don't believe for a minute they're going to be able to resurge and be successful as long as we stay on top of it, keep our head in the game, maintain our force presence in the south."

This is a discussion (outside of tanning beds in the Alaska Governor's mansion) that folks need to have. The vision for how American policy will evolve in Iraq is critical to the Presidential race - since Commander in Chief is one of, if not the, the President's most important jobs. Indeed, as Keene points out:

"Despite the fact that President Bush did preside over a strategy that was failing for three plus years, and he has been criticized for that," says Gen. Keane, "he also deserves a significant amount of credit because all around him people were advocating a failed strategy, particularly key leaders around him, and he had the wherewithal to make a tough decision that flew certainly in the face of political opposition even in his own party."

Read more!

Another View on Evangelicals Cracking Up

Certainly, nothing in reading David Kirkpatricks "The Evangelical Crackup" struck me as wrong - it just struck me as somehow "off the point" - yet again. [read David Domke's take on the article here.]

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost hit the point for me:

The article itself is mostly a rehash of the dominant media perspective on evangelicals and politics, though it is noteworthy for Kirkpatrick's style of "journalism by name-dropping." The 7900 word article manages to cram in the names of 23 evangelicals leaders: Terry Fox, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Paul Weyrich, D. James Kennedy, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Marvin Olasky, David Welsh, Ralph Reed, Frank Page, Rick Scarborough, David Wells, Scott McKnight, Jim Wallis, Tony Perkins, Gene Carlson, Todd Carter, Joe Wright, Paul Hill, Harry Jackson, and Donald Wildmon.

But while Kirkpatrick focuses on the cult of personality, the true crux of the conservative Christian political movement is based on a culture of principles. Rather than focusing on a "Who's Who" of Christian leaders, an adequate understanding of the "evangelical Right" requires the recognition and prioritization of six core principles. (Note: Many of these themes were outlined in the National Association of Evangelical's paper on civic engagement [a very good read for those who really want to understand Evangelicals]):

Joe goes on to list those 6 core principles:

Principle 1: Protecting the sanctity of human life

Because all humans are created in God's image, evangelicals believe that all people have an inherent and inalienable dignity. We believe that it is at the times when life is most vulnerable, particularly in the early stages of development and at the period near death, that life is most in need of protection. Evangelicals believe in promoting policies that recognize the dignity of all humans without regard to such relativistic criteria as mental capacities or "quality of life."

Issues: Abortion, euthanasia, embryo destruction, capital punishment, cloning, and unethical human experimentation.

Principle 2: The nurturing of family life and the protection of children

While the institutions of marriage and church bear the primary responsibility for fulfilling this duty, evangelicals believe that the government should promote laws and policies that strengthen the well being of families.

Issues: Promotion of policies on marriage and divorce law, education, tuition vouchers, drug policies, abstinence promotion, fair labor practices, anti-discrimination legislation, protections against spouse and child abuse, affordable health care, reducing crime

Principle 3: Seeking justice and compassion for the poor and vulnerable

Evangelicals believe in the promotion of both a fair legal system that does not favor either the rich or poor and in a fair economic system that does not tolerate perpetual poverty. This principle also includes the protection of the vulnerable members of society, including the poor, children, the elderly, the disabled, refugees, minorities, the persecuted, and the imprisoned.

Issues: Poverty reduction both in America and abroad, torture, anti-pornography legislation, immigration reform, stemming the AIDS pandemic, ending slavery and sexual trafficking, stopping prison rape.

Principle 4: The protection of religious freedom

Evangelicals believe that the joint freedoms of religion and conscience constitute the First Liberty and are deserving of protection both in our own country and abroad.

Issues: Defense of First Amendment protections, expansion of religious freedoms abroad

Principle 5: Seeking peace and restraining violence

Although evangelicals prefer that governments pursue nonviolent paths to restoring peace, most of us recognize that military force can be a legitimate means of restraining evil. While there is no consensus on how this principle should be implemented, we are in general agreement that the principles of just war must guide our government's policies.

Issues: Defending against terrorism, ending genocide, weapons proliferation, defending human rights against tyrannical regimes

Principle 6: The protection of God's creation

Evangelicals believe that stewardship of the earth is a responsibility delegated to us by our Creator. Because the earth is a shared resource, the government has a particularly important role in implementing policies that protect the environment.

