Sept 2
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote from Tertullian that talked about how we are to share our earthly goods. This appeared in Heidelblog.
Sometimes charity is like a bandage, it covers the wound but does not address its cause. Thus, bandages cannot prevent future wounds. That isn't to say that bandages aren't needed, it just says that we are to look into how to prevent future wounds too. For Martin Luther King Jr., to prevent future wounds of poverty we need to examine the systems that produce the many people who live in poverty to see what can be changed.
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Sept 7
To Denny Burk's blogpost using a NYT article to state that Kim Davis did not need to be put in jail for her convictions. THis appeared in Denny Burk's blog.
We need to realize that she is not in jail over her beliefs, she is in jail because she defied a court order. As for her beliefs and those of my fellow religiously conservative Christians, they are being portrayed as something that suppresses the equal rights of another group. Such was was not tolerated when Jim Crow was being eliminated. Here, we should remember that some used the Bible to defend Jim Crow. Christian liberty is not the freedom to deny someone else their freedom.
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Sept 8
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote from Tertullian that talked about how we are to share our earthly goods. This appeared in Heidelblog.
Sometimes charity is like a bandage, it covers the wound but does not address its cause. Thus, bandages cannot prevent future wounds. That isn't to say that bandages aren't needed, it just says that we are to look into how to prevent future wounds too. For Martin Luther King Jr., to prevent future wounds of poverty we need to examine the systems that produce the many people who live in poverty to see what can be changed.
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Sept 7
To Denny Burk's blogpost using a NYT article to state that Kim Davis did not need to be put in jail for her convictions. THis appeared in Denny Burk's blog.
We need to realize that she is not in jail over her beliefs, she is in jail because she defied a court order. As for her beliefs and those of my fellow religiously conservative Christians, they are being portrayed as something that suppresses the equal rights of another group. Such was was not tolerated when Jim Crow was being eliminated. Here, we should remember that some used the Bible to defend Jim Crow. Christian liberty is not the freedom to deny someone else their freedom.
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Sept 8
To Dr. James
Willingham's Sept 7 response to the part of my comment regarding those Christians who would seek to suppress the rights of others asking about the rights of those who want to commit murder. This appeared on Denny Burk's blog.
Dr Jim,
Tell me how the rights of those who want to commit murder compare with the rights of those who want to marry the person of their choice when the partners are consenting adults?
All you are doing with your analogy is showing your view of those from the LGBT community. That you would compare their rights to marry with a nonexistant right to commit murder. So can you guess why some from that community might not want to listen to the Gospel you cling to and represent
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Tell me how the rights of those who want to commit murder compare with the rights of those who want to marry the person of their choice when the partners are consenting adults?
All you are doing with your analogy is showing your view of those from the LGBT community. That you would compare their rights to marry with a nonexistant right to commit murder. So can you guess why some from that community might not want to listen to the Gospel you cling to and represent
Sept 11
To R. Scott
Clark and his blogpost consisting a picture of the attacks on the Twin Towers titled 'Remember.' This appeared in Heidelblog
There are times when a pictue can say a thousand words. There are also times when we need at least a thousand words to help explain a picture. The picture above fits firmly into the latter category. For while most Americans see atrocities like 9-11 count as the beginning of the genesis account of the war on terror, we committed too many sins in the Middle East before the 9/11 attacks to believe that the war on terror started with what others did to us.
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Sept 21
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost consisting of an interview with David Van Drunen about The Constitution and the Obergefell decision. This appeared in Heidelblog.
I think describing the different ways of interpreting The Constitution needs further clarification. Many see those who employ a more modern approach to the document as looking at The Constitution as a living Constitution that changes as times change. That is in contrast to those who want to interpret The Constitution more literally and in keeping with what they see as being the intention of the writers.
Instead, perhaps we should look at The Constitution, especially the amendments most of which were written well after the times of the founding fathers, as either being a document that uses explicit and concrete statements only to describe our rights or a document that uses a combination of explicit and concrete statements with abstract statements. Thus, we would use what we see as abstract as a source from which we can apply The Constitution to today's issues and derive rights which the founding fathers or those who wrote the amendments may not have anticipated.
Seeing at least some of the statements containing our rights in The Constitution as being more abstract than concrete allows us to employ a degree of flexibility in terms of using the document to answer some of the questions being asked today without treating the document as a waxed nose in the hands of time. To see The Constitution as having only explicit and concrete statements gives us a rigid document that struggles to react to the new issues and questions of today.
I can see one of the concerns of those who see The Constitution as containing just explicit and concrete statements as a fear of losing continuity with founding fathers when we treat some of the amendments as being more abstract. Thus, they do not see added flexibility gained when we treat some of the amendments more abstractly as a benefit.
One should consider the source of the above statements because I fully agree with what I have read of the Obergefell decision. It granted rights which I saw as being owed to those in the LGBT community who seek to marry the partners of their choice with recognition of at least some of the tension many conservative Christians have over the subject. BTW, the Obergefell decision does not relieve those in the LGBT community the hardship of losing one's job because of one's sexual orientation which exists in 29 states.
Finally, if we religiously conservative Christians really wish to address this issue without providing any unnecessary stumbling blocks to those who would hear us preach the Gospel, then it seems to me that we would rely solely on preaching and teaching God's Word as a way of influencing the people in society on whether they would or would not enter a same-sex marriage.
Sept 21
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost consisting of an interview with David Van Drunen about The Constitution and the Obergefell decision. This appeared in Heidelblog.
I think describing the different ways of interpreting The Constitution needs further clarification. Many see those who employ a more modern approach to the document as looking at The Constitution as a living Constitution that changes as times change. That is in contrast to those who want to interpret The Constitution more literally and in keeping with what they see as being the intention of the writers.
Instead, perhaps we should look at The Constitution, especially the amendments most of which were written well after the times of the founding fathers, as either being a document that uses explicit and concrete statements only to describe our rights or a document that uses a combination of explicit and concrete statements with abstract statements. Thus, we would use what we see as abstract as a source from which we can apply The Constitution to today's issues and derive rights which the founding fathers or those who wrote the amendments may not have anticipated.
Seeing at least some of the statements containing our rights in The Constitution as being more abstract than concrete allows us to employ a degree of flexibility in terms of using the document to answer some of the questions being asked today without treating the document as a waxed nose in the hands of time. To see The Constitution as having only explicit and concrete statements gives us a rigid document that struggles to react to the new issues and questions of today.
I can see one of the concerns of those who see The Constitution as containing just explicit and concrete statements as a fear of losing continuity with founding fathers when we treat some of the amendments as being more abstract. Thus, they do not see added flexibility gained when we treat some of the amendments more abstractly as a benefit.
One should consider the source of the above statements because I fully agree with what I have read of the Obergefell decision. It granted rights which I saw as being owed to those in the LGBT community who seek to marry the partners of their choice with recognition of at least some of the tension many conservative Christians have over the subject. BTW, the Obergefell decision does not relieve those in the LGBT community the hardship of losing one's job because of one's sexual orientation which exists in 29 states.
Finally, if we religiously conservative Christians really wish to address this issue without providing any unnecessary stumbling blocks to those who would hear us preach the Gospel, then it seems to me that we would rely solely on preaching and teaching God's Word as a way of influencing the people in society on whether they would or would not enter a same-sex marriage.
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