The Declaration of Independence vs Romans chapter 13:1-7

[possum steak]

Alright, need some thoughts & opinions on this.

I won't copy & paste everything here as it will take up too much space. Contrast the DoI with Romans 13:1-7. Contrast the two and see what you come up with.

http://www.ushistory.org/DECLARATION/document/index.htm

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+13&version=NIV



Romans 13 seems to speak about rebelling against any government. Could it be that Paul was meaning that IF the government was a just & fair government, OR could he be referring to both just and unjust governments?

Now the Declaration of Independence in the 2nd paragraph states about overthrowing unjust governments when it's citizens are done wrong.

Could a case of the DoI's message about overthrowing unjust government be made as anti-Christian?
or
Would you think that Paul was meaning only just governments as far as Christians obeying?

 

[Israel]

Alright, need some thoughts & opinions on this.

I won't copy & paste everything here as it will take up too much space. Contrast the DoI with Romans 13:1-7. Contrast the two and see what you come up with.

http://www.ushistory.org/DECLARATION/document/index.htm

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+13&version=NIV



Romans 13 seems to speak about rebelling against any government. Could it be that Paul was meaning that IF the government was a just & fair government, OR could he be referring to both just and unjust governments?

Now the Declaration of Independence in the 2nd paragraph states about overthrowing unjust governments when it's citizens are done wrong.

Could a case of the DoI's message about overthrowing unjust government be made as anti-Christian?
or
Would you think that Paul was meaning only just governments as far as Christians obeying?

Do you think that Nero was a better ruler than King George?
That the cruelty and capriciousness of the emperors was exceeded by the British Crown?

 

[possum steak]

Do you think that Nero was a better ruler than King George?
That the cruelty and capriciousness of the emperors was exceeded by the British Crown?

I would not say that no.


Are you of the thought that the Declaration of Independence is anti-Christian then or what?

 

[Israel]

I would not say that no.


Are you of the thought that the Declaration of Independence is anti-Christian then or what?

I would say that the Lord instructed us to pay taxes, be subject to the King, and I have yet to see armed insurrection amongst his commandments.
Although I cannot say that the Declaration is "anti christian" as such...I would also be reluctant to attach the Lord's name in some instances as an endorsement of our endeavors.
Do I believe many of the founders confessed Christ? Yes.
But that no more makes any of their actions implicitly Godly because they chose to invoke his name.
God works in and through all things...

 

[hawglips]

I am 100% convinced that God was indeed behind the forming of the United States.

 

[Israel]

I like what Atlashunter posted elsewhere...

“I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well-administred; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administred for a Course of Years and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other.”

~Benjamin Franklin

^From the very beginning despotism was the expected end and it would be required by a corruption of the people.

But, of course...everyone can easily identify the

corruption of the people

when it is those people.

 

[gordon 2]

The words of the american constitution is basically influenced by European dissenter religions politics of the time. It was in fact and deed the opposition to the status quo politics of the time in England and Europe. What is said in the constitution was said in Europe. It so happens it was put into practice in America. Combine this to the ill will to pay taxes and a willingness to turn the shoulder to overseas overseers who administered the colonies and you get the motivation behind the constitution and the idea of a republic. The stress of dissenter religion is on the nobleness of the individual, which was in keeping to their understanding of Christianity, verses the stresses of social solidarity under the establishment politics and economics with all their sins.

Hawglips declaration that God was behind the forming of the US is at least in part true in that the the Virginia and Puritan colonists started the ball rolling. One was all about economics and the other was all about religious exile from the status quo and other dissenters who persecuted them. So it is true if God is behind american free enterprise economics and dissenter Christianity. But if God is not backing them... then he's off the mark.

As regards not getting too upset as a Christian by politics I suspect that Paul, who was a Roman, knew the benefits of public administration and the sins but also the workings of planting Christians within who's social orientations were very different. It must of been really, really shocking to the Christian what the sins of the conqueror pagan empire was, especially that the whole idea of Christianity was motivated by love from a new formed heart.

 

[Artfuldodger]

I think it just pertained to the Christians in Rome. Now the queer stuff Paul wrote, it pertains to us!

 

[gordon 2]

I think it just pertained to the Christians in Rome. Now the queer stuff Paul wrote, it pertains to us!

I agree that Romans was written with a Rome perspective. How do Christians, especially those gathered there and the new converts there interact with pagan authority?

"Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." is the last sentence in Romans 12.

Power can corrupt those who hail for it and those who oppose its corruptions. Christians do not fall prey-- seems to be the remedy of Romans.