Issues: Promoting recycling, reduction of pollution, protecting animals from cruelty, conservation of resources, proper care for wildlife and their habitats

He rightly points out that you understand currents within the Evangelical movement not by treating them like "cults of personality" but by understanding how they prioritize and view those core issues.

This gives folks a principled way to determine which groups are likely to be approachable and open to common work - and on what issues. It also avoids some of the following foolishness:

For example, Christians have always been concerned about protecting God's creation. Yet it is only when an evangelical leader or organizations takes a stand that is outside the dominant conservative narrative (i.e., Richard Cizik saying that global warming is anthropocentric) do they take notice.

The media also tends to conflate the priorities of all evangelicals with the primary concerns of specific groups. Because of the influence of Dr. James Dobson and Focus on the Family, the media tends to portray all evangelicals as putting the primary emphasis on principles 1 and 2, to the exclusion of all others. So when Rick Warren talks about AIDS or poverty in Africa (Principle 3 issues), he is portrayed as breaking away from Dobson and the "religious right--even though they are in agreement on the importance of Principles 1 and 2.

Joe points out that Evangelicals do not have a generally accepted political theology (with the exception of neocalvanists) - and while they agree on the principles in general they do not have a unifed, developed view of their application to specific issues. Therefore

What Kirkpatrick is noticing is not a "crackup" among evangelicals but the continual re-prioritization of principles and disagreements over how they correlate with specific issues. At the level of the level of the church and community this is an ongoing, never-completed process.

Now, this touches the heart of my major problem with how political and theological liberals view the theological, and most political, conservatives I hang with. The constant reference to this leader or that leader - and the manipulation through demagoguery and distortion of the Gospel - is not what I see going on in the Evangelical movement I am part of. These folks strain and strive to understand Biblical principle on which to base their life - and they study, pray, and generally work hard to achieve that. Joe's view that there is

continual re-prioritization of principles and disagreements over how they correlate with specific issues. At the level of the level of the church and community this is an ongoing, never-completed process.

speaks to the world I live in better than almost any other comment I have seen.

This may gives a bit of a deeper insight than what normally comes around.

Read more!

How Big the Split? And another "Five Things" post

Joe Carter is on the kind of roll that has made Evangelical Outpost huge. In "This I No Longer Believe: 5 Lessons Learned from the Iraq War" he responds to the request of Rod Dreher, in his post at Belief.net - "Once Upon a Time I Believed" - who asked

What are five illusions the Iraq War has shattered for you?

Keep in mind, these are things you believed then you do not believe now because of the Iraq War. If you were always a smarty-pants it doesnt count here. :-) There is no implication in this question that you must be opposed to, or in support of, either the original Iraq invasion, the conduct of the war, or our continued involvement. Just - how has the Iraq War changed your views.

Rod's and Joe's lists are below the fold

[Note: I really haven't processed this much. The blockquotes are Joe Carter again, while any italics you may find are me again.]

Such exercises can be instructive, particularly when, like with Dreher's short list, the reflections reach for the significant rather than political banality (i.e., trite Bush-bashing). Still, I don’t think Dreher's list goes far enough in separating the long term implications from the naively held delusions.

Rod's List:

1. Having been absolutely certain that the war was the right thing to have done, and that we would prevail easily, I am no longer confident that I can discern when emotion is affecting my judgment unduly.



2. I no longer implicitly trust governmental institutions, including the military -- neither in their honesty nor their competence.



3. I no longer believe the Republican Party is superior in foreign policy judgment to the Democrats.

   While I agree with this assessment it fails to illuminate the road ahead. Currently, the Republicans are exhibiting a level of foreign policy incompetence that is the birth-right of the Democrats. But will that always be the case or is Bush just exceptionally incompetent? A better observation would be to note that just as 9/11 proved political realism to be obsolete, Iraq has killed neo-con style idealism.



4. I no longer have confidence in the ability of our military, or any military, to solve deep cultural and civilizational problems through force alone. I mean, I thought nothing could stand in the way of the strongest military fielded since the days of ancient Rome. No more.



