[Vision2020] How to Put the Fun Back in Fundamentalism

[Ralph Nielsen]

Grandaddy Gary on How to Put the Fun Back in Fundamentalism

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Rumelhart
If someone were trying to pass a
law that Christians could not hold office, I would be there backing you
up. . . . [snip] . . . Get off the power trip. It doesn't go anywhere
interesting. You just
want to replace one set of tyrants with another someday down the road.
You just happen to be a member of the new up-and-coming tyranny, so you
can't see it's the same thing just with different uniforms.
-- Paul

Christopher Witmer christopher.witmer at mizuho-sc.com
Tue Nov 6 22:07:39 PST 2007

Paul, the active oppression of Christians is happening all over the  
place,
and not just in Saudi Arabia. Europe is rife with overtly anti-Christian
legislation coming down the pike at every turn, from Christian  
homeschoolers
being fined and having their children taken away from them to pastors  
being
put on trial, fined and even sent to prison for maintaining traditional
biblical positions on homosexuality, the legitimate roles of women as
Christian ministers, and the rights of the unborn. Canada is not far  
behind,
and Australia too. The only reason the Christian ox is not being  
gored to a
comparable degree in the USA is because of the vigilance and activism of
American Christians who know that the best defense is a good offense  
-- the
offense of the gospel. We commonly hear that Christians are welcome to
believe and practice their faith in private, but to keep it out of the
public sphere. The only problem with that is, in order to be faithful to
what the Bible commands the Christian, the Christian faith must be  
practiced
both in private and in public, because Jesus' lordship extends to
everything. Conflict and confrontation between Christians and non- 
Christians
are inevitable. You say I want to replace one set of tyrants with  
another. I
say that's a very jaundiced way of looking at it. I'm looking for a  
total
victory for Jesus, with the final score of Church Triumphant
10,000,000,000,000 vs. Satan's minions 0. I believe that's going to come
about primarily through the power of God's Spirit converting men  
through the
gospel, and incidentally that transformation can be expected to have
implications in the political sphere as well, as Christian voters elect
Christian legislators who enact Christian legislation following their
Christian consciences and perhaps amend the Constitution to bring it  
into
greater conformity with the Bible. Procedurally a person in your  
position
has absolutely ZERO basis for complaining about that if it happens  
(after
all, what I just described above is a scenario in which Christians  
play the
American "game" strictly by the rules), and I have ZERO reason to  
feel the
least bit ashamed for desiring such a state of affairs to come to pass.

-- Chris

Jesus said, "I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed;  
one will be taken and the other left. There will be two [women]  
grinding meal together; one will be taken and the other left. Two  
will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left" (Luke  
17:34-36). The Greek text does not say either man or woman. It says  
simply "two." So it would seem that it doesn't matter to Jesus  
whether the two are both men, both women, or a mixed couple.

Unlike Jesus, Paul was very prejudiced against gay men. Many Bible  
scholars suspect that Paul may have been gay himself. But because  
Paul was a Pharisee he felt very guilty about his condition. So he  
tried to make up for it by strongly condemning other gays. This  
should sound familiar to anyone who has heard of Senator Larry Craig.  
But that shouldn't matter to anybody else. It certainly doesn't  
matter to me. And presumably it wouldn't matter to Jesus either.

Ralph