Bob Brown, Steve, the Church is alive. You are using the wrong yardstick. Membership in a building that you call a church is not the proper measure of how many Christians there are. Laws that follow Christian precepts is not the proper measure of how many Christians there are. Christians are a minority group now and were a minority group 100 years ago. The difference is that there were more material benefits in pretending to be one 100 years ago. You may find this message disheartening but you need to consider Jesus' words. Matthew 22: 14.
I teach government. I can tell you I don't qualify as a socialist. If you have your own definition for "socialist" that I qualify as, then Jesus and Calvin must qualify as "socialist" as well. You are far too interested in slapping a label on someone who doesn't agree with you and denying their Faith. I will pray for you that the Lord might lift the anger and hatred that seems evident in your heart.
This is a grammatical thing: I stated "for their use of the law" not for "using the law" - there is a big difference. When you reference Matthew 23:23 you prove the point I was making.
If a church simply goes about the business of observing and studying the Word the congregation will quite readily know what side of an issue they should be on. We don't need political talking points or self-help mantras in church. We need to rigorously grow in the Word. As far as church membership, does anyone really believe that in earlier times when there were significant material and social benefits to be had by attending church that those additional members in the body were really Christian?
This may be my last response as I'm not interested in provoking unproductive, extremist comments.
For the political record (which you guys are very interested in here): I'm for less spending, less taxing (once the debt is resolved), stronger state and local government, weaker federal government. I'm for Christian charity and for some social spending (though not to the extent we have today). I am pro-life and I am against capital punishment because of the imperfections of our legal system. I am for public schools and private schools. Public schools have existed in this country since it was a country and are not the engines of some sort of societal decline. This society has always been sinful because WE are sinful and now we have all sorts of new technologies to help us indulge in sin. We also have an urban, mobile, atomistic lifestyle which greatly weakens the power of public pressure to conform to at least a public display of etiquette and morality. You guys are looking in the wrong place when you focus on institutional rules. It's much bigger than that and much harder to fight.
You guys can be pretty hateful for Christians; criticizing me for being a public school teacher because you think I'm comfortable with 'taking money out of another person's pocket', describing people who don't have your political views as "sheeple", etc. You also seem to think you know more about my job than I do... which you don't. AmericanVision seems a bit too fixated on worldly issues, especially money, for my taste. I think you need to study up on the Covenant. This focus you guys have on Old Testament Law is curious considering that Jesus criticized the pharisees for their use of the Law. I question whether some of the strongly-worded, sometimes hostile, views among these comments on articles spring forth out of Christian love or out of Worldly desires.
I don't have to jump through hoops for you.
Your statements are incredibly inaccurate. Students are graded. There are three Christian clubs at my high school, all sponsored by Christian teachers. Homosexuality is not promoted. I teach history and you don't know what you are talking about. Abortions are not promoted and are certainly not carried out. UN based "global" society is not taught. Students are taught world history with added details concerning European history. My school doesn't have a metal detector. Liberals? I think you are trying to make your religion fit your politics.
I am Christian. I have doubts about folks who try to use Christianity to justify their political or economic obsessions.
The k-12 peer grouping has nothing to do with evolution. It has to do with intelligence, maturity, and behavior. Recognition of brain growth is not automatically related to evolution.
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