5. I have a far greater appreciation for how rare and fragile liberal democracy is, and a corresponding revulsion at the American assumption that it's the natural state of mankind. Which is to say, the war has made me rethink my ideas about human nature, and I'm far more pessimistic now than I ever was.

Joe's list:

1. I no longer believe that our reaction to the Vietnam War was an anomaly. Instead, I view the reaction to World War II as the true aberration--the one war in which Americans had the will to fight and win (and that was only after we were attacked). During WWII we lost more than 400,000 servicemembers. In Vietnam the number was more than 58,000. In Iraq, we've lost 3,636. These numbers show that our the anti-war sentiment is due not to an intolerance for mass casualties but rather to an ingrained opposition to foreign entanglements. For better or worse, America is at heart an isolationist, semi-pacifist nation.



2. I no longer believe that we can fight wars by proxy. During the 50-year long Cold War we preferred to fight out enemies abroad, often indirectly. One of our main priorities, a primary strategic objective, was to prevent the expansion of Soviet-style Communism. Today, politicians and military leaders cannot expect the American people to go to war for such abstract concepts as "national security." The concept of "defending America" is taken in the literal sense of defensive actions necessary to guard the homeland. The American people will now only authorize war after we have been directly attacked on our own soil -- and then the warfare must be proportional and brief, otherwise we will withdraw our support.



3. I no longer believe that Arab nations are capable of sustaining liberal democracies. The empirical evidence for this belief is overwhelming: Arab culture is currently unable to sustain democratic forms of government. Some people will decry this belief as racist or xenophobic. But it is simply being realistic. I used to think that Samuel Huntington was an intelligent crank; now I think he's prophetic. As he once noted, the Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous. Thinking that freedom could take root in the blood-soaked soil of Arab culture was a naive assumption. Iraq has disabused me of such notions.



4. I no longer believe America cares about genocide. After the crimes of the Holocaust became internationally known, the world vowed it would never happen again. Whatever the phrase "never again" once meant, it no longer has applicability after Iraq. Indeed, we no longer even give lip service to such ideals as preventing ethnic cleansing or the mass slaughter of civilians. The New York Times recently published an editorial saying that it was time to leave Iraq, even though it would likely lead to genocide. Barack Obama agrees, saying that a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there. After Iraq, the use of military force for humanitarian intervention will be all but nonexistent. Darfur, you're on your own.



5. I no longer believe we have the will to win against global jihadism. Consider our current situation: we have the majority of our legislators and a significant portion of the American people willing to concede defeat in Iraq even though they realize such a move will empower the jihadists and lead to the murder of more American civilians. Six years into the "Long War" we are ready to withdraw into our own borders. Oddly, we are not maneuvering to "bunker down" for we chafe at even the mildest sacrifices necessary to prevent terrorism. We are opting instead to consider the death of Americans to jihadism as an inevitable cost of living in a free society. We have considered the cost-benefit analysis and have determined that until the attacks reach the levels of Israel, we can bear the cost. (Of course, when it reaches that level, it will be too late.)

--------------
Rod notes a couple of points from paleocon Daniel Larison's list:

2. One of my other false beliefs connected to this was that most conservatives were conservatives first and GOP partisans second (if at all), and would therefore be just as outraged by GOP government activism and overreach as they had been in the 1990s. This was the worst sort of naivete on my part, and it was repeatedly shown to be false. ...

5. Yet another false belief was that most conservatives were not nationalists, when obviously the defining feature of most Americans who call themselves conservatives is that they are, in fact, nationalists. Had I been reading more Lukacs in my younger days, I would have already known this.

The other part of my title comes from my belief that evangelicals are more and more pulling away from a general political identification with the Republican Party. It never really should have been there - but appeared to have been; and it definitely seems over now. What do you think about that as well.

My list:

1. I would start with my belief that the sectarian leaders in Iraq would put subvent their sects interests and place the future of Iraq first. It may yet come - but it hasn't yet



2. Coupled with that, that the sectarian leaders would place the peace and safety of the Iraqi people over their own sect's interest and power. In retrospect, why should they be different than anyone else - including us.



3. That it would have been easier to establish a representative government in the face of the lethal opposition of Iraq's neighbors - Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria.



