We are in the midst of another intensely partisan election season where one side regularly derides the other as hating America while the other side accuses the one of being a threat to our democracy. Both sides claim to love the country while insisting the other obviously does not. This raises an interesting question for us to consider as followers of Jesus: What does it look like to properly love our country? What does it look like for a follower of Jesus to properly love whatever country he happens to call home? As we continue in our series, Who Do You Want to Be, this week, examining what it looks like for believers to live like Jesus is coming back someday, let’s take a look at this question through the lens of the Gospel.
A Proper Patriotism
What does it look like to properly love your country? That’s a trickier question to answer than it might appear at first glance. I suspect most of you immediately called to mind all kinds of patriotic images. We’re not quite a month past the Fourth of July. Gathering as families and communities while we eat good food and watch other people blow stuff up seems to be a pretty good way to love our country. But can you love your country too much? Is that a thing? Can you make an idol out of it? What if you love it to the point that you are willing to overlook or otherwise justify obvious and real faults? No country has a history that is totally spotless from any sort of failing of morality. Does a proper love of country allow for honest conversations about those? At the same time, though, can you give those kinds of things too much attention? I mean, no country is perfect, sure, but none of them are all bad either. Every country has noble and redeeming qualities if you are willing to search for them. Yeah, maybe you have to search a little harder in some places than others, but they’re there. It seems that a proper love of country is going to avoid both of these extremes and fall in this messy middle ground of loving without idolizing, and being honest without becoming cynical. What has me thinking about all of this today is that as we continue in our teaching series, Who Do You Want to Be, we are going to be taking a look at our duty to be good citizens wherever we happen to live.
This morning finds us in the third part of our exploration of just how exactly we are to be living now if the things guys like Jesus, Paul, John, and Peter said about the world that comes after this one are true. In the first part of this journey, we simply established the fact that how we live in this life matters. We did this with the help of a question the apostle Peter asked in his second letter to a group of churches that were all located in a hostile cultural situation. Given that all of this is one day going to be gone and give way to something new, how should we be living now? The answer Peter gave and the one we are exploring together is that we should live in a way that matters.
Living in a way that matters, though, is a pretty abstract concept. So, last week, we started to pour a bit of concrete on it. We did this by taking a look at the prophet Jeremiah’s counsel to some Israelites living in exile in Babylon after Jerusalem was conquered by King Nebuchadnezzar. His counsel to them was not to get ready to come home soon. It was to put down roots and plant themselves securely in their new environment because they weren’t going to be returning to what they thought of as home anytime soon. In doing this, though, they weren’t to bitterly seek to remain a thorn in the side of their new neighbors. They were to work to see their new communities flourish however they could. When their new communities flourished, so would they. Thinking about Jeremiah’s counsel, and filtering it through the lens of Peter’s similar counsel to those same believers living in a hostile cultural situation—a hostile cultural situation that isn’t so different from our own—we came to the understanding that living with the end in mind means making our communities better now.
Today, I want to explore this same basic idea a little bit deeper and in a little more detail. Part of making our communities better now means not only being positively committed to those communities themselves, it means being positively committed to the nations in which those communities reside. Indeed, a particular local community is always going to be a reflection of the nation in which it exists. If you don’t like the nation, you’re not ever really going to like the community. This is the case even when you consider that there are all kinds of different communities all across this country reflecting all kinds of different elements of our broader culture. In spite of the differences, though, there are bigger and deeper similarities that unite all of us under the banner of a single nation. What all of this translates to is the idea that if we are going to live with the end in mind, it’s not enough for us to be merely good neighbors. We need to be good citizens as well. Well, something Jesus said in a tense conversation with some of the religious leaders of the Jews helps to highlight this idea for us. Let’s take a look at this together.
If you have a copy of the Scriptures handy, find your way with me to the Gospel of Mark. This particular story appears in Matthew and Luke as well, but Mark likely wrote it down first, so we’ll go with his telling. When you get to Mark, join me in Mark 12. This scene unfolds during the final week before Jesus was arrested, tried, and crucified, paving the way for His glorious resurrection. Each day during that week, Jesus spent time in the enormous temple courtyard teaching and interacting with the various Jewish religious leaders who all knew He was there, and were doing their absolute best to establish some public grounds by which they could justify their desire to shut down His ministry permanently. On one particular day, the chief priests organized all of the various religious leaders to go to Him with the most impossible-to-answer questions they could devise. The goal was to get Him to say something…anything…incriminating. Jesus, of course, didn’t play ball, but their attempts are amusing and Jesus’ answers are instructive all the same.
The first of these groups were a combination of some members of the Pharisees and the Herodians. To say these guys were strange bedfellows would be a huge understatement. To put this in more modern political terms, this would be like if some members of PETA and the NRA decided to work together on a project. It would be like members of the Democratic Socialists of America and a bunch of Libertarians joining forces. The fact that these two groups were willing to work together at all was a sign of just how much they hated Jesus.
In any event, they set before Jesus a question with enormous theological and political significance. They set up a situation to try to force Jesus to sail the ship of His ministry right between a theological Scylla and a political Charibdys. And Jesus responded by essentially saying, “Nah, I’ll take a plane.” Look at how this all unfolded with me in Mark 12:13: “Then they [the chief priests] sent some of the Pharisees and the Herodains to Jesus to trap him in his words. When they came, they said to him, ‘Teacher, we know you are truthful and don’t care what anyone thinks, nor do you show partiality but teach the way of God truthfully.’”
Pause there for just a second. This was all duplicitous flattery. They didn’t believe a word of it. They thought He was a liar and a fraud. Worse, they believed in the core of their being that He was a threat to their entire political and religious system. The flattery here was just an attempt to cunningly disarm Him so that He wouldn’t be ready for the trap when they sprang it. That came next. Because we know you are all these good things Jesus, surely you can answer this question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?” Well, obviously Jesus couldn’t answer this correctly and they all knew it. The people listening to this interchange knew it. Jesus was utterly trapped. If you reject paying taxes, Rome is going to come down on you quickly. If you embrace paying taxes, the people are going to reject you immediately. It’s a lose-lose situation.
