May 16
To R. Scott Clark and his article that addresses the desire of some American Christians who want a Christian king or prince to rule over America. Clark compared the desire for a Christian king with the Israelites' desire for a king during the days of the prophet Samuel.
There are a few points to be made. I fully agree with Clark on supporting religious pluralism in America. But the comparison between the Israelites who wanted a king during the days of Samuel with what today's Christian theocrats want is problematic. For while the Israelites of Samuel's day wanted a king to be like other nations, the Christian theocrats of today want a king because they want America to be unlike the other nations. They want to replace what is left of our democracy with a Christian king or prince in order to legislate Church laws for unbelievers and believers alike.
We saw the much lighter form of this legislation of Church laws for everyone during Christendom. Here we should note that Christendom here and then did not take the form of the institutional Church telling the government what to do here, but rather Christendom exerted control over the government indirectly through its influence on culture.
Here we should note that while Christians might have been in more agreement with the government during Christendom, their blessings were at the expenses of unbelievers. And this is a point that is often overlooked by many of us religiously conservative Christians when we look at the changes taking place in society. While we are quick to point out how unfair or are against our interests many of the laws are now, the laws during Christendom were just as unfair, if not more so, to many unbelievers back then.
Finally, there is good reason to challenge the American Revolution. One of the reasons why it was fought was because the British were prohibiting the colonists from advancing westward. In other words, the British were protecting Native American lands from being seized and stolen. There is also evidence, though not conclusive evidence, that continued British control spelled the end of slavery in the US.
In addition, we need to understand that the context for the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War was different from the context for the writing of The Constitution. Whereas many of the colonists fought in the Revolutionary War to oppose the control that British elites exerted over them, The Constitution was written because many Americans were expressing dissent to and rebelling against American elites. One only needs to look up all of the Constitutional references to the Militia and realize that Shays Rebellion helped trigger the writing of The Constitution
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To John Horvat and his blog article the praises the conservative reliance on Natural Law and the Left's fear of it. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
There are problems with Horvat's article. While at least suggesting that Natural Law is universal, there is no consensus on what Natural Law says about certain issues. In addition, while denying that employing Natural Law would bring a religious rule to America, he states that the 10 commandments are summary of Natural Law. But what is in the first table of the 10 Commandments but commandments regulating the worship of God.
There is no consensus regarding what Natural Law says about sex for example. For while the 10 Commandments and its context would dictate that sex must only occur between a man and a woman in marriage, we see in nature both same sex behaviors (SSB), which occurs in around 1,500 species, and different ways of performing sex not all of which lead to reproduction. To counter that one must rely on the Christian interpretation of creation and the fall. But America is made up of people from all sorts of religions. And even among Christians, especially among liberal Christians, there is no consensus on what Natural Law says.
Also, the Left does believe in universal principles. The Principle of Universality is such a principle. Equality is another universal principle that the Left passionately believes in.
Certainly, relying on Natural Law would not bring a Christian Theocratic rule over the US. But an authoritarian, Christian ethnocracy, as opposed to a democracy, it would bring. And we already saw what Christendom did to the reputation of the Gospel. Critical Theory and Post Modernism are, in part, reactions to the abuses and atrocities committed by Christendom.
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