4. That we as a country would be more ethical and moral about our responsibilities to the Iraqi people. We destroyed a government, and disbanded an army, that - however brutal - maintained control of the country; and maintained a national state. We have a human responsibility to stay until there is a government, and army, capable of maintaining control when we leave - or it becomes obvious that it will never happen. That is not yet completely obvious to me, despite my first two points.



5. Coupled with that, that we would not repeat the mistake of 1991 and leave the democratic elements in Iraq hanging out to dry by abandoning them again. We seem on the verge of doing that.

Read more!

Kingdom Character and Secular Responsibility

Tgirsch is someone I have had a few blogathons with over at Evangelical Outpost. We usually start out some fair distance from the fence on opposite sides and end up both leaning on the fence (on opposite sides) and chatting. That is actually rare in my experience. tgirsch listens, and cares not as much about defending his position and talking points; but in looking for agreement and some unity on the issues.

tgirsch: "I wanted to respond to you concerning our debate at Evangelical Outpost, but Joe has closed the comments."

Me: "[We] were discussing Matthew 5-7 and whether the interpretation of that section of scripture (and related parts of Jesus' message) should be broadened beyond an analysis by Jesus of what our individual character should be to a call for certain qualities in society/government."

Here are some posts from the discussion to set the tone for the discussion here:

Stavrogin: how does one interpret "turn the other cheek" to define pacifism as a sinful and un-Christian attitude? Even Christ would not permit a sword to be raised in his defense, however noble the intention.

Joe: [On turn the other cheek] "that passage has nothing overtly to do with violence. To turn the other cheek is to literally allow someone who has slapped you to give you a backhanded slap on the other cheek. To receive such a blow was a great insult in Judaism; an offense against oneÂ’s dignity. While I agree that Christians should bear insults with meekness and humility, I do not believe that the passage intends for us to stand by and allow our neighbor to be raped,murdered, or mutilated . . . [On Christ and sword] Christ would not allow such a defense on his behalf because it was his intention to lay down his life willingly for us all."

Stavrogin: [On pacifism generally being sinful] ". . .Thee impression I get [is] that abandoning oneself to the mercy of God in the face of oppression, torment and even martyrdom at the hands of the unrighteous is a supremely Christian value.

Me: Would it be equally true if you were watching someone rape and kill your neighbor; and you abandoned them to the mercy of God? No, I think not. Could you interject yourself and become the victim while the other escaped? Of course. Could you harm, and even kill, the rapist to stop the killing? I think you could. There is ample justification in the Bible for government having the responsibility to use the sword to defend its people. I think calling people un-Christian for being personally pacifist is incorrect. Christians have been interpreting scripture, and God's will, to require their personal pacifism for a long time . . . it is almost impossible to use the bible to say the US government should be pacifist. We would be required, of course, to refuse participation in an unjust war: say a war of genocide.

Joe: I will agree that personal pacifism may not be inherently un-Christian (though there are times when non-violent resistance can be as unjust a use of power as violence). But I think that the right to pacifism, like the right to swing one's fist, ends at your neighbor's nose.

Mike: Commandments are by and large directed to individuals and not governments. Thou shalt not murder is directed to us as individuals. You only have to go down the page a little to find a list of circumstances under which society should exercise the death penalty.

Tgirsch: This illustrates a great problem with a literalist interpretation of scripture. It takes what Jesus likely intended as a larger message and pigeonholes it into something very specific and very narrowly applied. You take a very legalistic reading of Jesus' words here, and I think it's to your detriment.

Me: Damned if we do, damned if we do not. I think it is actually very necessary to take the Bible as literally as possible - in order to stop the use of scripture to support all those things you talk about. [Quoted Matt 5:38 - 42]. Everything here is about personal revenge or offensives to your person by another person. What reason is there to broaden it? In fact, the whole Sermon on the Mount was about personal righteousness and the personal traits of a Kingdom member. Let's let Christ say what Christ wants to say.

