John Schlitt To Guest On Beyond The Riff, Sunday Oct.2

[executioner]

I for one don't believe that about the Republicans or any other political party. I always pray about my voting decisions even on the local level. I vote probably about 70% of the time Republican and the other 30% a third party or independent. I don't vote for Democrats because their social issues are unbiblical and ungodly, and seem to always border on socialism. Probably about the only issue I would Democratic for would be on immigration.

[p-freak]

It's kind of funny to me that socialism often has such a negative connotation to it in America. I would think that as Christians we would all stand for a society where opportunities are evenly distributed and given to all. Everybody should have a chance to choose their own path in life and should have equal circumstances to start from. I know socialism has deteriorated into communism in the past and that because of the Cold War communism is really contaminated (and not only because of the Cold War but even more so because of its actual philosophy). But I don't understand why the idea of socialism seems to be so close to communism in American republican spheres. When there's name calling going on and they say that Obama is a socialist, I am always wondering what's wrong with that. So I strongly disagree with your suggestion that ungodly and unbiblical points of view seem to border on socialism, because that makes socialism sound even worse than ungodly and unbiblical.

That said, I'd rather not know John's political preference, because it would probably put me off. I hope we don't get much more of those politically motivated songs like The Cross Remains. The message is OK, but it's too much based on a specific political issue. Fortunately I'm not American, so I don't have to think to deeply about your political issues. Ours are already bad enough as it is.

[CatNamedManny]

I don't vote for Democrats because their social issues are unbiblical and ungodly.

I imagine you'd have a hard time convincing the millions of Christians who vote for Democrats on a fairly regular basis of the truthfulness of this statement.

[executioner]

I don't vote for Democrats because their social issues are unbiblical and ungodly.

I imagine you'd have a hard time convincing the millions of Christians who vote for Democrats on a fairly regular basis of the truthfulness of this statement.

I would basically say this in nonjudgemental way; if as a Christian you vote Democrat because in part of your Christian beliefs then I would have to consider that your beliefs do not to line up with God's Word.

[andreasbjerre]

It's kind of funny to me that socialism often has such a negative connotation to it in America. I would think that as Christians we would all stand for a society where opportunities are evenly distributed and given to all. Everybody should have a chance to choose their own path in life and should have equal circumstances to start from. I know socialism has deteriorated into communism in the past and that because of the Cold War communism is really contaminated (and not only because of the Cold War but even more so because of its actual philosophy). But I don't understand why the idea of socialism seems to be so close to communism in American republican spheres. When there's name calling going on and they say that Obama is a socialist, I am always wondering what's wrong with that. So I strongly disagree with your suggestion that ungodly and unbiblical points of view seem to border on socialism, because that makes socialism sound even worse than ungodly and unbiblical.

Very much agree!

[LivingRock]

. I hope we don't get much more of those politically motivated songs like The Cross Remains. The message is OK, but it's too much based on a specific political issue.

I'm not jumping into this discussion, because I know next to nothing about politics... I have to say, though, that I don't really see The Cross Remains as a political song. I realize it may have been written with politics in mind, I realize it may sound political to some. But for me, it's a powerful song that speaks of, well,... the Cross remaining. "It is time to act beyond our good intentions; pushing back, no matter what the cost. We won't let them build an altar on our sorrows... there'll be no laughing at our scars, they're now a part of who we are." You can take this to mean America and terrorists... or Christians vs. those who are against us... you could even use it as personal encouragement when someone's against you. Yes, I realize what kind of a program it was written for, but I've never seen the program, and would never have guessed that the song was considered political just by hearing the lyrics. Personally, I have no beef with it. Just my two cents.

All right, continue with what you all were saying and excuse my interruptions...

[CatNamedManny]

I don't vote for Democrats because their social issues are unbiblical and ungodly.

I imagine you'd have a hard time convincing the millions of Christians who vote for Democrats on a fairly regular basis of the truthfulness of this statement.

I would basically say this in nonjudgemental way; if as a Christian you vote Democrat because in part of your Christian beliefs then I would have to consider that your beliefs do not to line up with God's Word.

That's really an unfortunate thing to say.

To get this back on topic, "The Cross Remains" turned me off, as well. The less rhetoric we have portraying a bunch of militant nutjobs from the Middle East as representative of a billion-member religion, the better off we'll be as Christians and as a nation. "It's not what they say. Watch what they do. The evidence is falling down right in front of you." That sounds an awful lot like an encouragement to cynically reject the peaceful overtures of most Muslims and tar them all with the brush of 9/11.

