tehmackdaddy said:
Orko said:
What are you rambling about?
You seemed to be appealing to the authority of the Church elders to justify your viewpoint that a theocratic state should castrate men who abandon their wives and children. That appeal to authority is not justifiable.
If that is not what you mean, then never mind. That is how it comes across.
Here is what I wrote about the Church Elders.
Quote:
For real? This is a revelation to me. Of course I know that. I was facetiously pointing out that the much-maligned autocratic theocracy is the government of choice by Christ. It is also the way that the initial churches were ran. Authority rested in the elder(s), who answered to the apostles. Paul admonishes the elder(s) of the Church in Corinth for failing to execute their duty in removing the unrepentant degenerates that were among them, but I digress.
I'm specifically pointing out that their autocratic authority gave them the power to exile unrepentant sinners and how they are being criticized for not doing so. Its merely another example of how God seems to prefer autocratic authority to democracy.
I'm not sure how you brought castration into it, since my justification for that was Romans 13. It could be that you confused my use of 1 Corinthians 5 and Romans 13 because they have the same author, the Apostle Paul. It doesn't appear to have come off the way you are taking it to anybody else, so it seems you are confused.
Anyway, if you want to discuss it more, I'm happy to do so. Paul's epistles are very rich in detail on how the churches should be run, who is Israel, and what role civil authority plays in the world.
For instance, Pacifist would likely take pride in how many unrepentant degenerates he can get to in his church. In doing so he is opening himself up to admonishment from Paul, as did the Corinthians. The context of what I am speaking of is 1 Corinthians 5, but specifically I am referring to verse 6.
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?The commentaries are in agreement. He is specifically referring to a thing they have been boasting about. Given the preceding and following text, the church in Corinth was boasting about their tolerance of sinners, ala PacifistAg. Paul is telling them that this point about which they take pride is something for which they should be ashamed. They are not to tolerate the unrepentant sinners among them, but are to exercise their authority and purge them from the church.
That isn't to say that we shouldn't take in the repentant. Of course we should, but for those who will not acknowledge their sinful ways as being ungodly and do not wish to depart from them, they should be purged.
This is the crux of the Church of Hospice versus the Church. I believe Fightin was the first to explain it this way. The first merely provides comfort to the spiritually dying. The second seeks to help God heal the spiritually sick, but will not tolerate the terminal to spread their disease to others. Paul also speaks of this when he says, "
Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
The seeming intolerance of myself and a few others is only the extrapolation of this to the civil authorities for matters of morality. We borrow on Romans 13 for this. The Civil Authority is to punish the evil with the power of the Sword. That is the authority that has been given to them by God. They too have a role to play. It is their role to try and rid society of evil, so that all don't become infected by the cancer of immorality.
I'm not sure where you fall on the Pacifist Spectrum of True Christianity, but don't be fooled by his message of great tolerance. It is the sincerity and truth that will heal the sinner. Jesus never told the adulteress, "you do you, I love you no matter what." He told her, "sin no more."
Remember, patriot, what they took from you. Your nation's identity, its religion, and its people are no more. Remember how we got here.