Tgirsch: The "eye for eye" verses don't concern personal revenge at all, but adherence to the law. [Quotes Lev 24:17-22: ] . Take the entire passage in context and you see that it's a conversation between God and Moses wherein God is proscribing His laws. Personal revenge has little to do with it; this is God's law. It is Biblical justice. A broad reading of the passage is advisable precisely because that's what makes sense in the context. I find it difficult to imagine that Jesus was speaking strictly of avoiding personal revenge against those who have wronged you personally, and nothing else . . .Notee that the Leviticus verse isn't saying what a wronged person would be within his rights to do, which is what you'd expect if revenge were the motivation. It talks about what must be done, and it doesn't say that the wronged party should be the one to do it. Someone who wrongs another must be wronged in similar fashion

Me: The whole context of Jesus's "ministry" (lame word really), and the Sermon on the Mount, is that the law needs not to be written in stone but on our hearts. Christianity is not a legalistic, law-driven belief structure - it is God's attempt to change our character and how we center our lives: To love God with our whole being; and our neighbor as ourselves. That is taken one individual at a time. He was HEAVILY amending (if not revoking) the Levitical law you quoted. He was, after all, here to revoke ( fulfill (as in complete) and replace the Mosaic covenant. Again, all of Matthew 5-7 is about the internal qualities and character of members of the Kingdom; and not about how society and government should behave. If you make the argument that a society of people having this character would approach its collective life, and relationship with other societies, differently - we would be on the same page entirely. [A quote from CS Lewis saying that the problem with political programs flowing from Christianity is that we go there to find support for our opinions rather than to see what our opinions should be]. The emphasis of Christianity is building our individual character to match that of Christ's, and have that character act as "salt and light" in the society around us - and that was the emphasis of the Sermon on the Mount.

Tgirsch: Jesus clearly is admonishing against violence here, even if in a limited context. I'd argue that it does Jesus' teaching a disservice to try to limit the scope of this admonition . . . I'm not aware of Jesus advocating violence anywhere, in any circumstance. So there's nothing else in Jesus' teaching that tells us we should limit our interpretation of that admonition. I believe he intended it to be broad (and many, many Christians concur, I might add). Given his habit of speaking in parables and using specific examples to illustrate broader principles (neither of which I suspect you'll dispute), the broad application makes the most sense here. Which brings us back to Stavrogin's original point: how is pacifism un-Christian? . . .Until you can show me where Jesus advocates war and capital punishment, I'll continue to argue that neither of these things helps "[build] our individual character to match Christ's," and in fact both are counterproductive to this end, and as such, Stavrogin's point stands.

Me: I think capital punishment is untenable from a Christian standpoint - but not everyone agrees (even the Catholics, who generally oppose it, aren't ironclad). As to war, you yourself I believe would fall into the just/unjust category on this - unless you would have bowed out of WWII even after Pearl Harbor; or finding out about the slaughter of the Jews. There is plenty of New Testament ground for government not having the same responsibilities as individuals. I think there are political responsibilities that flow from the character traits in the Sermon on the Mount - but I still argue for narrow interpretation of the Bible. I think we should be careful to fill in blanks with our own thoughts.

Nick: [on separation of Biblical view of individual vs state roles] I think that can be the basis of a Scripturally consistent defense of Christian pacifism. People like to point to Romans 13 for the role of government as an agent of God's wrath bearing the sword. But we might note that Paul is instructing the Roman Christians on how to respond to government. He doesn't indicate whether or not they should participate. However, in Chapter 12, he describes Christians as agents of God's mercy in a way that dovetails nicely with Christ's instructions in the Servant on the Mount and doesn't fit very well with the responsibilities of government in Chapter 13 . . .We might conclude that the code of conduct required of Christians is very different from the actions of government. We might also ask if it there is any support in Christ's instructions for the idea that it is possible to morally separate the things we do as private individuals from the things we do for the government. Even if we agree that government is established by God (perhaps in much the same way that he established the Babylonians and Assyrians as agents of his wrath in the Old Testament), weshouldd be very careful about concluding that we are permitted to do things as servants of government that we are not permitted to do as servants of Christ. To claim that Christians must always be ready to fight may be arrogating to much responsibility to ourselves. Christ calls us to be agents of love and mercy. He'll handle the wrath.

This is a magnificently important "brain cramp" for Christians and I have invited some people to help it continue. There are a couple of things I do not want this sidelined too: this is not a discussion on Iraq and whether we should be there; or whether any politicians who call themselves Christians are following Christ's example. I am inviting folks to the party - hopefully some will attend.

UPDATE: This topic does not need to be limited to the death penalty and pacifism. Discussion in general about how faith should, and should not, impact a Christian's secular political life would be great

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