But Jesus is Jesus so…
“But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, ‘Why are you testing me? Bring me a denarius to look at.’ They brought a coin. ‘Whose image and inscription is this?’ he asked them. ‘Caesar’s,’ they replied. Jesus told them, ‘Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ And they were utterly amazed at him.” Luke adds that in their amazement, they became silent. His wisdom and rhetorical deftness left them completely speechless.
What Jesus introduced to the world here is an idea that was completely unheard of when He said it. This idea that there are some things that don’t belong to the state was like a nuclear bomb whose blast was set to unfurl in slow motion. The reverberations of this concept would echo down through hundreds of years of history as the words of Jesus were later recorded and then disseminated throughout the world. It is an idea that is sufficiently revolutionary in its formulation that even Jesus’ own followers have struggled mightily over the centuries to grasp and apply its full implications. Trying to explore all of these would take a whole series’ worth of sermons. We’re not going to tackle that this morning. What I do want to look at with you, though, is one particular implication of what Jesus says here. If there are things that belong to God that don’t also belong to Caesar (by which I mean the governmental apparatus of a particular nation more generally), then it is possible for us as followers of Jesus to properly love one without sacrificing or otherwise polluting our love for the other.
Let me see if I can put that in another way. If there are things that belong to God that do not also belong to the State, and if there are things that God allows Caesar to claim as its own (notably, the things that bear its image), then we are able to give a proper devotion to Caesar without diminishing or at all letting go of our devotion to God’s kingdom. To put that even more simply, what Jesus says here means that as His followers and members of His eternal kingdom, we can nonetheless be good citizens of our earthly kingdoms wherever those happen to be. As a matter of fact, if we want to be making the kind of impact on our present kingdoms that we talked about last week, we have to be doing this. If you don’t love your country, you’re not going to be very motivated to work toward its benefit. You’re not likely to be terribly concerned about really making it better. You’re far more likely to embrace a posture of cynicism toward your country. The odds that you’ll become more selfish over time go way up. And why wouldn’t they? If you aren’t committed to the good of your country, you’ll be committed to the good of yourself. Now, if that good happens to benefit those around you, great, but that’s not your goal. And when that’s not your goal, you will gradually lose the ability to speak meaningfully into the lives of the people in your community. That’s not the same thing as saying you won’t be able to have an impact at all. You very well may. But the nature of your impact won’t be the same.
There’s a new world coming after this one. If we want to be able to have the kind of impact that will position us to help those around us be as ready as possible for this new world when it arrives, being good citizens in whatever our current cultural situation happens to be is an essential. Living with the end in mind means being the best citizens we can be.
Okay, but how can we do that? Well, we start by taking a page out of Jesus’ playbook here and remembering what belongs to which kingdom. The truth is that everything ultimately belongs to God. He’s the creator of it all. But in His wisdom and graciousness, He allows us to steward His creation as we see fit, and He gives us a pretty long leash for doing that. He allows us to organize ourselves in various ways. Sure, He’s the one ultimately directing it all, but He gives us a remarkable ability to make meaningful and consequential choices. As a part of this, He has allowed us to group ourselves into tribes and nations. Those nations create cultures and societies that require good management from competent leaders in order to create the circumstances that lead to the most flourishing for the most people. And while there are certainly ways that goal is accomplished more effectively than others, God lets us chart our own course in this pursuit…and also to live with the consequences of the path we choose.
The way all of this translates to us as individuals, is that we all live our lives in the context of a single nation (or at least one nation at a time). That nation is most directly going to be the major source of flourishing in and for our lives. The more committed we are to the flourishing of our nation, the more directly we will be able to contribute to that flourishing both for ourselves and for the people around us. This means that it is not only okay, but right and proper for us to love our nation. As followers of Jesus, though, we do this while at the same time always keeping firmly in mind that we are only visitors here. We are resident aliens. Our primary allegiance is to our heavenly kingdom. But just as immigrants will nearly always do best when they celebrate, submit to the laws of, and positively contribute to their adopted homeland, so will we. Living with the end in mind means being the best citizens we can be.
Well, once again, this means that it’s okay to love our country. There’s nothing particularly noble or edgy about hating the nation in which you were born and from which you have received nearly everything you enjoy in this life. I saw a meme back on the Fourth of July that read, “Somebody: ‘Happy 4th.’ Me: ‘Yeah. I kind of hate America though.’” How utterly ungrateful. That such sentiment is celebrated or encouraged by a segment of our population does not make us stronger as a people. Strong, thriving nations actively correct and even prevent such a cynical outlook by creating environments in which the strengths and merits of the nation are taught and passed on from one generation to the next with eagerness and conviction. At the same time, though, we should embrace and encourage a posture of honesty about our nation’s weaknesses. There are things we don’t do very well. There are points in our past where in moral terms we blew it. A healthy love of country as followers of Jesus allows us to evaluate our nation through the lens of our perfect, eternal kingdom in order to celebrate what is good while owning and repenting of what wasn’t. The result can be a greater, richer, deeper appreciation that increases our sense of commonality with our neighbors whether those are neighbors next door, or neighbors in an entirely different part of the nation. Living with the end in mind means being the best citizens we can be.
There’s something else this kind of properly rooted love of country that Jesus commends to us here allows. When we are conscious of our enduring citizenship in our ultimate and eternal kingdom, this prevents us from thinking that our present kingdom is somehow ultimate. It prevents us from seeing the issues we debate as a nation and the outcome of those debates as ultimate. It prevents us from seeing our politics and our political processes as ultimate. When we don’t have any kind of a sense of this ultimate kingdom, that prevention disappears. This leads only and ever to bitter partisanship, national disunity, and a million and twelve campaign ads that if you don’t vote for candidate X, our democracy is at stake.
