The Battle of Our Age; Liberalism vs Christianity

[@breem1924]

What you said toward the end there.. yes! As a woman when I first read we are supposed to submit to our husbands it upset me. But now, I understand that if I truly love and trust a man, I feel good submitting if he is a Godly man and he can take care of me

[@PremodernBloke61]

I agree with your central point that the objective standard (external) by which we make all of our moral judgements and even how we are to organize and rule our society is the Bible and not our own subjective (internal) feelings. The only point that I disagree with you is when you say that we should not legislate morality. Most laws are, in essence, legislating morality. Legislating morality can't be avoided. If we make abortion (baby murder) illegal, we are legislating morality. The important distinction is between crimes and sins. All crimes are sins, but not all sins should be crimes. We should not attempt to make it illegal to commit sins that are not crimes. So, the Christian magistrate should be careful in deciding what sins rise to the level of crimes. We have lots of good early Protestant church history to study to see how the Christian magistrate should weigh these things and rule (legislate) righteously.

[@TonyHatton-ue7bz]

Well said. When the visible church becomes overly magisterial then the church could lose its salt and light. Thanks Tom.

[@michaelwilson9986]

Well said as always.. I sure hope your getting in some trigger time n fishing

[@HWHolmgren]

Tom, it's an interesting dichotomy you've chosen to discuss. Usually these kinds of discussions revolve around 2 things that are diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive, black/white kinds of things (not in a racial sense, but in a metaphorical sense). Liberal and Christian can--and do--exist in the same person. Just like conservative and (fill in your own non-Christian religion here). They're simply not mutually exclusive. You may disagree, but this is why the first amendment exists, and is no less important than another amendment near and dear to our hearts, the second.

[@myparceltape1169]

The full sentence goes: Wives submit yourself to your husbands AS TO THE LORD. I read that to be that if your husband is not submitting to the Lord then you don't need to do what he tells you. A bit harsh on some men, I grant you but it is certainly not a dictate to put Mrs Rivers down. And yes, there are some bits of God's Law that might make a Christian pause.

[@janszeneri1750]

Where, other than your own opinion/law, do you read that in the Bible? So children only need obey their parents if the parents are submitting to God? We don’t need to submit to the police officer unless he’s submitting to God? Don’t think so. Now, if your husband tells you to break God's law, you are free to obey God over your husband. I find it ironic Christian women will submit to their atheist boss at work, but refuse to submit the their husband at home, WHEN GOD SPECIFICALLY COMMANDS IT.

[@myparceltape1169]

@@janszeneri1750 We have to obey the laws of the land, but we ought not put ourselves in the position that we are torn apart. Yes, eventually you will find some countries where you are not allowed to worship. Remember Daniel? Don't run away with the idea that belief in self is better than trust in God. The 1st Commandment is what the others hang from. It doesn't say that you should do what Moses tells you to do. Now, as we had already discussed how Christ was supreme some of us had smiles on their faces when we were going to start Colossians 3v18. The wives were to submit - but it was conditional ! The husbands had to be worth it in the Lord's eyes. And they also had to love their wives, which could be difficult if you didn't want to. Far less not being harsh. As expected, some couples looked at each other and wondered how they could do better. For each other and for God. You see, we are God's ambassadors on earth. For those of us who had children, if they hadn't known where their children were, they looked forwards to seeing them soon. They had some things to check up on, help them with their schoolwork etc. Occasionally two men would annoy each other. It turned out to be an unsettled point of scripture. The 'angels dancing on a pinhead' type. Actually they were good friends.

[@superman9772]

i think i need an expanded definition of your terms "internal" and "external" ... i didn't quite understand that... kinda went over my head

[@Taterstiltskin]

I think you're speaking on Progressivism not Liberalism. Liberal ideology has all sorts of good and bad. Today we think of free speech as conservative, but this is fairly recent in history, to our founding fathers it and much else we attribute to conservatism were actually liberal concepts. Conservatism likewise has much wrong, depending on when (and where) we look at that in history. Also, we should absolutely impose God's moral and good law when and where we can. All through the old testament scriptures, God commanded His people to treat the sojourner as one of them (extending His grace to the gentile even then) but the condition given on living with God's people was that they had to submit to God's law. If anyone is to live together, the ruling faction absolutely must impose their concept of law on anyone else who wants to live with them, or there will not be a functional society. Look what happened every time the Jews intermarried with the gentiles. There's a logic to that.

[@HWHolmgren]

Tom, you and I must not ever forget that we are US citizens owing largely to the open border policy that the native Americans had.

[@ewaysrevenge]

The native Americans didn’t have any border policy. They were less developed than the rest of the world. North America was taken by force and the natives didn’t “allow” anything to happen

[@HWHolmgren]

@@ewaysrevenge Thank you for eloquently reinforcing my point. No border policy=open border policy, unless inside your borders is simply a place no one wants to be.

[@ewaysrevenge]

@@HWHolmgren Well they didn’t have a government or concept of policies so I wasn’t exactly agreeing. It sounded like you’re arguing for open borders now based on the fact that the natives got conquered. If I misjudged then my apologies.

[@HWHolmgren]

@@ewaysrevenge No, open borders is obviously a stupid policy for any nation to have. It's not a new problem, and it's not a Trump or Biden created problem. It's been an issue that's been ignored for way too long. But I'm going to back out on this now. Don't want to hijack Tom's topic any further. Thanks for your time.