testing...anyone out there?

*laugh* So, anyway. I'm going to do another post on Mere Christianity tonight. I'm such a slacker.

Today's announcement:

I appear to have developed a newscaster crush on Anderson Cooper.

The Rival Conceptions of God

This is the first chapter in the section that's supposed to be about what Christian's believe.

"I have been asked to tell you what Christians believe, and I am going to begin by telling you one thing that Christians do not need to believe. If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view."

Which is interesting. I know that there are many Christians who do believe this way, but there are many who do not. And I think there is something about Christianity, and all of the Abrahamic faiths for that matter, that assumes exclusivity. Christianity does make the claim that it is the only correct path to heaven, whether it states it explicitly or not. In recent years there has been a relaxation of this policy, with many of the Christian institutions stating that there exist aspects of grace outside of the fold of Christianity, but that has not been the historical understanding.

One of the things I found sort of telling and maybe helpful in explaining Lewis' viewpoints is his version of atheism. When Lewis was an atheist, he based his rejection of the idea of God on the fact that the world was not fair, or just. That if there was a God, and God was good, then how could He allow the world to continue in the way that it was? Rather than (at the time) understanding that free will and the fallen nature of the world is what impacts and creates the nature of the world, he decided that the unfairness of reality meant that there was no God. Okay, that was his view and he later changed it. That's fine. But Lewis seems to think that every other atheist on the planet for all time shares this same perspective and reasoning. Which I know is not true. There are many reasons that people have for being atheists.

Many, perhaps even most, weigh the evidence for a divine being against the evidence for other, less supernatural explanations for things and they find that the scales tip in the favour of a material universe, where there is no supernatural explanation for things.

Everyone's reason is their own, and it seems good to them. They might be wrong - people who believe in God or gods or the Unmoved Mover might be wrong as well. We don't really, ever, know. We work with the evidence we see, through the lense of the life that we have and we take things on faith, one way or the other. Lewis buttonholing everyone into the same thought process as he used sits badly with me.

Pirate Outfit?

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Death Penalty II: It's Come Back!

Part I

Part II

I want to at least attempt to discuss the relationship between the Church and civil authority. Since we do have a separation of Church and State – in the sense that the Church is not the State and that the State is the entity charged with keeping order and punishing criminals, it seems germane.

I think that most people would agree that the human being somehow innately understands the necessity and value of societal order and justice that supersedes the individuals desires. Social order reflects a sort of collective consciousness that rises above any single individual's level of perfection in an imperfect world. We know from history that one individual with unchecked power doesn't really work well as a system of government. 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely' is a cliché for a reason.

According to Scripture all 'governmental systems' and civil authorities are established by God and are a necessary concession for the good order of the world because of the Fall. But our 'systems', even if ordained by God, are run by fallen humans. I doubt this fact is lost on anyone. 

In his commentary on Romans 13, St. John Chrysostom has this to say about how we should regard civil authority and evil politicians:

“For do not tell me of some one who makes ill use of (the institutions of government) but look to the good order that is in the institution itself, and you will see the great wisdom of Him who enacted this law from the first...whether in punishing, or in honoring, the state is a Minister, in avenging virtue's cause, in driving vice away, as God wills.”

'Systems' of government and societal order are a collective hedge against individual human anarchy which tends toward evil, and it also provides more or less for some definition of 'the common welfare' of the members of society. And, of course, we know that while some systems might be better than others, no system, if occupied by evil people, will keep people from doing evil things. 

Every Christian anti-death penalty argument I've seen calls for society to 'forgive our enemies' because Christ calls on us to forgive our enemies. And I would acknowledge that I, as an individual, am called to forgive my personal enemies – which is HARD and I work at it daily, but I don't see that that extends to the State.

The call of the Gospel is ultimately to persons, not institutions. One must have belief in the Gospel to live it, not merely be following laws. While we obey laws because they are laws and there are consequences if we break them and we are caught (think, on the mild end of the spectrum, speed limits), our faith cannot work that way. A person can, theoretically, be forced to obey all the strictures of a faith, down to the last 't', but that doesn't give them faith. It doesn't make them a believer, and in the case of faith and religion, at least, it's the belief, the inner desires and thoughts that count. After all, God's Kingdom is not of this world.

All that being said, it is appropriate for the State to legislate against evil for the very same reason Noah was commanded to institute the death penalty – we are created in the Image of God. The God ordained order of the State, at some level, reflects the image of God in that it exists for the 'good of society' which calls for defining good and evil through civil law.

In the Old Testament, God dealt with human beings on a revelatory moral and religious level through Judaism and the Law. Even if one views Judaism as only a shadow of the Gospel, it was still God ordained, and carries some merit. The first layer of Godly order laid down into the moral chaos of the fallen world? Judaism was a revelation to the world of universally applicable moral and ethical precepts, and it included the death penalty. These aspects of the Law (I believe) which included capital punishment apart from the fullness of knowledge and belief in the Gospel are still a functional way to order a non-Gospel based human society. We in the modern world may (and do) disagree with the Law over who (and for what and how) should be put to death, but from Genesis to Revelation the overarching principles of law and order that include justice, fear of consequence, punishment and restraint that deal with evil are universally recognized to be necessary for civil order.