There's also the question of how much the militant implications of the lyrics line up with the "turn the other cheek" message of Christ. Frankly, it feels like two opposing messages mashed together into one song. After 3:00 or more talking about how we won't let terrorists build an altar on our sorrow, how we should "push back no matter what the cost" and how there "will be no laughing at our scars," the end of the songs basically says: "But whatever happens, the cross remains." If that's true, then we should care a whole lot less about acting "beyond our good intentions" (what does that even mean?) and a whole lot more about portraying the love of Christ to all people, regardless of what was done by others in the name of their God. I mean, seriously, where does Jesus talk about pushing back? Is that the message of the cross? Either it's theologically sketchy, or it's a serious commingling of a secular state with Christianity, which didn't work well for Rome and wouldn't work well for us either.

Maybe I'm totally missing the point of the song, but it's what I get out of it, and the fact that it's written for an overtly political organization seems to reinforce that. All this to say, if John's new album goes any further in this direction, it's not worth my energy when I can listen to his vocals on 15 other albums that edify me.

[brent]

Not all Muslims are 100% practicing and adhere to their true faith. The same goes for Catholics, Mormons, Christians. Some pick and choose what they will take from their historical doctrines that identified them.

Every religion, denomination, etc has its passive and radical people.

Peace does not equal salvation. Peaceful people will still go to hell without accepting Jesus Christ. So we should quit with the labels and start looking at people through God's eyes, instead of trying to be PC and smooch things together. Only God unites and saves.

[Jan]

To get this back on topic, "The Cross Remains" turned me off, as well. The less rhetoric we have portraying a bunch of militant nutjobs from the Middle East as representative of a billion-member religion, the better off we'll be as Christians and as a nation. "It's not what they say. Watch what they do. The evidence is falling down right in front of you." That sounds an awful lot like an encouragement to cynically reject the peaceful overtures of most Muslims and tar them all with the brush of 9/11.

Maybe it's talking about their practice of lying to defeat their enemies.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/011-taqiyya.htm

[CatNamedManny]

To get this back on topic, "The Cross Remains" turned me off, as well. The less rhetoric we have portraying a bunch of militant nutjobs from the Middle East as representative of a billion-member religion, the better off we'll be as Christians and as a nation. "It's not what they say. Watch what they do. The evidence is falling down right in front of you." That sounds an awful lot like an encouragement to cynically reject the peaceful overtures of most Muslims and tar them all with the brush of 9/11.

Maybe it's talking about their practice of lying to defeat their enemies.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/011-taqiyya.htm

I see your out-of-context citations of the Koran and raise you Joshua 2:4-6, 2 Thessalonians 2:11, 1 Kings 22:23 and Ezekiel 14:9.

This thread should probably just be moved to the general board, at this point.

[gman]

It's kind of funny to me that socialism often has such a negative connotation to it in America. I would think that as Christians we would all stand for a society where opportunities are evenly distributed and given to all. Everybody should have a chance to choose their own path in life and should have equal circumstances to start from. I know socialism has deteriorated into communism in the past and that because of the Cold War communism is really contaminated (and not only because of the Cold War but even more so because of its actual philosophy). But I don't understand why the idea of socialism seems to be so close to communism in American republican spheres. When there's name calling going on and they say that Obama is a socialist, I am always wondering what's wrong with that. So I strongly disagree with your suggestion that ungodly and unbiblical points of view seem to border on socialism, because that makes socialism sound even worse than ungodly and unbiblical.

I've been thinking this through a bit. America has introduced elements of Socialism into Gov't and society. Spreading the wealth around, as the President called it. If He would get his way, the U.S. would become much more of a socialist or communist leaning state; incorporating those ideas into its constitution. Many Americans see Socialism as incompatible with the country as it was founded. A country where the Gov't has a limited role, and people work hard and take care of each other. Not one where the Gov't does the helping and enables a new class of millions of Americans to get assistance, or be provided for by the taxpayer. Some would argue that those people shouldn't be helped according to scripture.
Those in favor of going more Socialist have done an excellent job of cloaking and disguising it, and marketing it. Those against have had difficulty convincing the masses. If they use words like Socialism and Communism, the media labels them as fear mongers and dismisses them. So, Conservatives would argue that we are not having an honest discussion or debate. They would say it's your right to embrace Socialism and to want to move America in that direction, but be open and honest about it. The other issue for Conservatives is that a larger, more socialist Gov't is much more costly. Right now, the Gov't is already spending much more than it takes in, partly due to the many excursions into Socialism, and many in power want to go further. Many Conservatives would say, let's scale back Gov't and reduce spending, balance the federal budget, and eliminate the federal deficit. Then we can talk about socialism and whether the necessary tax revenue to do it is worth the cost to society and the economy.
Socialism isn't necessarily evil, it's different from America as it was founded, and many feel that the U.S. should remain different.
I realize that I'm missing a lot, and my post is not very scholarly, but those are some thoughts I had in response.