Now, does that mean our democracy is never at stake? No. But neither does it mean that a single election is going to kill it. Elections and politics operate downstream from culture. The kind of healthy, positive citizenship we are talking about operates upstream from those. When it is on track, then even when we disagree vigorously on specific issues, we won’t be divided as fellow citizens. Our elections and politics will be healthier. When we lose that, though, then every political fight really is an existential fight, and political parties become tribes of far greater significance than any sort of a national identity we might otherwise share. Well, when the tribe to which we give our highest loyalty goes to war, we fight to win and not much is left off the table. If that tribe is a political party and not our nation itself, then our political fights won’t make us stronger. They’ll leave us broken and unable to effectively combat actual existential threats. Living with the end in mind means being the best citizens we can be.
As followers of Jesus, we have the means to put a stop to these kinds of issues. These means are loving our country properly and honoring our ultimate kingdom first. When we do this, we can put aside all the follies of partisanship and treat the people around us like the fellow citizens they are—giving to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s—rather than as potential political enemies who need to be isolated and defeated. When we do this, we can create communities that are defined by something far higher than politics or even mere national allegiance. We can create kingdom enclaves—like the church—where anyone can be a part of the life and love, the purpose and meaning that transcends the concerns of our present kingdom and allows us to love freely like Jesus did no matter where someone is from or what political party they like or where they stand or this or that cultural issue. And, yes, we still vote. We vote our Scripture-informed convictions. We have challenging conversations about difficult issues that are filled with conviction and charity. We even try to convince people who don’t agree with us to see the world like we do. But we never lose sight of the fact that all of those aspects of being good citizens come second to what really matters most. When we do this, we’ll make our nation better and stronger. We’ll leave our communities more ready for Jesus’ return than they were before. That’s living with the end in mind. Living with the end in mind means being the best citizens we can be.
The Nexus 
Living with what ‘end’ in mind?
LikeLike
Welcome back! How have you been? I was sorry to see England got beaten by Spain in the big football tournament from a couple of weeks ago. I did see some of the South African rugby team playing…some other team whose nation escapes me at the moment…in the Olympics. Thought about you then.
I’m talking about the end of this world and the beginning of the next triggered by Jesus’ return. If Jesus is returning one day to do and accomplished what He said, then how we live here and now matters. We are to be found obeying His commands to love as He loved us and to contribute positively to the world around us. It’s the same basic theme as the last sermon we jammed back and forth on for a while.
Hope your Monday has been prettier than mine. It’s soggy and gross here this morning.
LikeLike
End of this world?
Will this be before or around the time Sol expands and engulfs all the planets in our Solar System?
Does this mean I have to believe he is Yahweh as well?
LikeLike
Who knows about the timing on that. Jesus Himself said nobody knows.
Whether or not you accept that Jesus is who He claimed to be is between you and Him. But, yes, benefitting from His return, will require someone’s accepting Him for who He is. Fortunately, you can fix that anytime you want 😉
Paul details how in Romans 10:9-10. Confess that He is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. So, yes, there is that unavoidable faith component.
LikeLike
But scientists do know approximately when our sun will become a red giant – 5 billion years.
Do you accept the scientific data on this?
What happens at death to those non believers in the meantime?
LikeLike
Those are their best educated guesses. I’m aware of those predictions. And, it may be that’s how God brings about the end of the world. Or, He may act entirely sooner or otherwise than that. We don’t know. Those scientists, if they’re willing to be honest, don’t know either. When prognosticating that far out, data or not, they are only speculating. Again, it may be educated speculation, but it’s still speculation.
As for what happens to those who die between now and then who have refused to accept Jesus for who He claimed Himself to be, we don’t know. We’re not totally sure what happens to those who die in faith except to say that they will be with Him. How that works, we can speculate based on what we see in the New Testament (mostly from Paul in 2 Corinthians 5), but that’s about it. People who have refused to accept Him as Lord won’t be with Him, but what that looks like we can’t say for sure.
LikeLike
So am I correct that ostensibly you disagree with the evidence the scientific data is based on?
So it is fair to say your faith claims are nothing but speculation.
LikeLike
No, I said that I am happy to accept their educated speculation, but that they could be wrong in their assessment given that they are looking out 5 billion years into the future, a length of time that, frankly, our brains aren’t really capable of handling.
From a specular standpoint, that would indeed seem like a fair thing to say. You’ll not be surprised to find I believe the reasons for accepting the claims of the Scriptures on these matters fairly compelling. You won’t agree, I suspect, but that’s par for our course :~)
LikeLike
Well, you don’t accept the scientific evidence that refutes Adam and Eve, Noah and his ark, or the Exodus. Based on this ( and other things, I’m sure) can you think of a single valid reason why one should give any consideration to your uneducated opinion?
LikeLike
There it is. I was wondering how long it would take you to steer things back to your comfort zone. No, as I’ve explained before, because of the number of places in the Scriptures that have been declared by skeptics to be obviously historically inaccurate or at least questionable that have later been proven true and accurate by subsequent historical finds, I’m willing to extend the benefit of the doubt (yes, based on faith, but a faith justified by this larger pattern of undermined skepticism) that where skeptics still declare this or that to be obviously wrong, subsequent findings may yet demonstrate that confidence to be similarly misplaced.
And, my opinion isn’t uneducated, it’s educated differently than you’re generally willing to consider on these kinds of matters.
