Theology Question

Mandy and I were visiting her grandparents church in Fort Worth this past Sunday. The sermon was about Christians and government. The preacher brought up a point that I have been wrestling with for three days now and I wanted to hear your thoughts. He stated (from scripture) that all governments were put in place by God. He stressed ALL governments…even someone like Hitler or Pol Pot. He implied that even if we don’t understand it, God has his purposes for installing some governments. I am sort of OK with that point (not really, but it wasn’t what bothered me most). He backtracked on himself and said that God works in two ways. Basically his argument went like this. If it is a good and just government then God actively worked to put it in place and if it an evil government then God passively allowed that government to take power for some reason. I just can’t get my head around that. It seems to me that either God is working actively in the world to bring about His purposes or He is allowing things to happen on their own and working through those events. I just don’t think that you can have it both ways. It seems like by doing that we are giving God a kind of revisionist history, making Him exactly what we need Him to be without Him becoming too scary or reproachable.

Any thoughts…please?

Jeremy

Speaking of Rick Warren…

I don’t know if any of you caught this during your busy weekend, but Rick Warren, pastor at a California church called Saddleback, hosted the Saddleback Civil Forum with both presidential candidates. It was essentially a one-on-one interview between Warren and McCain and Obama individually, free from religious speak, rhetoric or evangelism. Just a candid talk with the two men who will be running to discuss some of the issues that are on the front of many evangelical/spiritual/protestant voters’ minds.

You can find plenty of Youtube clips and press coverage about the event, which drew a very large audience and worldwide praise for Warren in his ability to be fair, concise and probing at the same time, but one thing stuck out to me when I heard it.

As you can see from this article and from countless other places around the web, McCain was asked a series of questions about evil in this country and around the world. He used Sept. 11 as an example of evil that must be defeated. Then, when asked what he would do to counteract this evil, should he be the nominee, McCain said he would follow Osama Bin Laden (whom he stated is responsible for Sept. 11 and many other attacks) to the gates of hell to bring him to justice.

This, of course, drew some supportive applause from the crowd. And while I am sure most men or women in his situation would have said the same thing, I want to turn the tables around on us and ask our group that question.

So, what do you think? You are now in charge of defeating this “evil” and deciding what to do with this man. How do you respond? As Christians, do we bring this man to justice with any means necessary because he represents something that can destroy our freedoms and livelihood or do we “put away the sword” and try some other form of creative negotiation or meeting of the minds while forgiving him of what he has done?

Just looking for your thoughts because it seemed like a fascinating question McCain was forced to answer.
RK

“Lost” and Theology

Ok, So I know I don’t actually watch Lost, but given the phenomenon it has become to a lot of ya’ll, I thought I’d pass this along.

Lost and theology