Comments on: Christians in America, Intro

By: Doug Cooper

Doug Cooper — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:59:34 +0000

Hi Bruce…Welcome aboard!
You’ll get no argument from me here. I am getting ready to post the next segment of this mind-flow and I think it will begin to address some of what you’ve brought up.

By: Bruce Winter

Bruce Winter — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:58:28 +0000

Doug, this is a great theme to be talking about & I’ve been watching to see what kind of comments/feedback you get. I’m not a part of your group, but I’ve been involved in a similar group here in Midland. I have a couple of random thoughts about your last three paragraphs: I agree that the fall led to a tendency to look at things two dimensional…good/bad, Christian/non-Christian, us/them. As you say, we see this in politics and the church all the time. But it seems that Christ saw things in 3 dimensional…where his way diverged from both ‘norms’ as in the two sons in Luke 15, or challenging the ‘conventional’ wisdom of religiousness in the Pharisees and the Samaritan woman. Jesus forces us to be other-minded, and not trusting in our conventional, ideological thinking. Oswald Sanders said, “It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong. There is only one true liberty – the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.”

By: Doug Cooper

Doug Cooper — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:58:56 +0000

Michael… Thanks for your comments!
With young adults, I don’t think the issues are abortion or sexuality. Maybe they should be, but I think those issues belong to us older guys. The current political discourse centers more around compassion, justice and environment and what should be the interplay of faith and politics in these areas? My hunch is that the dramatic swing of young Christians from Republic candidate to Democrat candidate in the last presidential election can almost entirely be attributed to Obama’s ability to perceive that these are the burning issues for younger people. In my opinion, his approach is contorted, but at least he knew what to talk about. The Republicans showed themselves to be extremely out of touch with what it on the hearts and mind of the younger voters.

By: Adam Baker

Adam Baker — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:05:39 +0000

Keep rolling on, Doug. My internal reactions to your post were interesting for me to assess as I read through it. I’m essentially very interested to see where you run with this discussion, and will continue to pay attention.
in Jesus,
Adam Baker

By: Michael Daugherty

Michael Daugherty — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:36:22 +0000

Doug…good stuff, and I fundamentally agree. Politics is simply the systematic application of influencing public opinion. Religion, I fear, is the politicising of faith. The “oil-and-water” there is that politics is a “manmade” entity, while faith is a pathway to God and Truth. Your basic frustration has to be similar to mine…Christians, who have “rationalized” through political influence on them, core tenets of the faith. They have bought the “influence” of politics to say that faith and politics MUST be separated. I say, your faith must govern your politics, or you can’t really call yourself a “Christian”. If your politics cause you to do something that Christ would not do…you have violated those limits. I agree with your premise, that young people today do not have a good enough foundation in the faith to use it to govern their politics. Hence, Christians rationalizing abortion, sexuality, and other issues from a political perspective, and NOT applying sound Christian principles to their politics.