As for valid reasons, that depends on what you mean by valid. We both already know you’re not going to accept anything that remotely smacks of faith or any kind of a reliance on the reliability of the Scriptures. You’ve made that abundantly clear. So, no, there’s probably not much more I can do that will be convincing to you. I’ve pretty well come to peace with that. I still (mostly) enjoy the back and forth all the same. Many of my regular readers around here tell me they enjoy it too ;~)
All that aside, do you have any thoughts on the actual substance or the main point of the sermon? Anything you find particularly objectionable with that? I’m grateful as always that you were willing to give it at least a cursory glance.
LikeLike
Now you are just being an obfuscating, science-denying indictrinated god-botherer.
The HGP has refuted the biblical tale of Adam and Eve being the progenitors of the human race.
Geology has refuted the Noachian Flood. And this is without considering all the 2×2 BS.
The on the ground archaeological evidence flatly refutes the Exodus ( and this includes your undoubted hilarious undisclosed nonsense speculation over Pharoah’s army)
If you do not understand the term valid reason then you will not accept the scientific evidence regarding the demise of our star and how scientists know the approximate date of that demise.
So yes, your opinion is uneducated, built upon a faith based foundation of supernaturalism with no evidentiary basis.
There is no real substance to your OP, I am sorry to say.
However, was there some point in particular you had in mind?
LikeLike
Well, if you’re going to sink to name-calling, we don’t really have much to talk about. You’re just recycling the same points here that you eventually bring everything back to. Yawn. This line of argument wasn’t really convincing the first time you used it, and the more times you drag it back out of the closet, the less convincing it becomes.
You’ve got a one-hit wonder argument that never came across as much of a hit or a wonder when you first introduced it. After taking breaks, you come back with the same thing rather than actually engaging with the arguments I make in the posts that you comment on. It’s like you miss the interaction, but aren’t really willing to put in the time to have meaningful conversations on the substance of the posts themselves. You just want to make the same point you’ve made dozens of times before. I know you miss me when we take a break, but, come on, give me a little more effort.
My invitation to engage on the substance was just that. Did you catch the main idea of the sermon, and did you have any actual (and new) thoughts on that? If you missed it, just go read the sermon again. I repeated it a whole bunch of times in the second half.
LikeLike
Name calling? It is merely an accurate description of your approach to anything that challenges your faith based outlook.
If you refuse to accept scientific evidence how can you expect anyone to engage your posts at a level ever n approaching anything intellectual?
I engaged with the ‘substance’ in my initial comment.
If you think I missed something then enlighten me.
LikeLike
You are once again demonstrating that you can’t imagine understanding the world other than as you do. And, no, you took a pot shot at the context and ignored the substance altogether. But it just brought us back to the same, boring stalemate we’ve long since held. Other than missing me when I’m gone, why keep bothering?
LikeLike
If you have evidence of the supernatural then we can examine it.
If not, how do you propose one engages with it?
Calling you out for your erroneous assertions may resonate with some of those readers of yours who you claim enjoy the interaction.
Maybe one or two might not be as indoctrinated as you would like to think?
Nothing like a heavy dose of skepticism and good old fashioned common sense to bring someone back to reality, eh Jonathan?
LikeLike
We’ve already been over there. You are demand empirical evidence for something that is spiritual in nature. That’s silly. But, I haven’t been able to convince you yet of the silliness of it, so I’ve just taken to ignoring the request.
And the assertions I make aren’t erroneous. You disagree with them. Two different things there. Of course, I haven’t been able to convince you have that yet either, so I tend to ignore that too.
Oh well.
Yes, perhaps your arguments might be convincing to some. You are impressively evangelistic in your secularism. Not the ones who actually say anything to me, of course. They mostly just think you are hopelessly biased and blind to any perspective beyond your own. But perhaps some. That’s why I let you post and don’t edit you. I’d rather put all the info out there and let people decide for themselves. Let the best arguments rise to the top and leave folks to discern what’s true based on those.
Now, if only I can get you to finally look on your skepticism with a bit of healthy doubt and common sense. Then we’ll really be going somewhere 🙂
LikeLike
So, there is no evidence of the spiritual.
I am pleased we agree about this
Therefore, as you have acknowledged there is no evidence of the spiritual any claims of their veracity are in fact erroneous.
The day you provide any sort of evidence to support your unsubstantiated spiritual claims is the day I will be skeptical about my currently held outlook.
Any time you are ready, Jonathan. Any time.
LikeLike
Nice try. You’re hearing only what you want to hear. That’s not what I said. I’ve talked about evidence for the spiritual before, but you’ve rejected that. Why bring it up again? You’ve made clear you will only consider empirical evidence. Your commitment to scientism has been well-established over the course of our dialogue. Evidence for the spiritual goes beyond the merely empirical. Having further conversation isn’t worth our time on this point. We’re just rehashing the same old things that we’ve already established we don’t agree on and don’t show much in the way of gaining ground on convincing the other.
LikeLike
Refresh my memory…
Exactly how does one ascertain the veracity of evidential claims regarding the spiritual?
LikeLike
It’s non-empirical by definition. So, we have to look to non-empirical means. It’s mostly personal experience and encounter and testimony. An encounter with the supernatural is going to often be a very personal thing. That doesn’t mean it will only be a solo experience, but it is personal. That’s why you will find people who have genuinely had such experiences extraordinarily difficult to convince they didn’t actually have that experience.
Now, how we discern whether that experience was from or with God is another matter. That involves the Scriptures and the church community.
LikeLike
Personal testimony and experience?
Do you accept the personal testimony and experience of those who claim to have been abducted by aliens, or seen ghosts?
“… from God. That involves the Scriptures…”
Scripture has been demonstrated to be unreliable/ completely false across almost every known discipline, including, biology, cosmology, history, geography, geology, archaeology, etc etc… and includes interpolation, pseudoepigraphy and forgery.
Are you asserting these examples are considered evidence of the supernatural ( or aliens)?
