tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3543355.post115116644466736323..comments2023-11-15T17:55:18.051-05:00Comments on MarkDaniels.Blogspot.com: "Jesus is Not a Republican"Mark Danielshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18205344762960756655noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3543355.post-1151377441957271052006-06-26T23:04:00.000-04:002006-06-26T23:04:00.000-04:00Reader:Thank you so much! What you wrote over ther...Reader:<BR/>Thank you so much! What you wrote over there was really an honor.<BR/><BR/>God bless!<BR/><BR/>MarkMark Danielshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18205344762960756655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3543355.post-1151376783767539352006-06-26T22:53:00.000-04:002006-06-26T22:53:00.000-04:00Hey, Mark:I ended up linking to this in a comment ...Hey, Mark:<BR/><BR/>I ended up linking to this in a comment on one of Cal's posts today, though it caught my eye over the weekend.<BR/><BR/>I appreciated the thoughtfulness of your post, as always.reader_iamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17352836883752091339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3543355.post-1151376731884332822006-06-26T22:52:00.000-04:002006-06-26T22:52:00.000-04:00Hey, Mark:I ended up linking to this in a comment ...Hey, Mark:<BR/><BR/>I ended up linking to this in a comment on one of Cal's posts today, though it caught my eye over the weekend.<BR/><BR/>I appreciated the thoughtfulness of your post, as always.reader_iamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17352836883752091339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3543355.post-1151351735087330822006-06-26T15:55:00.000-04:002006-06-26T15:55:00.000-04:00You know what, Charlie? I was reading too much Dan...You know what, Charlie? I was reading too much Daniels into Balmer. I quickly re-scanned his article earlier and totally missed that paragraph. You were right and I was wrong. But he still has to defend himself.<BR/><BR/>MarkMark Danielshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18205344762960756655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3543355.post-1151332215216044432006-06-26T10:30:00.000-04:002006-06-26T10:30:00.000-04:00Charlie:First of all, I didn't see Balmer accusing...Charlie:<BR/>First of all, I didn't see Balmer accusing the Religious Right of trying to establish a "theocracy." <BR/><BR/>He did object to their attempts to impose a particular version of Christian ethics on the body politic. <BR/><BR/>He did accuse them of not incorporating a fuller sensitivity to the entire will of God when it comes to protecting life, for example. <BR/><BR/>He did accuse them of being apologists for the powerful.<BR/><BR/>He did says that God is not a Republican. Where I think he went wrong is in implying that God might be a Democrat. Hence, my opening statements.<BR/><BR/>Second: I agree with you and stated it in my original post here and reiterated it in the update, I believe that Christians has every right to participate in politics. Indeed, I believe that they should participate. They should also be guided by their prayer, their study of God's Word, and their Christian sensibilities as they vote, donate to candidates and causes, and so on.<BR/><BR/>What I object to, and object to strenuously, is the attempt by some clergy types and Christian leaders to hijack the Gospel, presuming to enlist Jesus in support of their own specific political agendas. <BR/><BR/>I object to them allowing politicians to use the church, as is happening this year in Ohio's gubernatorial race, to collect funds for political campaigns. <BR/><BR/>I object to preachers who presume to tell their flocks that Jesus Christ prefers Candidate X or Party R or D. <BR/><BR/>Faithful, Bible-believing, Jesus-following Christians can and do disagree about political issues. For example, the party to which I belong--the Republican--generally advocates an end to abortion, certainly a position rooted in Christian ethics. But Democrats frequently oppose capital punishment, also because of the value they place on human life. You could go down a list of issues like these and show the Christian underpinnings of opposing views.<BR/><BR/>Rare is the political issue on which a "Christian" position is unambiguously clear. <BR/><BR/>The late founder of a worldwide adult literacy movement, Frank Laubach, was also a man of constant prayer. Three years ago, I posted something about one of Laubach's books on prayer. It bears some relevance to this subject. Here's what I wrote:<BR/><BR/>"I keep a file of meaningful quotes drawn from the books I read. Prayer: The Mightiest Force in the World is full of great quotes. In the current international crisis though, several stand out:<BR/><BR/>"'Most of us will never enter the White House and offer advice to the President. Probably he will never have time to read our letters [or our e-mails, I thought, as I read this]. But we can give him what is far more important than advice. We can give him a lift into the presence of God, make him hungry for divine wisdom...We can visit the White House with prayer as many times a day as we think of it, and every such visit makes us a channel between God and the President.'