What do we do with Romans 12 and then 13? Camp as an anabaptist-style approach wants to call on the government to embody Christian virtue, criticizing George Bush for leading the nation to war after 9/11 than leading us to prayer.
I myself heavily lean anabaptist and would have loved to see us pray and reach out rather than bomb. But that said, I'm torn by how on earth God uses governments to reward the good and punish the evil WITH THE SWORD. The tensions between Romans 12 and Romans 13 are a bit much for me.
Is the simple answer that Christians live as Romans 12 people and let the non-Christians do the dirty work of the Romans 13 world? Clearly Camp is bothered by Christians who wield the sword. It makes me uncomfortable too. But then that leaves me wondering what the alternative is for Christians - avoid working for public office, the military, the police, etc.???
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I do love Camp's point about "what if everyone did that?" being refuting with, well, if everyone acted Christian there wouldn't be war in the first place, then would there?! Nice! I think thats a great comeback!
Secondly, when the church picks up the sword (or at a minimum urges its government to pick up the sword) its awfully hard to go and pick up their cross at the same time. Followers of Jesus are summoned to Golgotha. (Oh yeah, I can see the mass appeal and the long lines ready to "sign up" right now). And yet... Camp argues we've gotten ourselves into our current mess by not picking up the cross. Hmmm... maybe some things ARE worth it!
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Last night I saw the film "Devil's Own" (Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt) about an IRA agent who comes to the US in search of missiles.
There are several very spiritually enlightening scenes in the film, despite its violence also (but the violence really does set up the spiritual themes).
In one scene, a Catholic priest is speaking about renouncing the devil and his ways. The IRA militant listens but is clearly unpersuaded.
In another scene, the IRA guy confronts the man he's been living with saying that violence is the only way to make things right, that if the other man had had his daughter killed, he wouldn't simply react with "oh thats too bad, oh well, let's bury her and move on."
I'm not getting the quotes exactly right, but I found both scenes intriguing in light of this current blog post on Romans 12 vs. Romans 13.
Thoughts?
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Just a quick note on one comment you made. I expect Jesus didn't think there would be "long lines." Maybe that is another ripple in the Constantian cataract, the idea that many should be saved. "Many are called but few are chosen." "Broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be that find it. But narrow is the gate . . . and few . . . . And maybe we think, like Constantine, that we can do a better job than the Holy Spirit and bring whole populations into Christ (or at least Christendom.)
Hmmm . . .
Dale, you're on to it (see my other post about Lipscomb's gospel and my most recent comment post)...
But I think you're on to something here. Perhaps we must rest in the fact that the road truly is wide that leads to destruction. I'll never give up hope for others to be saved, but perhaps I need to lower my expectations while simultaneously upping the bar.
Perhaps for too long we've done the opposite: expecting big "results" and lower the bar to accomplish them. Hmmmm...
Thanks for this thought Dale.
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Page 47 (2nd ed.) paragraph beginning with "during the fiasco..." I'm struck by the following exchange Camp knew:
"If Jesus had been an Air Force chaplain ... He would have been court martialed"
Wow! Again I return to my question about Romans 12 and Romans 13. Or Sermon on the Mount vs. "give to Caesar what is Caesar's"... is there a place for Christians in the military or police force? Or does kingdom living prohibit this sort of thing as much as it would prohibit, say, a Christian prostitute or pimp or drug dealer or gambler?
It seems to me that Paul really is saying "leave the messy stuff to the non-Christians" - is this a correct interpretation? And if so, is this an unfair demand by Christians placed upon non-Christians?
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