LikeLike
By “these examples” are you referring to your raising the question of aliens and ghosts? I didn’t assert anything about those and didn’t intend to. I’m well aware that you reject practically every part of the Scriptures as true or reliable. I don’t share your skepticism and find the arguments in favor of reliability much stronger than those against. We’ve already been through that.
As we have talked about again and again, though, as long as you continue to reject the foundational premise, none of the arguments I make relating to things that follow logically from that original premise (God exists) are going to make any sense or sound acceptable to you. I’m not sure why that seems to be taking so long to set in for you. You keep making arguments against this or that assertion I make that follows FROM the foundational premise like those are somehow going to be convincing to someone who doesn’t already agree with you, let alone me. You’ve yet in our entire history to make a point that has even remotely suggested to me that the foundational premise is in error. And if it’s not, none of the rest of the arguments, points, or assertions you’ve made have carried the least bit of weight. And, I know you’ll respond with your well-worn explanation (I’m just that thoroughly indoctrinated), but that’s really all you’ve got, and it too isn’t much of an argument.
To repeat the praise I’ve offered before, your evangelistic commitment to secularism is nothing if not impressive. You’re like Saul before he became the Paul history would know him as. You’ll really be something when you turn all this zeal on for the Gospel.
LikeLike
The aliens and ghost examples fall into the same category as your claims of evidence for your god Yahweh and related experiences. Ostensibly, they are worthless as they cannot be supported, ergo, they do not qualify as evidence.
Furthermore, there is no evidence for a single foundational tenet of your religion let alone the existence of your god, Yahweh. And you will not find any evidence no matter what lens you are looking through.
Also , your slavish adherence to scriptural authority is almost Tertullian.
In fact it is far worse, as he did not have the benefit of the scientific knowledge you have today, thus your acceptance is that of a gross hypocrite, as the same scientific methods that are used in a multitude of things you DO accept you reject when it comes to scripture as this challenges your faith based ideology.
LikeLike
You’re literally making my point for me. You have one argument that you just keep recycling. As I said, it wasn’t convincing the first time you threw it at me, and it’s still not convincing now. It is framed by your total inability to see beyond your worldview blinders that are held rigidly in place by the methodological materialism and firm commitment to scientism that form the (bad) philosophical foundation that all your thinking and arguing grows out of.
It’s too bad. I would have rather liked to engage more on the question of whether you think good citizenship is something worthwhile seeing as that was the whole point of the sermon that you seem to have missed entirely. I would have been especially intrigued for your view on that matter seeing as how you could bring the rather unique perspective of growing up in the context of one nation while having now spent most of your life in the context of another. Did you transfer your citizenship? What does it look like to be a good citizen in one nation when your citizenship lies in another one? Can you maintain good citizenship to one nation when you are more loyal to another for one reason or another? What is it that should motivate good citizenship in the first place on a secular worldview?
Those would have been the kinds of fun questions to engage on, but you just can’t seem to break from your one argument that you bring everything back to eventually. Oh well.
LikeLike
In fact you are the one making the point.
You refuse to acknowledge the hypocrisy of your position yet insist that it is valid when it has no basis in evidence whatsoever. And you reject the solid evidence of such things as the HGP, and the geology that refutes the Noachian Flood and the archaeology that refutes the Exodus.
Good citizenship?
Any society that expounds secular, humanist principles / values in a democratic framework.
LikeLike
There it is. The same set of things over and over and over again.
To once again belabor the point as it appears it will continue stubbornly refusing to register , you and I are coming from two paradigmatically opposing worldview positions. The difference between us, though, is that I fairly well understand your position. I simply reject it. You don’t understand mine in even the remotest sense except as a caricature of the real thing. Therefore, you have to resort to things like this charge of hypocrisy or your equally common charge of indoctrination. You can’t explain it any other way.
Those values you attribute to a secular and humanist perspective originated in only one place: the Christian worldview. Secularism didn’t achieve those values at all, and in fact, governments or nations that are explicitly rooted in secularism have fairly consistently drifted rather rapidly away from them. Take the various Soviet or Communist states as a primary example of this.
Or perhaps the French Revolution would be a better example, coming as it did at the same time as that of my own nation. Both were broadly and ostensibly driven by the same set of philosophical principles. But while ours was explicitly rooted in the Christian worldview, France’s was explicitly secular. The results speak for themselves. France quickly devolved into a tyranny of another kind that only crystallized because the people were sick of the rampant violence the original revolution had devolved into, Meanwhile, ours grew and thrived and while undoubtedly imperfect, has remained the longest and most successful experiment in democratic self-governance in human history.
The values you claim to cherish were all introduced to the world in a sustainable way by the Christian worldview, and can’t be long sustained without that worldview’s remaining in place in at least some capacity.
LikeLike
If I lack understanding of your worldview then the fault lies with you for failing to explain yourself correctly.
You reject evidence where it challenges your faith based belief system as I have pointed out time and again.
So here you have a captive audience, and have for some time now, and all you do is tell me I do not understand.
Imagine if you had a maths teacher at school who continually leveled that charge at you?
Think about this before your next response.
It seems you did not bother to properly read my reply about good citizenship.
Do you even know what secular humanism is?
I suggest you stop being a fatuous ass for a few moments and go read my response again.
LikeLike
And perhaps I’ve dropped that particular ball. That could be. A student’s failure to learn could indeed be the result of bad teaching. It could also be the result of the student’s stubborn refusal to be taught. I guess we’ll have to let the folks who read through our engagement decide which it is. Ones who already agree with you will probably go with the former. Ones who are already inclined to agree with me, the latter.
Were you not basically associating good citizenship with a secular humanist culture? If so, then I’m content with my point to stand. If not, by all means, make your point clearer, and I’ll be glad to engage more.
LikeLike
There is no such thing as a bad student, only a bad teacher.