<BR/><BR/>"He also says that in our praying for the President and other leaders, '[w]e do not 'persuade God to try harder'...; it is our world leaders, our statesmen and church men [sic] whom we persuade to try harder. We help God when we pray. When great numbers of us pray for leaders, a mighty invisible spiritual force lifts our minds and eyes toward God. His Spirit flows through our prayer to them, and He can speak to them directly.'<BR/><BR/>"I laughed out loud when I read this assertion by Laubach: 'We can do more for the world with prayer than if we were to walk into Whitehall, London, or the Kremlin in Moscow, and tell those men [sic] what to do---far more! If they listened to our suggestions, we would probably be more or less wrong. But what God tells them, when they listen to Him, must be right. It is infinitely better for world leaders to listen to God than for them to listen to us.' These lines made me laugh because I thought how right Laubach was. I remembered how many times I held doggedly to an opinion about a political matter only to learn how misguided and wrong my view had been. How much better it is to humbly and trustingly place matters in God's hands, confident in His infinitely superior judgment. And how much better it is to put frail human leaders in God's hands than trying to manhandle them with my very fallible opinions and judgments!"<BR/><BR/>Of course, Christians can and should be involved in political affairs. But, except in the rarest of instances, no official church body, clergy person, or Christian leader should say more than, "As Christians, we think this. But we can't claim the imprimatur of heaven for it." <BR/><BR/>Most of the time, except on those things directly addressed in Scripture, nobody has the authority to say, "Thus says the Lord..." That's not only preumptuous. It borders on the idolatrous, idolizing either our selves and our own intellects or idolizing the ideologies to which we dare to subordinate Jesus Christ.<BR/><BR/>Thank you, Charlie, for your thoughtful comments. I hope that I have clarified my own views here. Balmer will have to answer for himself. But I don't think he was trotting out the theocracy charge. But his piece had good insights in it, I thought, which triggered some reactions from me.<BR/><BR/>[By the way, the link to my Laubach piece is: http://markdaniels.blogspot.com/2003/03/learning-to-pray-from-man-who-taught.html<BR/><BR/>MarkMark Danielshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18205344762960756655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3543355.post-1151233918821712632006-06-25T07:11:00.000-04:002006-06-25T07:11:00.000-04:00Fox: Balmer is critical of GOP policies and gives ...Fox: <BR/>Balmer is critical of GOP policies and gives a litany of his concerns. <BR/><BR/>I meant my comments not to be a commentary on the Republicans, but on the Religious Right. <BR/><BR/>Pols will generally do anything they can to build their coalitions. If the Democrats could win over big-name evangelical Christian leaders and paint themselves as the party of the Christian faith, they would do it without hesitation. The idea for these folks, of either party, is to get votes and have power. Period.<BR/><BR/>My point is that it's wrong to allow the Name of Jesus Christ be used to legitimize any earthly political philosophy, even ones with which we may be sympathetic. It also sidetracks the Church from its fundamental mission.<BR/><BR/>MarkMark Danielshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18205344762960756655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3543355.post-1151207972658649092006-06-24T23:59:00.000-04:002006-06-24T23:59:00.000-04:00Hi Mark,Excellent post. I'm glad preachers of the ...Hi Mark,<BR/>Excellent post. I'm glad preachers of the real gospel of Jesus Christ are finally speaking up. I am really sck and tired of so-called evangelical Christians whining about being repressed and victimized. Nero victimized Christians when he fed them to the lions. No longer being able to dictate what everybody reads is not the nearly the same, and the attitude that one narrow fringe of one religious faith ought to be able to impose its understaning on everyone else has done much more violence to society, and to the cause of the Gospel of Jesus, than any anti-Christian efforts ever have.<BR/><BR/>As a citizen, I'm also very seriously concerned about the erosion of constituional rule and the rule of law in our land. The Christian Right continues to support politicians who seem more facist than Republican, and who believe they are above the law. What the religious right doesn't seem to understand is that Facists, once they fully consolidate their power, will have no more use for them, and they'll be subject to the same tyranny as the rest of us.foxwizardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14683504889536498174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3543355.post-1151199497589968312006-06-24T21:38:00.000-04:002006-06-24T21:38:00.000-04:00Deborah:Thank you for your comments. I do think mo...Deborah:<BR/>Thank you for your comments. I do think more Christians are getting turned off by the politicizaton of faith in Jesus Christ. <BR/><BR/>They're also chafing under the attempts by some to subordinate Christ to their preferred political agendas. Seldom can one draw a straight line between the Bible and a vote on a specific piece of legislation, policy proposal, or general election. It amounts to idolatry of ideology to suggest otherwise.