What got me thinking on this was Ray Soller's comment that seeks to limit Mark 12:17 to a very limited specific context. Now, Ray may be right on how this text ought to be so understood; but that hasn't stopped folks from interpreting it in a more general sense. Potential examples from the Bible -- and many other notable texts -- abound endlessly. The texts themselves often help point to proper contexts. But also often, certainly, with the Bible, the texts don't teach "one" proper interpretation. Were that true, there wouldn't be so many Protestant sects.
We've spent a lot of time arguing whether Romans 13 is absolute (if it is, then the American revolution was un-biblical and sinful). The text of the Bible clearly supports this reading (insofar as Romans 13 refers to submission to government as opposed to mere obedience; other competing texts of the Bible make a rule that teaches absolute obedience to government not plausible as the Bible teaches sometimes you have to obey God not man). But other readings are plausible.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
General v. Particular
A post from my solo blog. Here is a passage relevant to American Creation:
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8 comments:
In this here democratic republic, as citizen-rulers, WE are Caesar.
There is a school of Protestant thought [Two Kingdoms] that recommends the Christian be non-political, but they have no answer for this reality.
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The problem I see has to do with which government we should obey--yesterday's, today's, or tomorrow's?
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The inscription on the Liberty Bell, of course, refers to the year of Jubilee and the forgiveness of debts.
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Religious liberty means that no one tries to define another's faith means.
When one does separate the Kingdoms, then there is all kinds of mischief, but then, there is mischiief, when one understand the political realm as "God's Kingdom", too. So why talk about "God's Kingdom"? What is the true reality is what and how one believes about political philosophy, which has to do with the order of goverment, not God...or the supernatural realm....
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There's a lot of talk--fast and loose--about what "Christians" do and don't do.
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There are three important thinkers, contemporaries to us--might do us some good--to learn about; Bonhoeffer, Vattima, and Levinas.
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Christians come in as wide a variety of thinking as can be imagined.
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Uh, Vattimo and not Vattima, in case anyone cares to do a 'Net search on him. Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianni_Vattimo
He's a Catholic.
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Postmodernity dissolves the basis of and for belief because belief is understood to stand amongst many "truths"... And from who you suggest, seems to undermine everything except human action, as being....this is a good subversive way to affirm political power, without acknowledging it!
If political power is contained by balancing and limiting power, such as our Founders suggested under a Constitutional government, then, it can allow for diversity as to beliefs, and behaviors based on those beliefs.
But, from what I read and understand from the WiKi text, there would be no way to categorize "The Other" (Hamas, as a terrorist organization) because all points of understanding dissolve before "relativity"...and the political need of "communism" (a wholistic concept of the political realm)...
The only way that such subversions of modernity can hold power is when an elite decides that there will be a subversion of "priviledged" knowledge and priviledged status. Such attempts have been defined and identified by radical movements such as; Black Panthers, Weathervane, Feminist and Homosexual ideologies.
My resistance against such thinking is that it is still "group think". Human identifications in group think" leaves no room for developing "self" as independent, with various "ends" or "interests", but "self" as dependent as defined by one's group.
A Constitutional Republic grants the liberty to pursue one's desires and designs apart from "group identifications". The "self" then, can commit to a particular group by free association, not by a confined, determined, and conforming "tradition" of group identity as formulated and PRESCRIBED by an elite class. (The "New Elite" use THEIR priviledge, though they claim to undermine the priviledged!!)
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When individuals want to learn (about anything) in some group setting, it is of the utmost importance that dialogue be encouraged and not discouraged!!
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Your comment, Angie, seems to me to hinge on the idea that there is some Absolute Truth that is known by some special group (the elite you connote?).
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You might be interested in reading this book, God's Jury
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