Jul 5, 2012 -- 10:51AM, Ironhold wrote:

Folks, how many people like this are in your congregations?

People that put on an outward show of piety but deep inside are black as pitch?

Calvinists would say every last one. 

But you and Theo are both talking about the gap between religious ideals and imperfect practitioners.  I think the two of you agree on more than either of you realizes.

Folks, how many people like this are in your congregations?

I haven't conducted any polls Ironhold, but I'd hazard a guess that there might be about the same number as in your congregation. That is to say, likely very few.

Jul 5, 2012 -- 9:02PM, Theo wrote:

And as for me wanting to make America a theocracy... please Iron, do you even read my posts, or just skim them looking for ammo?

You were the one going on about "kingdom of God" and all that.

Secular America has disowned Christianity in general, and I think its about time Christians recognize that, and start behaving like Christians instead of clinging desperate rejected housewives.

I've done some of my best missionary work while playing RPGs.

If you can figure out how that works, you'll see why your statement is dead wrong.

Since when has the Mormon Church wanted to make friends and play nice with any Christian??? Joseph Smith came out of the blocks firing all his guns at once, and the Mormon Church has not changed its antagonistic aggressive attitude towards Christians in the slightest. Your paranoid attitude toward Christianity is showing Iron.

So you're cool with 10-year-olds being executed in front of their mommas for being the wrong religion?

Theo:  I am not a scholar of the Civil War

Considering you think Lincoln is the bad guy and slavery was a false reason (even though it's specifically in Confederate letters), that much is obvious.

eventually it would have been abolished

I used to think that, but with all the ranting about illegal immigration, and noting it's the same exact arguments but with a new set of people, I don't think anyone really learned anything.

Moreover, God managed to set the Hebrew slaves free without 750 thousand people dying in a civil war with the Egyptians.

No, He just had Moses & Co. kill them at Mt. Sinai.

God:  Okay, Moses, all those people I had you risk your neck for?  Slit their throats.  They are sooooo last year for Me.

I am against displaying the flag in Church, or singing patriotic songs in Church, or using the Church as a voting block or as a means to register people to vote.

Something we can agree on, at least. :)

Ironhold:  The Bible also shows Jesus grabbing a whip and clearing out the temple whenever it kept getting defiled.

To be fair, vandalism isn't the same as assault or murder.  I just wish Jesus could come and have that kind of passion to any business that pimps His name (bookstores, auto parts, etc).

Do you have any idea how many others would have to disagree with you on that?

Considering their selfish motives (note that after the formation of the government, suddenly all that freedom just poofed off the propaganda bus), one would have to define "the will of God".

Right now, for example, one of the biggest arguments against Obama is his refusal to get involved with Syria. The Syrian government has been bombarding their own cities, resulting in untold civilian deaths. When it seemed like the West had abandoned them, the populace began to form militias. The entire nation is drowning in blood now because Western leaders want to follow your advice on the matter.

Frankly, the US will be the villain no matter what we do.  If we step in, we're Evil Bastards who want to shove our ideas down others' throats.  If we sit this one out, we're Lazy Bastards who won't help those poor people who hate us anyway.

Given the two choices, I'm going to go with Lazy Bastard.  It's high time this region clean up its own damn messes.

Theo:  Perhaps this is one of the reasons my parents left Mormon Country USA before I was born and raised me with no religious affiliations - so I could learn America history apart from the Mormon Church.

American history includes ALL American history, though.  Ironhold has a point.

smcisaac:  This is because Mormons attribute fundamental divine authority to certain scriptural texts that Christians deem inventive forgeries.

And while I accept that rationale, the problem is our own canon is so filled with "conveniences" that it's a smidge hypocritical.  We continue to include in our canons passages, nay, whole books that scholars find incapable of being written by the supposed author(s).  When we strip our own canon of the logs, we can go after Mormon specks.