Try harder.
Start with the reason you reject geological evidence for the Noachian flood tale. And include evidence, please.
Heads up. You will disqualify yourself if yet again you assert the problem lies with me and the fact I am looking at the tale through a secular worldview or something similar.
Secular humanism has nothing to do with religion. In fact it is the antithesis of religion.
Secularism was around before Christianity.
Modern secularism – separation of church and state – came about largely as a direct result of the excesses of religion.
LikeLike
The idea of the separation of the church from the state came mostly out of the passage this exact sermon explored and which you stubbornly refuse to engage with so that you can make the same set of points you always come back to in our conversations. It is a Christian idea. Secularism as it exists today is a modern invention that has almost nothing to do with the philosophical position held by a minority of Greek thinkers that does indeed predate Christianity. As much as it greatly irks secular humanists to make this observation, it absolutely is a religion with its own set of creeds and rituals. It’s different only in particulars from any other religion in the world. I’ll wait for your accusations of ignorance to flood in.
On the other part, while I appreciate your rather idealized vision of education, you don’t seem to have much in the way of experience with teaching, do you? Or am I mistaken in that? And, no, I don’t plan to indulge your efforts to steer things back to your rhetorical comfort zone any more than is absolutely necessary.
LikeLike
You simply refuse to read my comments properly. Not only id this extremely bad manners on your part it borders on disingenuity.
I stated up front Secularism predates Christianity.
I then wrote MODERN secularism – separation of church and state came about largely because of the excesses of religion.
In actual fact I have a teacher’s diploma. So you can stick your arrogance where the sun doesn’t shine.
My comfort zone?
Do I understand this to mean you refuse to explain why you reject the evidence that refutes the Noachian Flood?
Bad teacher indeed!
LikeLike
You keep attacking my arguments (not to mention me) rather than actually engaging with them.
Given your teacher’s diploma, you will then be aware that bad students are indeed a thing. It may not be entirely their fault they are like that, but they do exist. Some people just don’t want to learn a particular subject, and the most engaging teacher in the world can’t convince them otherwise. But again, it may just be that I’m not a very good teacher. I suppose I’ll just have to work through that.
Today’s my anniversary (19). If you want to keep going about in circles on all of this, I’ll be back tomorrow. Have a good rest of your sentinel shift!
LikeLike
How do you expect me to engage your arguments when you continually misrepresent my comments?
If it is a question of getting me to understand “where you are coming from” as it were then you need to be able to respond to my questions /queries and challenges in such a way that deals with and recognizes how crucial, l a role evidence plays.
So, once again, explain why you reject the scientific evidence that refutes the Noachian Flood tale.
While the child’s/student’s background/upbringing plays a significant role, I maintain that ultimately the responsibility falls to the teacher/ institution.
LikeLike
You argued that I didn’t respond contextually to one comment. I offered you the chance to correct what you insisted was a misunderstanding on my part and you dropped the point and didn’t come back to it. I took that to mean that I wasn’t actually so far off as you initially insisted.
Let’s then deal with your reassertion of your point based on what you insist (and to a certain extent I’ll acknowledge) was an incomplete reading.
First, what does ancient secularism (which, I maintain, has almost nothing to do with modern secularism) have to do with your argument? You were talking about secular humanism, seeming to insist that I don’t understand it at all, and then you started talking about general secularism. Those concepts, while cursorily related, are two different things.
You seem to equate modern secularism with the separation of church and state. What a silly notion. The separation of church and state, as I said in my reply which you largely ignored to once again complain about my arguments, is a Christian concept. If you want to push in this direction (and I think there’s some merit here because this brings about an interesting view on secularism…or are we talking about secular humanism?), then the logic once again points us in the direction of the inescapable importance of the Christian worldview. If you are connecting secularism (or secular humanism…which one?) with the separation of church and state, which is an idea that came out of the Christian worldview and not only because of the excesses of religion, then secularism’s existence depends on the Christian worldview. How deliciously ironic. Secularism and all the values it professes to hold would not have existed without the Christian worldview and those values themselves have no enduring philosophical foundation without the Christian worldview. This is why in nations that have or are otherwise endeavoring to distance themselves from their Christian roots, they are gradually losing their grip on those values. Secularism cannot exist on its own. It needs the philosophical foundation provided by the Christian worldview in order to sustain itself.
Does that response fit more with the division you were trying to put between the ideas?
As for the Flood and your entirely predictable attempt to steer things back to the same place you always do, we’ve talked about that multiple times before. I’ve explained my position multiple times before. Like I said before, I’m not going to indulge you this time.
Finally, on the concept of bad students and bad teachers, of course you maintain that position. I wouldn’t expect otherwise. You have to. Your entire position depends on it. Because, if you are the bad student in this instance, that means your entire approach could be critically flawed. That is a position you have heretofore steadfastly refused entertain. The evidence of your arguments over the course of our engagement is of a confidence in your secularism that is nigh on unshakeable.
That, of course, leads me to wonder more and more to the point of imagining various hypotheses why you keep coming back each time after staying away for a spell. You have to know by now that you aren’t going to convince me of anything when it comes to atheism. Whatever explanation you have to adopt to justify your failures in argument and persuasion on that point, I haven’t budged even the tiniest fraction in your direction. So, why keep coming back when you already know how things are going to go?
Are you really that committed of an evangelist for secularism? If so, I continue to applaud your faithfulness to your creed. Are you just that bored and I’m your most entertaining source of Christian-baiting? Surely the frustration you always eventually exhibit before taking a break would warn you against jumping in again. But maybe it’s like a drug. One more hit and it’ll be different this time. Are you just lonely? I have trouble imagining that’s the case given your apparently rich family life. Maybe I’m just entertainment during your sentinel shifts? But you respond too often during the day for that to be entirely the case. And at some point, the time you take engaging with me must come at the expense of some amount of family time. Or maybe, just maybe, you find my writings intriguing enough that you want to explore them more? Surely not that, though. Right?