<BR/><BR/>Danny:<BR/>I've studied Jehovah's Witnesses extensively and to me it's tragic how far from the witness of Scriptures their beliefs take people.<BR/><BR/>Thank you for commenting.<BR/><BR/>Anna:<BR/>Thanks also to you for taking the time to read and comment on the blog. I appreciate it.<BR/><BR/>I didn't say that being a Christian on the one hand, and being an active, engaged citizen on the other, were mutually exclusive things. In fact, I said that I felt Christians should be informed, active citizens.<BR/><BR/>What I object to is pastors and others claiming the mantle of leadership within the Church and even individual churches downsizing Christ and the Gospel by pretending that their personal political preferences are ordained by God.<BR/><BR/>I, as a Pastor, may have been wrong to run for political office two years ago because of the confusion my candidacy may have created. Even though I tried to tell people that I didn't claim that my views reflected God's directives, some may have automatically assumed me to believe that because of my profession.<BR/><BR/>God bless you. <BR/><BR/>MarkMark Danielshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18205344762960756655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3543355.post-1151187164431465112006-06-24T18:12:00.000-04:002006-06-24T18:12:00.000-04:00Hi Mark -I don't think being a Christian and being...Hi Mark -<BR/><BR/>I don't think being a Christian and being involved as a good citizen of our nation are mutually exclusive of each other. Christians should speak up and be active in BOTH arenas. <BR/><BR/>The charge that Christians are seeking to impose their sanctimonious brand of Christianity on others or want a theocracy is baseless in fact. No one is forcing anyone to become a Christian. However, more and more Christians are being told they cannot express their faith in the public square, they must be politically correct or face the consequences and their free speech and freedom of religion are being eroded. If we do not stand up and be counted, we will lose our freedoms.<BR/><BR/>While I have serious differences with some policies of the Republican Party and express them, they more closely reflect my views on issues of morality. Where a Republican is pro-abortion and a Democrat is pro-life, I'll vote for the Democrat or a third-party, pro-life candidate. It's not about the party, it's about living out my faith in the nitty-gritty areas of life.<BR/><BR/>AnnaAnnahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07312178252451756652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3543355.post-1151182992586920122006-06-24T17:03:00.000-04:002006-06-24T17:03:00.000-04:00Good post,you should know this about Jehovah's Wit...Good post,you should know this about Jehovah's Witnesses that their core dogma is that Jesus had his second coming 'invisibly' in 1914. <BR/><BR/>This date has it's origin from the second Adventist movement that in turn was derived from the William Miller apocalyptic movement of 1844. <BR/> <BR/>Do a google search and see for yourself,nearly every secular 'non-apostate' source say's that Jehovah's Witnesses are a Millerite "mutation" spin-off. <BR/>The 1914 date is a lie,which means that that the 1918 'sealing of the 144,000' is false too so the entire Watchtower doctrinal superstructure comes crashing down like a house of cards. <BR/> <BR/>The Watchtower is a man made cult of falsehoods from the get-go. <BR/><BR/>---<BR/>Tell the truth and don't be afraid--Danny Haszard http://www.dannyhaszard.comDanny Haszardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15147058185769448299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3543355.post-1151171604985563912006-06-24T13:53:00.000-04:002006-06-24T13:53:00.000-04:00Wow, wonderful post. Thanks, Mark.Balmer is absolu...Wow, wonderful post. Thanks, Mark.<BR/><BR/>Balmer is absolutely correct. And of course, torture is always evil and immoral. Rationalizations are just that: rationalizations to serve agendas and personal demons. <BR/><BR/>Both Republicans and Democrats have, indeed, had their turns at equating their faith with political partisanship. It's the religious right and Republicanism, though, that has cornered that 21st century market with arrogant (and even bullying) sanctimonious. Now, some even propose breaking up entire denominations when they don't get their way on specific issues. <BR/><BR/>The tide seems to be turning lately. More and more moderates seem to be repelled by, rather than attracted to, the trivialization of faith in service of the far-right political agenda. <BR/><BR/>And that is joyous news for both our great country and for the church.Deborah Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07681456264047358861noreply@blogger.com