So I suppose the questions is: Was it just to dissolve the bands from England--was it falling prey to corruptions? And one must admit that for some it must not have been, but for some it must of been.

 

[Israel]

I cannot but speak as one having always found in himself only resistance to authority. That which would be acknowledged as having power to rightly exercise limit over me. I feared pain...surely...but I would never, could never, have any respect as to what claimed to have authority over me to its infliction.

It might be a form of pride to declare myself the most rebellious, as it would be to the "most" of anything, but I do not believe I can honestly deny that with whatever ability I found to resist, I did exercise that to the very "most" I could.

No one knew more, no one was smarter, no one was ever more able (if I wanted to be as Mickey Mantle...I surely could by application of myself to it...and the only reason I was not...was only because..."I did not want to") I was unwilling to concede a thing in limit of myself.

Even if, by testing some merely appeared to exceed me, it was all and only because they as foolish...took the test more seriously. Tell me, what hope of a young man...and growing man...can be found as cure to that?

Our God. Our God is so wise. He knows man. He knows how each will come to find a something of desire to have, of which he will be shown unable to either keep, or lie to himself about. And how, in loss of that, its escape, or its removal, a man may be shown a plain failing. It may be many lessons..to a culmination...but God is above all...patient.

In that moment...despite all his best efforts, greatest exertion to posses that which is removed, he can no longer find place except despair and frustration in his plain inability to keep or possess. And if he is given grace to see his failing, not in some matter of periphery...but in that which is of utmost consequence to himself, as perceived of himself (and about which he can no longer lie)...grace may be displayed.

Only God (I believe) is able to preserve a man through the display of all his lying to himself about himself...and keep him to the "right amount" of despair...short of suicide. The Godly sorrow that leads to repentance that need not be repented of. But, this is only my experience. As self exalting rebel.

Did I ever, at that time, even think myself one? No, I was merely me in exercise of wants and needs. And totally convinced of all ability of self fulfillment. Of course I would have laughed at any who might say "you are appearing as God to yourself"...O! Please...it's just me being me. (yet always thinking "and the darn best me...you will ever see!") It didn't have to be said...it was simply always acted out.

Now, part of this mystery that also cannot be denied as I look at it, was how, in spite of this...there was also an attendant and deeply functioning sense of inferiority! Crazy, right?

I look now, in seeing, occasionally trying to decide or determine chicken and egg. Which was truest...more fundamental...and which was in reaction...to the other? What matters not as much to me is any answer beyond the recognition of crazy. Surely nutzo. Whack job.

I say all of this to lay out the only study of a rebel I have been allowed first hand knowledge of. He may not be weird enough yet to me as perhaps he should in seeking to see the obedience of Christ, to know the submission of Christ as my salvation, God knows. Hidden corners of his yet residence may indeed be what is trying in that, as a veil might yet conceal a thing...but what I have seen of "myself" as given against what I have been allowed to see of the Lord...is in daily display to ensure (if even made through frequently needed painful lesson) I am not Him.

The rebel consciousness, if I may call it that, may be a thing...God knows, it may be not. And even if it is, it does not mean I have any apprehension of it...and truly, not even what I may say is my own. In fact...it might be the only rebel that I don't see, is the one I think I do see.

Every nation that is...is only remaining in some form of victory against what either once exercised dominion over it...or has been able to resist its conquer, and by whatever means...even acquiescence, its dissolution. And only at God's will.

I believe there are "national prides", and some might even see them as more than only necessary...but good. But my concern, if I am allowed to have any...is in my revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and again...if allowed to have any...to what else trust only in that name for justification.

Just as I have learned it is not sufficiently beneficial to myself to merely repeat a thing...and therefore have any trust in my repetition, if my own ear is tuned against vain repetitions...then...

Well, the Lord has chosen to allow me sent to a place where once many, if not most Klan members were "good Baptists"...and here I must learn to live, loving.

But were I to think either a tradition or history can hold sway over the Lord's grace...I need only look at my own, and put only my salvation in question if treasuring any doubts.

God has also seen fit to share black great grandchildren with me in whom He has granted I find hilarious delight. Do not think any of my own natural inclination toward racism is therefore displayed as null and void. It's an almost embarrassing confession and would be, except it's true.

I yet deal almost daily with unwholesome thoughts when being faced with shot up thugs and thuglets and/or the havoc they have caused. Or, how my mind bends a certain way when finding out some certain perpetrator of some outrage is of a certain color.

