Does God Want Us To Be Revolutionaries or Reformers?

1/9/2015

I wonder if this is a natural arc for most Christians, or something that is just happening to me personally: As I have gotten older, I have become less radical, and more reformist-minded.

Unlike my years of being an angry youth, I generally no longer sympathize with those who advocate the complete destruction / reconstruction of existing institutions. I have lived long enough now, as an American Christian, to see many boastful religious experiments (like the anti-church-spirited cell-church craze that was so hot during the 1980s) either crash and burn, or at least get way toned down.

I do not like it when certain people mock or disparage moderation. Not all moderation is cowardice, vagueness of conviction, or reflective of woolly thinking. Good moderation is aware that zeal and pragmatism work together, and that fire uncontrolled can burn everything down, not just the bad things. The Tsar was bad, but the Communists were ten times worse.

It's one thing to support getting rid of corruption in government, it's quite another thing to want to get rid of government. The first is reform, the second is radicalism, and the second thing is an evil. If you are talking about eradicating the KGB, or the KKK, or Boko Haram, sure, absolutely. But most institutions are not those things.

Even though Martin Luther was a strong personality, he was trying to rescue and reform the Church, not blow it all to smithereens.

Justin link

1/9/2015 12:00:21 pm

" If you are talking about eradicating the KGB, or the KKK, or Boko Haram, sure, absolutely." I don't think it's that easy, depends on how you want to eradicate them.
I'd say it's complicated. We're to submit to authorities, but to what end? John MacArthur says the American revolution was "sinful rebellion," but a lot of pastors and Biblically-educated folk in that time thought long and hard about the decisions and came to a different conclusion. My understanding is that Thomas Paine and others were influenced by Aquinas' work on when it's appropriate to depose tyrants. Bonhoeffer wrestled quite a bit with action against Hitler. It's never cut-and-dry.

Jack

1/10/2015 04:36:15 am

The Founding Fathers were not radicals, though. Their objections to violations performed by the King were based on established British law, their original 13 colonial contracts, and precedents going all the way back to the Magna Carta. This is a reason why MacArthur is wrong, by the way -- by breaking all these contracts, the Crown legally put itself into the position of "invading foreign power." (I also think MacArthur is wrong in absolutizing Romans 13, as well as hermeneutically isolating it from the complete context of Scripture 13. I believe there are exceptions that not only allow force against one's own government, but ethically require it.)

JTapp

1/11/2015 06:18:31 am

I agree with you on MacArthur (it's also 2 Peter where he makes similar comments). He recently said that churches were wrong to make united statements in protest of government activity (context was a conversation on Ferguson). I think our democracy doesn't we exercise our voices, something that wasn't available under the rule of the Caesars.
You make a good point on the founders, any works you'd recommend on the subject? I'm hoping to read a book or two on the theological wrestling of the founders as they made their decisions.

While traveling vver the holidays I visited a well-known church and learned from the pulpit that the Declaration of Independence was "God's covenant with America," hence armed overthrow was outright blessed. I figure the truth is somewhere between that and MacArthur's position. :-)

Jack

1/11/2015 06:34:34 am

That other thing sounds like British Israelism. It is certainly unscriptural. The Bible describes five covenants. God created Adam in a works-covenant with Him (which is why Adam is parallel to Christ in Romans 5). That covenant ended in Eden. The Noahic covenant is with the entire human race. The Abrahamic covenant is with believing Jews (Romans 9), then God expanded it to include all believing Gentiles (Romans 11). The Mosaic covenant was with the Jews only, but ended at the cross. The New Covenant of salvation in Christ's blood fulfills all the shadows of the Mosaic covenant, and replaces Moses' covenant (Jeremiah 30-31). And that's all the covenants there are, there ain't no more.

I will need to look back to where I found that information about the Founding Fathers and the war of Independence. I might have just heard it preached somewhere, and I thought it made good sense.

MacArthur is all about radical ecclesiastical independence.

JTapp

1/28/2015 12:32:26 am

I found a debate hosted by Baylor's Research on Religion podcast between three scholars as to whether or not Christians should have taken up arms during the American Revolution. Haven't listened to it yet, but it looks promising:
They held a debate a couple years ago between Hertog and other scholars as to whether Christians should have taken up arms during the American Revolution or not. I can't wait:
http://www.researchonreligion.org/protestantism/should-christians-have-fought-in-the-us-war-of-independence

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