Theo:  I think it's about time Christians who claim to believe the Bible start practicing the Bible, instead of paying lip-service to it while waving old glory and shouting "Praise God!" every time the President has another terrorist murdered in a foreign country.

Amen.

Slavery was legally abolished everywhere in the Western Hemisphere, without violence, by the 1880's

Chattel slavery was; economic slavery is alive and well to this day:

“We have stricken the shackles from four million human beings and brought all laborers to a common level, not so much by the elevation of the former slaves as by practically reducing the whole working population, white and black, to a condition of serfdom. While boasting of our noble deeds, we are careful to conceal the ugly fact that by our iniquitous money system we have nationalized a system of oppression which, though more refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery.”
~Horace Greely(Go West, Young Man), 1872.

In point of fact, the real reason Great Britain "abolished slavery" was economic, in that the owners of chattel slaves were responsible for feeding them, housing them, clothing them, and caring for them when they were sick(however poorly or minimally, only live slaves can work), ergo it was(and is) far more financially-rewarding to make the slaves pay for their own food, clothing, housing, and medical care---one way or another.

That said, i completely agree with Theo's premise for this thread: far too many purported "christians" fully support "the world" via their complacent/ignorant participation in the 501c3 schemes(different names in different lands, same purpose---to make religion an arm of the Beast), as well as the wars that make their "lifestyle" available to them, nevermind that it's built on the blood, guts and bones of the dead and maimed bodies of millions...

Christ's Kingdom is supposed to be the viable ALTERNATIVE to the kingdoms "of the world," not an active participant in them(save as their conscience, to remind them when they've gone too damned far).

To the USG, 501c3's are "charitable orgs," no longer churches, but soulless corporations("fictional persons") subject to corporate law "of the world."  IIRC, the LDS are the LARGEST 501c3 org in this world...not a good place to be, when apostasy/hypocrisy is placed in the dock...and not to pick on them exclusively; many if not most "churches" are apostate 501c3's today, protestant and Catholic, EO and "reformed."

The way i've been given to understand it, the Greek word that James' book translates as "the world" would be more accurately translated as "governments of the world."  The Kingdom of God has only one king, Y'shua ha Mashiach, and afaik, He accepts neither substitutes nor equals.

That said, if you try to get free of the governments of this world, you will soon know why Nebuchadnezzar's vision of the final kingdom as one of "iron mixed with miry clay" is rather accurate; every try to first get free from, then clean of miry clay?
   
"No attempt or pretence, that was ever carried into practical operation amongst civilized men -- unless possibly the pretence of a “Divine Right,” on the part of some, to govern and enslave others -- embodied so much of shameless absurdity, falsehood, impudence, robbery, usurpation, tyranny, and villainy of every kind, as the attempt or pretense of establishing a government by consent, and getting the actual consent of only so many as may be necessary to keep the rest in subjection by force. Such a government is a mere conspiracy of the strong against the weak. It no more rests on consent than does the worst government on earth."
-- Lysander Spooner(1808-1887) Political theorist, activist, abolitionist
Source: No Treason. No. II The Constitution, (Boston: Published by the

The Kingdom of God is established and maintained by volunteers only, but ones who have so well-learned the differences between governments of the world and the government of God that they can easily discern the latter and immediately recognize---and immediately reject---the former.

"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it."
-- John Hay(1838-1905) American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln, 1872
---one reason, perhaps, why Jefferson well-noted in the DoI that all mankind are disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by changing the forms to which they've become accustomed(or words to this effect).

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence---it is force," said Geo. Washington
The Kingdom's government is of a quite different---and much higher---order.  It does behoove us to "learn the law of perfect liberty" by studying those who have not only learned of Liberty/Responsibility, but also the various forms tyranny takes...how to exercise the former, and to resist the latter, despite Paul's apparent claim that we're to "obey" whatever governor (or his agents) that may be in power for the moment. e.g. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Genghis Khan, ad nauseum.

With goodwill to all the People-

Hatman