RE: Sermons You'll Never Hear In Church - First in a New Series
Hello @pathforger,
I appreciate your visit and your thorough and responsive comment. Nevertheless, I'll respectfully disagree with you.
Human governments are an aberration. As I've mentioned in my article, human government as we know it inherently violates the second great commandment. For this reason, whether they are consciously aware of it or not, I will continue to maintain that individuals in professions that support and continue this aberrant institution are in fact in violation of the commandment. They need to recognize that they are acting immorally, denounce, and depart from such anti-social occupations.
I don't know if you noticed, but throughout the article I have embedded links to quite a few supporting sources, including scripture, historical material, and political/philosophical essays. Some of that supporting material explicitly addresses issues that you have raised.
"Again - regarding government and even politics as not being inherently evil. It is the renditions that we know that are conducted so - they 'can' be instruments for good."
No "government" based on the theory that it has authority to initiate force can ever hope to be an instrument for good.
There are completely voluntary ways to organize society that do not involve the evils of "governing." These are what we should be working towards.
Thanks again for interacting!
Hello @creatr. You are welcome.
I can certainly appreciate where you are coming from.
I quite appreciate that you started this series with the intention of bringing rarely-referenced elements of scripture to light - which thus brings about a shift in perspective over the proper interpretation of the overall stances on various subjects.
Yes I did notice the links that you very kindly enriched your texts with - and while I did do a little bit of delving - as you may have understood - my words were not an attempt to present a representation of the matter from a Christian perspective.
Rather I chose to delve past that which is said, straight to the matters concerned - in this case of taxes, tax collection, and governance - and opined that there is no inherent reason why any of these have to be evil. Doing so requires setting aside the track records of all three phrases - as the implementations that we have suffered have been flawed at best - plus I do not discount the roots of the rise of these constructs within a base desire for control, power and gain.
While I personally do not generally deal in absolutes - I recognize that such is not generally compatible with religious discussions. As such I feel that we shall need to remain in respectful disagreement.
Again, thank you for a fine article.