As far as I can see, nowhere in the New Testament is the State held to the standards of the Gospel in how it orders our society. Since inception the Church has existed and functioned within many diverse political systems – some good, some bad, some out and out evil. We don't find the New Testament writers confusing the roles of the Church and the State in the lives of people, most likely because in the times of the New Testament the State was either indifferent or actively hostile to the Church.

The Apostles held up no political system as 'the one true party' and Christians are constrained to pray for all civil leaders, godly or not. Jesus Himself told Pilate as he was condemning Him that he had no power except that which was given him from God. In Romans 13, St. Paul (who was persecuted under both Jewish and Roman law) teaches us that the State has the God ordained responsibility to punish the evil doer and even to exact capital punishment if deemed necessary. St. Paul, in spite of the injustices he personally suffered, doesn't even deal with the possibility of civil law being unjustly administered. He doesn't seem to have an issue with the possibility of the State being in error or unjust at times. Both he and Christ personally stood above the civil order and the injustice they suffered and in so doing personally transformed the world around them without legislating 'Christian values' through governmental systems. 

The ancients understood that their moral and religious frameworks were not easily divorced from civil concerns, and throughout Church history it has always been considered, by most Christian expressions, a possibility to have a Christian State. Israel's history is the story of the 'Christian State' imperfectly administered by kings who would bring either blessings or curses upon the people depending on their actions. It was never a utopia, but it was an integration of Church and State. In light of this history the 'prophet/king' relationship and the wielding of power in their respective spheres is quite natural and has yielded, at times, good outcomes for the citizenry. However, it is also clear from Church history that religious coercion by the State does not generally yield good results.

The Church as State is untenable and cannot be justified scripturally or pragmatically. For an example we can look at John Calvin's Geneva to see how his theology of Church and State worked out in practice and what you see can best be described as a 'Christian Taliban'. The failure of Church as State doesn't mean, however, that the State can't or shouldn't align itself with the Gospel. However, it must be understood that there are boundaries between the roles of the Church and the State and not all of the Gospel's demands on the Church and the individual Christian can be integrated into a civil order. The mission of the Church in the world does not cancel God's divine order that the evildoer is restrained by means of the State. I'm not going to go into detail, but one only needs to look at the history of the Church as a State to know that it doesn't work. Theocracy is a bad idea – we loose something in the process. Men use the 'divine right' of their leadership to take advantage. Not all of them, no, but enough, and yes, that happens in secular states too (the corruption), but it's much harder to see and fight when 'God said I could do this'. Look at any of the cults in the world to see this in miniature. Or heck, lets take a brief sidetrack look at Saudi Arabia. Wonderful place. Very religious. Because they don't have a choice. It's a nice, dry place where girls can burn to death because they're not wearing their abaya. Because they're trying to flee a *burning building*! (takes a deep breath) We don't need to look very hard or very far to find historical or modern proof that theocracies don't work.

Problem solved.

I bought things. Not the things I was looking at. Other things. I bought a copy of The Help and The Lincoln Lawyer for Murdock. I almost bought The Devil Wears Prada, but I'm not a huge chick lit fan and I think that was just an impulse because I rewatched the movie version last night.

So now, when I finish the series I'm on (half a book, a vignette and a 400+ novel) I have my next two books to read. Not that I don't already have plenty of books to read. But I need something on Murdock for at the gym and I'm in the middle of reading my Stephen King collection in hard copy right now so I need something that is *not* Stephen King to read. My brain goes twisty with too much Stephen King.

I Can Resist Anything Except for Temptation

I want to shop. I want to buy things that I don't need, spend money I'm trying not to spend, and just have things delivered to me!

*twitches*

I don't know why, I just have this urge to buy things. I keep looking at them and reminding myself that they're not a particularly limited resource, that they will be there in a couple of months when I *am* ready to buy them and that I don't need them right now.

So far, so good.

But I *want* them!

Edited to include the Things What I Want:

Some of them are on sale, so I'm tempted, but I don't need them right now, I'm still in the OT, and I'm not even sure I'll like them. I wish I could find reviews from people who have used them.

Because Michael Fassbender is awesome and I love Jane Eyre so the two things together must be world shatteringly awesome!

It's Good Omens. This needs no other reason.

I'm too lazy to include all the covers for this, but the five Codex Alera books that I don't already have on CD. And a handful of other books I'm not going to get around to reading anytime soon. 

Also, clearly, the Lewis post did not happen last night. Mostly, I was betaing a story for a friend. And, reviewing the chapters, there's nothing in there that I haven't already covered. They're wrap up chapters, so I've made the executive decision to just skip on from them. I overslept this morning so I didn't get any Lewis reading in, so that's all on the back burner for the moment.

Thoughts on Mere Christianity

Though I still don't agree with Lewis that his point of view, his conclusion is inevitable and the best answer to the question of the original of morality, I think my main problem with the book so far is that it's not what I was led to believe it was. Everyone recommends it as this great work of Christian apologetics. They treat it as convincing. It's not, at least I haven't found it to be so far. If you're approaching the questions it addresses from a Christian point of view, it makes perfect sense and is logical to a certain point. If you're looking at it from outside of that mind frame, the arguments he raises are either no more or less valid than other arguments for other points of view, or they seem antiquated and incomplete - not through any fault of Lewis' really, but because we understand the human mind so much better than we did in his day and age and the drives that move us.

I took a few days off from the book after I finished the last two chapters of the first section and that's the conclusion I reached. I'm planning to do a post covering those two chapters tonight and then we can move on to the second section which is supposed to be about what Christians believe.