Why Don’t We Find Bloodshed Repugnant Anymore?
Recently other authors have studied early Christians’ opposition to bloodshed. And it is no longer possible to deny, as Schaeffer did, that a consistent pro-life ethic runs through early Christian writings. Ethicist Ron Sider’s The Early Church on Killing provides comprehensive source material, while patristics scholar George Kalantzis’ Caesar and the Lamb, though focused on the church’s stance on the military, includes evidence that it opposed abortion.
See also our interview with Ron Sider on his book The Early Church on Killing.
Christians soon compromised their ethic to suit new social realities, however. Some were involved in the Roman military as early as A.D. 170. In 378, just 66 years after Constantine showed imperial favor toward Christians, Ambrose of Milan first articulated just-war theory.
Mean Girls and Mean Christians
Yes, I know that in a democracy we participate in government and, in fact, ARE the government, if you buy into “of the people, for the people, by the people,” but I don’t think that fact gives permission and certainly doesn’t require citizens to be mean-spirited or aggressively disparaging towards those with whom they disagree.
If anything, I think it suggests that we Christians have a greater obligation to be “peacemakers,” to “honor the king,” and to “do good to all men.”
And if not for our ourselves and our country, surely we agree that we should not teach our children to be mean!
Is the Trinity Father, Son, and Holy Bible?
In a cessationist tribe, the functional Trinity is sometimes the Father, Son, and Holy Bible: the Holy Spirit wrote the Scriptures through human authors, and then it’s like he’s been on vacation ever since. In a Pentecostal church, you know you have the Holy Spirit if you speak in tongues, the primary evidence to Pentecostals that a believer has the Spirit. In a prosperity tribe, the Holy Spirit’s ministry is largely to make you healthy and wealthy; he’s presented as the source of blessing to those who have faith.
In more fundamental tribes, the Holy Spirit has two primary ministries: to write the Bible and convict us of sin. Basically, you are a nail, the Bible is a hammer, and the Holy Spirit’s job is to pound you. In charismatic tribes, the fruit of the Spirit is emphasized: the Holy Spirit is the one who causes our character to become more like Jesus’ as we pray and worship passionately. In missional tribes, the gifts of the Spirit are emphasized, thereby helping believers discover the ministry God has for them as part of his mission.
How I decide who to help first
If a tornado strikes Abilene and I have time and money to use in clean-up, I am taking care of my family first. That’s what Christians do. Then I am going to work to ensure all of my church families are helped. Then I will start in on the neighborhood and community needs.
So if you think I am saying that some people are more important to me than others… you are right.
My family, my church family, my neighbors.
Faith is a looking. It is the blood-earnest, serious looking of serpent-bitten, sin-ridden people towards God’s peculiar display of mercy…the holy, battered, bloody, mutilated Son of God. And if we don’t see Him…
We die.
5 Things You Don’t Have the Guts to Tell Your Students
Despite all this, I cannot help having sympathy for even the most mediocre of students, for those whose feeling of entitlement is out of proportion with their gifts. The sad truth is that even hard work is now becoming less and less a guarantee of prosperity. This is probably what all too many students sense: that it doesn’t matter how hard they try in class, how high their GPA is, or how much they impress their teachers. Perhaps those attitudes that teachers recoil from most in their students—laziness, entitlement, indifference—represent a justifiable hesitancy to participate in a world they fear will not reward their labor.
Argentine scientists tap cow burps for natural gas
Using a system of valves and pumps, the experimental technique developed by Argentina’s National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) channels the digestive gases from bovine stomach cavities through a tube and into a tank.
The gases – which otherwise are commonly known as burps, or “eruptos” in Spanish – are then processed to separate methane from other gases such as carbon dioxide.
Methane is the main component of natural gas, used to fuel everything from cars to power plants.