[loengard]

It's kind of funny to me that socialism often has such a negative connotation to it in America. I would think that as Christians we would all stand for a society where opportunities are evenly distributed and given to all. Everybody should have a chance to choose their own path in life and should have equal circumstances to start from.

This can turn nasty rather quick if we're not careful. Let me just say this about the American (Christian Conservative) perspective on Socialism, strictly for insight, not to spark a debate because this really isn't the place for it.

State sanctioned redistribution of wealth is not at all what Jesus was wanting His followers to have. The whole point of walking a Christian walk is to CHOOSE to walk that walk. If the government by force of law takes money from one and gives to another, that takes away the choice of Christians as to how and where they are going to share what God has blessed them with. I am 100% in favor of helping the poor and disadvantaged and do so out of obedience to God and love of my fellow man. When the government comes in and mandates the same, it loses a lot of meaning in the translation. Christians get lazy because "the government will take care of those people". This translates to generational welfare and Christians who don't get their hands dirty. Individually, we can be far more powerful a force than we are by letting the government do the dirty work.

Like I said, this is just one perspective. Not trying to start a debate or a fight. After all, we all love Petra here so let's jam and leave politics on the sidelines.

[executioner]

It's kind of funny to me that socialism often has such a negative connotation to it in America. I would think that as Christians we would all stand for a society where opportunities are evenly distributed and given to all. Everybody should have a chance to choose their own path in life and should have equal circumstances to start from.

This can turn nasty rather quick if we're not careful. Let me just say this about the American (Christian Conservative) perspective on Socialism, strictly for insight, not to spark a debate because this really isn't the place for it.

State sanctioned redistribution of wealth is not at all what Jesus was wanting His followers to have. The whole point of walking a Christian walk is to CHOOSE to walk that walk. If the government by force of law takes money from one and gives to another, that takes away the choice of Christians as to how and where they are going to share what God has blessed them with. I am 100% in favor of helping the poor and disadvantaged and do so out of obedience to God and love of my fellow man. When the government comes in and mandates the same, it loses a lot of meaning in the translation. Christians get lazy because "the government will take care of those people". This translates to generational welfare and Christians who don't get their hands dirty. Individually, we can be far more powerful a force than we are by letting the government do the dirty work.

Like I said, this is just one perspective. Not trying to start a debate or a fight. After all, we all love Petra here so let's jam and leave politics on the sidelines.

Your perspective is correct; it should be the individuals willingness to give where he feels it is needed, not a government mandate.

[CatNamedManny]

Interesting link here [http://www.tnr.com/blog/timothy-noah/96 ... ns-blunder] about how European states, which feature broader social-welfare programs and more progressive (i.e., redistributionist) tax policies than America actually feature not only more financial equality, as we would expect, but also more upward mobility from the lower classes, which contradicts the usual arguments of those who oppose European-style social democracy.

In other words, more governmental involvement does not necessarily keep poor people stuck being poor, and it doesn't keep rich people from being rich (there are still rich people in Europe, I believe).

Meanwhile, what about Christians who feel governmental policies that would cut services that help the poor in order to finance tax cuts for the rich would be immoral? That's a prominent feature of the tax plans of pretty much every Republican presidential candidate, and so may lead Christians to vote for a presidential candidate who has shown at least a measure of compassion for the poor, which last I checked was Jesus' overriding concern in Matt. 25, as well as His Father's, made clear through pretty much every OT prophet.

I say that to point out there is no unanimity in Christian circles about whether there is even a place for Christians in government, let alone about which side of the political divide Christians should be. There is no consensus on what a "Christian administration" looks like or what policies it would enact, nor what economic system it would find most just.

Which is why I find comments like the ones made above about how Christians cannot support this candidate or that political party (or in the other forum about how we can tell whether a president is or used to be a Christian based on his policy preferences) to be made mostly out of ignorance or arrogance rather than any effort to better understand opposing points of view or have a constructive dialogue.

[zman7720000]

http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/v ... o_id=15915

Just one reason why socialism will never work.

Don't you remember the rule we had when we lived with you? "If you don't work, you don't eat." And now we're getting reports that a bunch of lazy good-for-nothings are taking advantage of you. This must not be tolerated. We command them to get to work immediately—no excuses, no arguments—and earn their own keep. Friends, don't slack off in doing your duty.

2 Thessalonians 3:10
The Message