evidence for conservative Christian influence on US government

Interesting article. Just thought I'd offer the information that this church is not really an evangelical church as the term is usually understood. It's charismatic. That is, it is part of the signs-and-wonders movement that got started about a hundred years ago with the Pentecostals. I once belonged to such a church and left when I recognized too many elements of it in contradiction with the Bible.I don't really have a point to make about the topic of conservative Christianity except to say that this group isn't necessarily typical -- although it does seem that the charismatic movement has been growing.

Tal answered you but I'll answer you too. You equate evil with good, equate murdering the innocent with legally executing the guilty. This kind of moral insanity is dominating too many these days.{EDIT: Even the Pope can't see the difference since he's for abolishing the death penalty.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-01-2005 01:57 PM

Huh? Those were THEIR wars, not ours. We entered to help THEM.

No, the idea is totally morally wrong and a complete misrepresentation at least of the Protestant pro-life position. Pro-life never opposed legally justified deaths. Thou shalt not kill ALWAYS meant shall not "murder" and murder is the taking of INNOCENT life. It is just playing word games to impose any other meaning on pro-life than pro-INNOCENT life. No rational person can be against all killing for "ANY reason."

No, we are NOT to leave punishment to God. The Bible makes clear that it is the responsibility of a decent legal system to punish the guilty -- and in fact FAILURE to punish the guilty puts a nation in the wrong with God. No it wouldn't as the pro-life movement also opposes the move toward euthanasia, "mercy killing" & suicide etc.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-01-2005 02:52 PM

OK, thanks to you and Holmes for the correction.

Of course. The term is intentionally tendentious. The term "pro-choice" was invented to whitewash abortion, to make it appear to be purely a matter of a woman's right to do as she pleases with her body instead of the absurdity that in reality the "choice" she has is between murdering her child or letting it live.The term "pro-life" was invented to ANSWER this absurdity, to point up the fact that it is a question of life or death that is involved, NOT just a woman's rights over her body, and the relevant slogan was "choose life" from Deuteronomy 30:19.

I am putting forward the argument that this is a semantic boobytrap, that the term "kill" has to be understood in context -- sometimes it is justified, sometimes it's wrong. Other Bible translations say "murder" because of this very confusion people have who don't take it in context. Is it wrong to kill someone who is about to kill you or others? Is it wrong to kill animals to eat them? Is it wrong to kill someone in war? Obviously not all "killing" is forbidden, only murder.And this is corroborated by Jesus' paraphrase of the Ten Commandments in Matthew 19:18: No, that's very confused logic. Maybe this will straighten it out: I think that the commandment is against the criminal killing of innocent human beings, period, because there are also many kinds of literal "killing" the Bible justifies as righteous, including the death penalty -- for such crimes as killing the innocent. Well, you can be sure that the Bible does not have a double standard. This confusion is the result of not taking words in their context. Since many killings are presented as justified in the Bible there is no way "thou shalt not kill" could possibly be opposed to every kind of killing.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-01-2005 03:44 PM

Pardon me I should have said BIBLE BELIEVING PROTESTANTS who know the commandment is about murder. More STRICT? Hardly!! Less true to the Bible. You can't believe the death penalty is wrong if you believe the Bible. Perhaps, who knows. The point is that "pro life" was designed to specifically counter the obfuscating term "pro choice" What are they Protesting since they agree with the Pope? And the world, the flesh and the devil to boot. Clearly they are not Bible believers.Jesus is YAHWEH, the God who instituted the death penalty for so many sins. He also threatened hellfire, so certainly he believes that some are worthy of losing their lives. Of course perhaps your "Protestants" don't believe He is Yahweh. Again, sorry I neglected to remember that anybody can call themselves anything these days and even be taken for the standard. Mea culpa. They are insane in denying the need to put to death certain classes of criminals for the good of society. That's an absolute necessity in an orderly society. Yes I consider his thinking on these things to be irrational, despite what good he accomplished.

The death penalty as exemplified in the Bible is not a vigilante affair, and in fact it appears to be a corrective to the sort of vigilante justice that tended (and still tends) to occur in the Middle East, as it restrains the tendency to disproportionate punishment enacted by offended family members.As required by God, it's a legal matter conducted by the elders of the community by due process to determine guilt and the appropriate punishment, and often carried out before the community, the way law is always rightly processed, whether by a small tribe or a large nation."Thou shalt not kill" on the other hand is one of the commandments to individuals, a whole other thing. Confusing the two contexts is the root of the problem.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-01-2005 09:49 PM

I said something that relates to a specific context, the judging of crimes WITHIN the nation; you are extending to something else altogether and insisting I regard it as all the same thing. Apples and oranges. God is the judge of the universe. You misapply the concepts to him just as those who are against the death penalty misapply it. That is correct. God is the final judge of everything, and we are consistent because the Bible is consistent. The fault is with those who would presume to judge God. No, they are the death penalty, God's just punishment.

You mean like Buddhists?Of course. Anybody.

Pro- and Anti-Abortion is what many pro-lifers would prefer I think, as being more sharply to the point, but pro-life based on "choose life" is considered to illuminate the true meaning of "choice" as in choosing murder.

Dobson and Robertson uphold what America was up until the last half century. They may not do the best job of it but they are the best we've got at the moment. You seem to think what is dangerous to America is being traditional American. Somehow what America is has been redefined over the last half century.

This is an unfortunate falsehood. All the Christian activism in the last half century has been an attempt to answer the encroachment of anti-American political thinking which has been taking over. Unfortunately the Christians woke up a bit late. America is no longer what America was meant to be and you have bought into the revisionist view like so many others. I don't think the current Christian position is a perfect representation but it is at least an attempt at an answer to something that has perverted the very foundations of the idea of America, perverted the idea of freedoms, perverted the idea of equality. Your view of the intentions of the founders is a sad revisionism that leads you to hate what they really meant to be.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-02-2005 10:51 AM