Time to write today’s post and then working on more for my Matthew outline for next Wednesday night’s Bible study. Happy Hump Day. I’ll be back in touch tomorrow if you can’t bear to stay away :~)
LikeLike
As you continue to refuse to engage with evidence then I maintain you have no argument.
Again reread my comments.
First….
secularism
noun
the principle of separation of the state from religious institutions.
Secularism predates Christianity. ( it matters not how rudimentary it was)
Separation of church and state was not a Christian idea no matter your allusion to the supposed Jesus incident.
The best examples of good citizenship, or good nations are those that emboby secular humanist ideals and values.
Religion denigrates and belittles people.
Evidence supports this.
Your continual refusal to address the Noachian Flood myth ( or other foundational tenets of your faith based worldview) in any honest fashion speaks volumes, as does your refusal to explain your religious position and my supposed caricature of it.
There is nothing to convince you about atheism as it is simply the lack of belief in gods. I see no reason why you choose to indulge in thinly veiled ad homs, which have no effect on me, by the way, as they merely highlight your own insecurities and obvious hypocrisy.
LikeLike
I guess we’ll just go down the list then…
That is in fact a definition of secularism. You successfully googled it. The idea of separating the state from religious concerns, however, came from Jesus. Therefore, secularism per that definition didn’t exist before Christianity. It is, in that sense, a Christian invention.
The claims of secularism’s existing in ancient times are the result of viewing the ancient world through a moder (not to mention secular) lens. The ancient people who practiced this “secularism” did not think about it in those terms. This argument is just an attempt to give it a lineage that it doesn’t really have.
Yes, the separation of church from state is a Christian idea. The existence of that phrase itself comes from colonial Baptists. The French tried to affect something like a divorce of the state from the church in their “glorious” revolution, and they made an absolute disaster of it because they tried to implement a Christian idea without Christianity underpinning it. They made such a disaster of it, in fact, that they wound up with Napolean. That being said, he sold most of the continental U.S. to us, including my home state of Missouri, so I guess I’m glad those revolutionaries screwed things up so badly.
Your explanation of good citizenship doesn’t make the least bit of sense to me.
Cite your sources on the evidence of religious denigration and belittling of people. What do you do with evidence for religion’s making a positive difference in communities and individual lives? Ignore it? Discount it? Explain it away?
I have addressed the Flood. Multiple times. I’ve addressed it almost every time you have steered our conversations back in that direction (which has been about every conversation we’ve had), and I’ve been very honest with you in my commenting. I simply refuse to address it like you want me to or to play by the only set of rules you insist I can use when addressing it. I have also explained my religious position and how you have consistently caricatured it. You simply haven’t liked my answers there either.
If there’s nothing to convince me of, you sure have spent a lot of time trying to show me why and how I’m wrong. And not a single thing I said in the last comment was ad hominem. Nor was any of it hypocritical. And if I came across insecure at all to you, I guess I’ll have to figure out how to live with that.
Oh, and I thought of another hypothesis for what keeps you coming back. You’re so morbidly fascinated by my refusal to accept your worldview, that you just can’t stay away. Personally, though, I still think you just miss me when we take our breaks. Happy Thursday!
LikeLike
Again, you cherry pick when it suits
Your ego is something to behold.
As you are indoctrinated into a religion why would you consider secular humanism makes any sense?
The entire doctrine of Christianity is designed to denigrate and belittle.
Source? The bible. Have you read it?
Your hypocrisy – and I shall add, cowardice – over the Noachian Flood always raises a smile.
I just wish your blog attracted more visitors. It would be a hoot and a half to others also take you to the cleaners.
LikeLike
At least we both agree on our wish that my blog attracted more visitors ;~)
I’m not sure how I cherry picked there. I literally responded to each of your comments in order and didn’t skip any of them. Your comments here don’t meaningfully engage with anything I said to you. You just restated all your charges or rhetorically waved your hand. It’s like you’re just criticizing me about things you don’t like about your own arguments and positions.
I didn’t say secular humanism doesn’t make sense. I said your explanation of good citizenship didn’t make any sense. Time for you to read the comments a little more closely. So, you can only be a good citizen if you are a secular humanist? How does that work? Do you think Queen Elizabeth was a good British citizen? She wasn’t a secular humanist. Was Nelsen Mandala a good South African citizen? He wasn’t either. Were the US Founding Fathers good American citizens (once the nation was established anyway)? A couple of them could be argued to have been secular humanists, but they wouldn’t have thought of themselves in those particular terms. Most of them were at the very least deists and more were confessing Christians. So were Queen Elizabeth and Nelsen Mandela.
You didn’t cite any actual evidence for your assertion that religion denigrates and belittles. None. You simply waved your hand and said, “The Bible.” That’s barely an argument let alone actual evidence. Try again. And you didn’t even bother to respond to my question about what you do with counter evidence pointing to religion’s positive impact on communities and individuals.
I asked you for examples of my hypocrisy and you didn’t cite any. You just reasserted the charge with the additional charge of cowardice. Again: where have I been hypocritical? Be specific. Where have I demonstrated cowardice? Be equally specific. Is it merely because I won’t engage with the issues on the terms you insist upon, or is there more that you have seen?
LikeLike
Do you accept the scientific evidence of plate tectonics?
LikeLike
I’ve told you before that I do.
Now you say, “Well, that obviously proves the Flood is mythological nonsense, and therefore you are a hypocrite to say you accept one without rejecting the other.” I already know these steps.
My answer to that is the same as it has been all along. All that science is perfectly acceptable to me. At the same time, I am willing to also acknowledge that it may not yet be complete. We are still learning. Do you deny that? And, as we continue to learn about the world and its workings both ancient and modern, there may yet be something discovered that justifies a position (like the Flood) that seems to be currently rendered untenable.
