But equally, countries that at some point based their laws on what certain of their number found in the Bible haven't exactly covered themselves in glory....or humility.
Countries, or governments? Humility is not the purpose of a government. 1) Protecting the interests of its citizens, 2) expanding its territory. In that order.
But as a Christian, I can't pretend that both the Bible and Christianity weren't used to prop up slavery for all of that time.
A very flawed interpretation of the bible, however you spin it.
Go right ahead!
One of the fascinating aspects of the NT is that there are no words written about the laws of nations and how nations should behave or formulate their laws that are binding on any country.
Correct -- because "God's chosen people" is no longer coincides with an ethno-cultural society but with those who will accept His law. "I give you one commandment..." "There is no Greek or Jew..."
I don't agree with that. If you go through the entire law {and I have, many times. The first church I was part of erroneously stuck to it like limpet mines on the hull of a ship} most of it is specific to Israel and part of their standing as God's people and as such, part of the covenant. Not having sex with your Dad's sister {or, for that matter, your own} was as binding and relevant as not taking the Lord's name in vain {incidentally, that is less an issue concerned with verbals as it is about behaviour as a representative of God}. I use that just as an example. The laws about sacrifices and the priesthood and a wife grabbing the balls of a man fighting her husband were as much part of the covenant as any in the "big 10."
I would think of those other laws as clarifications and examples of how to apply the 10 Commandments.
"Thrown out," "Rescinded," "No longer applicable," "Ended," take your pick. The point is that in this period of great transition, lots of Jewish followers of Christ sometimes went with the law and sometimes didn't. Remember how Paul got up in Peter's face when Pete started shrinking again under pressure from the guys from Jerusalem who said that the Gentiles had to be circumcised and follow Moses' law ~ Paul told him that he didn't even live like a Jew with his freedom in Christ. Interesting.....And when that major council happened in Acts 15, they reduced the Gentile requirement to just 4 things.
OK so we're in agreement.
You earlier said:
That's not really true. Christian Nationalism has, in some shape or form, been around and active ever since Europeans first landed on the shores of the land we call America. It obviously hasn't always applied to every person and it has always had divergencies within it and has been much stronger at times than others. I first noticed it in the 80s with Ronald Reagan. I noticed it during the first Gulf war with big George Bush and big time with the second George Bush and since "the Don" it has flowed as a raging river. And I'm just an irrelevant Black Englishman. But I noticed it when I was atheist and subsequent to that.
In point of fact, many on the left are only too happy to "credit" Christianity with the shaping of America ~ and they'll happily throw in slavery, the decimation {culturally or otherwise} of the Native American population, the keeping down of women {when was it that they got the vote, 1919, 1920 ?}, all of the "in yer face" racist laws and all that came with it, segregation, supposed church support of some of the most inhuman shit to come down against God's crown of creation.......oh no, many on the left will happily use that stuff and more {abortion, age of consent, homosexuality laws etc} to demonstrate the Christian shaping of the nation.....and precisely why the nation needs to get away from such.
Perhaps you haven't seen the recent clip that's making quite a controversy online:
That's the kind of baseless name-calling I was referring to. Thoughts on that?
[Who] were you speaking of when you referred to "those who accept its frankly simple demands." ?
You and me. We know our faults and weaknesses. But we strive to go beyond. We're not the "Well, I'm personally opposed to [take your pick of current issues] but I'm not one to dictate others" Joe Biden type goons. Which isn't dictating, its protecting the rights of human beings.
I may have misunderstood you or we may have found ourselves at cross purposes. We seemed to jump somewhere from how natives of a country that are Christians ought to be treating those that turn up in the country they live in.
Being expected to support those who turn up in a country, illegally, to profit of the systems that originated to benefit us, the citizens (who pay taxes), is not Christianity. The State's role is to ensure my well-being. If I have a surplus and can afford to sponsor an individual on a waiting list to immigrate legally, I am free to do so.
Or so I should hope it is.
Having just spent all those years fighting to stop Hitler from doing something akin to that, I don't think the European nations on the western side would have allowed that.
They literally had zero say in the matter.
But also, it wasn't really America's style in those days. Plus, it enabled them to occupy the moral high ground when the USSR started wiggling their bums in the direction of East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania....
Why wasn't it "America's style"? Because people here were, for the most part, bred on the equity that our Christian heritage had engrained in our culture. A less important factor may have been Soviet agents in our government.
Well, that came in the 60s.
Really, the UK had a terrible inferiority complex about America until the Beatles hit no.1 in early 1964 then a few other groups followed in their wake. Everything about the USA was perceived to be so much more exciting and had so much more oomph.
I dislike most music from that era, so however you like. I prefer Dave Brubeck by far!
This one is kind of nuanced, only because between Versailles and WWII there were only 20 years, whereas since the end of WWII there have been close to 79 and American culture in all its splendour has had the opportunity to mount a takeover that has affected far more of the world than countries like Russia who have tried to do so by force. But that wasn't America's intention in 1945.
See various above comments.
