Comments on: Why don’t we say that charity and love are Christian issue?

By: Johan Maurer

Johan Maurer — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 07:36:43 +0000

Here’s a simple and eloquent column from Patrick Nugent at Friends Theological College, Kaimosi, Kenya.
Johan

By: rod

rod — Sat, 06 Nov 2004 14:21:28 +0000

Hi, I am a first time visitor to your site--great job. I just wanted to comment that I agree with the previous posts: the one demonstrating the rise of NAZIism from the right and the other pointing out the muddled message of the left. What I think the key to this issue is realizing that our left/right political spectrum is not linear, but circular. Dehumanizing, violent, and destructive regimes have arisen from both the left ant the right, and if you follow both directions far enough they meet at tyranny. This was part of my problem with John Kerry. He did not offer an alternative to Bush policies only a variation of degrees. Instead of unilateral war, Kerry suggested hunting down and killing terrorists. I fail to see the real difference between these two strategies. Don't take this as support for Bush by any means--I only want to point out that neither candidate is/was committed to nonviolence as the only answer. My point is simply that there exists a political spectrum that orbits around a center of fear, division, violence, and power and only varies by degress. Where Christians fail is that we try and place the gospel somewhere on that continuum, choosing left or right based on certain issues or ideals both of which may be true to certain aspects of the gospel, but may be defiecient to varying degrees to others (hence Christians that are pro-life while supporting the war). In reality I understand the gospel as "off the spectrum" a completely other and distinct view that declares "Kingdom" values and virtues. It is Christo-centric and is grounded on love, faith, hope, and peace. It is dynamic enough to be tolerant, while at the same time avoiding dissolution into sentimentality or synchronism. This does not mean a retreat from the "real" world, but an engagement of the world as the body of Christ.

By: Camassia

Camassia — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 12:07:06 +0000

Interesting points. I suspect one reason politicians can cast anti-homosexuality as a moral issue more readily than others is that it's always easier for people to condemn something they've never done, or even been tempted to do. Lots of people (including myself) have felt sympathetic towards the Iraq war at one point or another, and it's rather disturbing to be told you committed an evil for doing that. I've often heard that part of Pres. Bush's appeal is his moral clarity -- he casts things simply in terms of right and wrong. I understand the hunger for moral clarity, but unfortunately I think the converse is that people feel that any complicated, ambiguous issue must not really be a moral one. Ironically, I think another reason this happened was precisely the separation of church and state itself. The concept of religion as governing only your personal behavior, compartmentalized away from public life, has actually been embraced by evangelicals as much as anybody, with their emphasis on Jesus as your "personal savior." I think that's why when they do legislate their religion with things like anti-gay laws, they usually use defensive language: we're defending our marriages, defending our children, etc. I think that liberal Christians have to verrry carefully delineate what aspects of morality they're willing to legislate and why, because if there's anything Americans fear more than a government with no morality, it's a government with a strong morality antithetical to their own. A lot of attempts I've seen at this have been muddled (e.g., Kerry's position on abortion), which I think has only hurt the liberal cause.

By: The Quietist

The Quietist — Wed, 03 Nov 2004 21:24:26 +0000

Nazi hatred and "hygiene" extended to homosexuals as well as Jews, the mentally ill/handicapped, Poles and Romany. Pre-war, urban Germany, was an extraordinarily homosexual-friendly environment. There was an active homosexual rights movement so well organized that the Nazis were able to use the organization's own member lists to round-up homosexuals to be sent to concentration/death camps. Among other things, Nazism was a right-wing, reactionary phenomena intent on redressing and correcting the perceived decadence of German society via a "return" to the values of God, family and nation (the "volk"). It was anti-science (leading scientists were "hollow-earthers"), magical-thinking and arch-militaristic. While I am not attempting my own exact analogy here, I believe these things are important to remember.