Yes, that is a position of faith, but it’s a reasonable one given the number of other times the Scriptures have been declared by various scientists or historians to be obviously wrong on this or that claim only to later be proven accurate by subsequently discovered evidence. We’ve been over this again and again and again. It always goes the same way. Like I said before: you only have about three arguments that you play on repeat.
And, in spite of your likely forthcoming rebuttal that I’m just denying “science” (because that’s what you always say), that’s not at all what I’m doing. There’s no hypocrisy to my position at all.
Okay, now your turn.
LikeLike
Well done.. So you are a hypocrite as I asserted.
LikeLike
Did you even read my whole response, or did you just fire that off on autopilot? There’s no hypocrisy to my position. We simply disagree on the correct philosophical approach to the relevant questions and on just how much authority science should be given in general. You are using charges like hypocrisy and cowardice (which you still haven’t justified…nor did you respond to most of the rest of what I argued or asked) in place of argument. That doesn’t speak of a strong case. And, given that you always land back in this same basic position no matter where our conversation starts, I’m still left wondering what keeps you coming back time after time.
LikeLike
You haven’t bothered to explain your religious position in a way that is understandable.
Yes, I read your reply.
You answered most of it yourself.
I simply echoed your own admission. Yes, you are a damn hypocrite, you just excuse yourself by chucking in your god belief part.
It’s a bit like you yelling, “I’m straight, I am married, ” then going off and sleeping with your boyfriend.
LikeLike
Well, that just takes us back to the bad teacher/bad student debate, but we won’t likely agree on that either, so I guess we’ll leave that one alone.
I did not admit to being a hypocrite at all. I said that you will accuse me of being a hypocrite. Read things a bit more closely again. You really do struggle with my disagreeing with you, though. Is that what keeps you so engaged?
LikeLike
Exactly. You wrote that would be my comeback.
I simply agreed with you. And you are a hypocrite, and a coward.
You will have to work that one out for yourself.
LikeLike
Well, since you seem to have given over arguments for ad hominems, I guess I will. Have a good rest of your sentinel shift 🙂
LikeLike
As evidence damns you why not simply own the charge and be proud of it?
After all, didn’t your pal Eusebius say it was okay to lie for Jesus or some such?
LikeLike
But that’s just it: your take on the evidence damns me. Mine doesn’t. As we have talked about before (are you picking up on the theme yet?), evidence simply is. How we interpret that evidence is a function of philosophical presuppositions and worldview. I think your philosophical commitments and worldview (such as I have been able to discern them) aren’t very good. Thus, your take on the evidence won’t be the best either. No hypocrisy. Just differences of position. I’m sorry that’s so hard for you to accept/understand.
LikeLike
Your “take” on the evidence ! 🤣🤣😆
If you accept plate tectonics then the Noachian flood is an impossibility.
That you still suggest it might have happened makes it quite clear you are a hypocrite.
At least Ken Ham is honest. A bloody idiot, but honest in his defense of his idiocy and stupid beliefs.
You, on the other hand, want to swing both ways so as to maintain some semblance of credibility.
Sorry… not buying it.
You are definitely a hypocrite, and I reiterate, a coward.
LikeLike
You realize this is exactly the same set of charges you’ve made many, many times before, right? You have to because you won’t sustain a philosophical conversation. Every time we start to drift in that direction, you bring things back to your comfort zone. It must be really quiet there tonight for you to keep putting yourself through this frustration.
I should add (and I’m doing it this way for the sake of keeping things to one thread for simplicity), your charges only hold if you assume on your particular perspective. I don’t, which is why I keep ignoring them and plowing ahead anyway.
LikeLike
Everything about your religion is built upon a foundation of faith not evidence.
Therefore, everything is fair game.
The charge of hypocrisy is valid as it is the truth.
Why would you believe this has changed?
Why would you believe it is frustrating?
LikeLike
It’s faith built on evidence, but your philosophical and worldview commitments won’t allow you to acknowledge or accept that.
I didn’t say anything about what is or isn’t fair game. Why bring that up?
The charge of hypocrisy only means anything if you operate from your particular perspective. Given that I reject your perspective, the charge is irrelevant to me. Your continuing to make it isn’t accomplishing anything except to reveal your worldview commitments. It’s not persuasive at all. So then, again, what keeps you coming back when we just wind up here every time?
LikeLike
NOPE. IT is not faith built on evidence. That is an oxymoron and a flat out lie.
You cannot provide evidence to demonstrate the veracity of a single foundational claim of your religion.
I did not say you said it. I am asserting it is ALL fair game.
Your stance is hypocritical and cowardly.
LikeLike
Okay, now you’re starting to just sound silly, repeating a charge ad nauseam. And, again, these are the same exact charges and taunts you have been making for months and months. They are all worldview dependent statements, as I have explained over and over again. These kinds of statements are why I have to keep pointing out that when it comes to matters of the Christian worldview and the Scriptures and the faith generally, you don’t have any idea what you are talking about. And, as you have rebuffed every attempt I’ve made to help you understand, I fail to see why it is worth taking more time or energy to try again. You make the assertion, I make the counter assertion, wash, rinse, repeat. As before, your evangelical passion for secularism is nothing if not admirable. Happy Friday to you.
LikeLike
Not worldview at all. Evidence based.
Most Christians I have interacted with acknowledge the Noachian flood tale is a myth. My mother certainly does.
As far as I am aware Jews acknowledge it is myth.
Scientific evidence refutes the tale: logistically, geologically and biologically.
Therefore, as you acknowledge you accept tectonics to assert the tale as reflected in the bible has any truth is a lie.
This makes you a hypocrite and a coward. There is no escaping this fact.
LikeLike