But then I am rebuked and reproved, not even necessarily by thoughts of my own precious great grandchildren...but how it is made plain to me how much I need our Lord when the truth comes that at any given moment I really don't have any inclination to like most white people either. But there is no shelter in that. My own "selfism" is ready to draw a circle so tight...that only Christ can reveal...

It just shows a man fit for the cross. A rebel. Desperately in need of it. And the One who once hung there. To give the only comfort for what in Him, and through Him, was hung there.

 

[gordon 2]

37] Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. ... [39] And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. [40] On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

I read the last bit as love thy neighbor because he/she is just as much part of who you are as your unique person ( ality) is yourself. You are an individual because of them and yourself as an individual, you are not separate --- yet you possess individual autonomy.

So it sort of takes care of the trajectory of one's social outlook and one's individual outlook.

And so for many Ayn Rand is shockingly wrong and so shockingly right. When you have to arm yourself against your neighbor--alarm bells don't always sound the same alarm.

 

[Israel]

37] Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. ... [39] And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. [40] On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

I read the last bit as love thy neighbor because he/she is just as much part of who you are as your unique person ( ality) is yourself. You are an individual because of them and yourself as an individual, you are not separate --- yet you possess individual autonomy.

So it sort of takes care of the trajectory of one's social outlook and one's individual outlook.

And so for many Ayn Rand is shockingly wrong and so shockingly right. When you have to arm yourself against your neighbor--alarm bells don't always sound the same alarm.

I still wish I could find your post from a few years ago when I think the discussion was about spiritual vs carnal, or spiritual and carnal/natural. Obviously stuff was said by a few as we went our ways in the conversation about what appeared to us as all as the nature of the two. One is this way, the other is that way...etc.

But it was you I believe, who said something that remains with me because to me you summed it up well, and if I may it was something like:

"So then, perhaps the difference is that the carnal man can only see one set of things, while the spiritual man can see two". Or perhaps "one way" and "two ways"

Yes, the carnal/natural man cannot perceives spiritual things.

But the spiritual man, able to perceive spiritual matters, no less can identify natural things...even to dispositions, etc. Even as Paul was able to enumerate some listing of the "works of the flesh". And also of those things he was now given a taste for, able to discern as the fruit of the spirit. A contrast was made plain.

And far more recently (I believe even within the last 3-6 months) in what I believe was some discussion of the gospel and again something was said (I believe by you) whose sense to me in regards to a distinguishing was something to the effect, or as appeared to me, along the lines of..."it may not be that at any time I could claim or identify what is the true, for I am often in the place where I have no more than a determining of what I know it is not".

I have looked...but cannot find, but that is the sense I remember of your words. If I am wrong, surely reprove me and help. But if they, in any way hold a familiar fragrance; how that sometimes I may not (Israel speaking) see all clearly as the way forward (in the Lord) in a given situation, I may yet be found knowing what paths, so to speak, have been marked as off limits. Or, something like that.

More simply, I may not be able to tell which glass holds pure water...but if I have been given to know which are poison, do I...drink, just for the sake of drinking? The question then is...will the man wait for the pure to be revealed, or in need of drinking (even as men driven beyond despair on a life raft may resort to drinking sea water) drink merely anything to satisfy that impulse?

Jesus never denied the effects of gravity. How that there's a pull (not denied), but that can be overcome.

It's too easy for me to sit in judgment from my vantage (especially if any of that vantage is owed in any part unseen to a price paid by some for its 'propping up'). And perhaps in all, such judgment is to me too easy, period. God knows.

I'd be a fool to deny (as it seems so plain) the gravity that pulls me to my own righteousness...that which is poison both to me, and others, in both the drinking and the spewing.

And God forbid, that in my leisure (as beneficiary) I judge some who "in that boat" were forced to drinking under the harshest of duress a thing I think "I would never do". And yet I may say for "God knows how to make a fool of me" thinking I know what that means...and find myself only in invitation by challenge that is answered by Heaven "Oh, really?"..."You think you know?" Let's see what you know...about pressure. Let's separate what you think you know...from what is known of you.

I may be more of an "American Christian" than my self righteousness may let me see. For God knows what rises in me when I see or hear some Mullahs somewhere railing about the "great Satan" and how they think their own religious piety and extreme devotions afford them that seat, as they whack their heads to bleeding to show.

But then, I have to admit...it really isn't very much different from what rises when my own wife tells me "you don't know what you're talking about!" And God knows what I may do to that one closer to home...if I allow myself free rein to my thirst to be slaked in reviling of "them Mullahs". I'm just too weak.

I am one who simply cannot afford any collateral damage. (Though in times past I thought myself immune to such working)

And let us each walk in that to which we have attained.