I don't see how, logically.

Can you explain?

(I have a few ideas about what you mean, but don't want to put words into your mouth)

Showing partiality in pardons is the same as partiality in judgements, perhaps?

Deut 1:17 KJ 17Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God's: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it.

NAS 'You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not fear man, for the judgment is God's. The case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.'

other translations:
http://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/1-17.htm

Pardons doled out in lieu of punishments deserved, that are based on a beliefs that are not easy to come by (because other beliefs are reasonable) are still not just.

We may have to agree to disagree. There is a Christian doctrine of absolute truth, which teaches that truth remains unchanged regardless of it's acceptance or denial by the majority. It stands in direct opposition of relativism.

Since we are more or less on a math forum site, I am compelled to say that I do feel that your entire argument is mathematically flawed. You are taking one person's (yours) observation of very small sample (Graham and other mid-century evangelicals you encountered) and extrapolating a conclusion to the masses.

What the Bible teaches regarding bigotry remains unchanged.

FWIW: while it is true that Christians still sin, to be a bigot or embrace any kind of racism, is to embrace a lifestyle in direct opposition to Christian faith. Which is why I would question the true Christian nature of someone who was racist or a bigot. To willfully live a bold lifestyle of sin (bigotry) in defiance of God is a lot different than falling to temptation or struggling with sin.

So, respectfully, you misread the situation.

Perhaps what the bible teaches regarding bigotry remains unchanged, but...:

The bible shows that slavery is a lawful institution with conditions for enslavement, regulations regarding the treatment of slaves, and stipulations concerning the length of captivity.

That being said, I have doubts all conditions were being met in this case.

+ 1

Sorry this is tl;dr:

According to one religious magazine in the US, Obama is the, "evangelical-in-chief".

Let's play a game. Here are your clues:

In 2011, Washington compromised their national security by discussing the specifications of their nuclear weapons systems with Russia.

This nation sent the White House a sculpture as an act of solidarity after 9/11. The President sent it back.

In a 2010 economic sanction against one of this nation's firms, Washington released a statement declaring it would, "keep a boot to their throats", instantly wiping $billions from national pension portfolios.

Since 2010, Washington has sided with her military enemies over disputed territories and supported rival international trade policies.

Which nation am I describing?

[ ] Iran
[ ] North Korea
[ ] China
[ ] Israel
[ ] Pakistan
[ ] India
[ ] United Kingdom
[ ] France




Perhaps OP is reading too much into a small sample of swing politology. At various points throughout history, the religious and political leaders of the US, UK and Ireland have taken opposite sides - arguably US Independence was the result of differences between 18th Century Old and Progressive Presbyterians (Protestant vs Protestant). The Progressives won and their legal and moral arguments (written in Ireland/Scotland) for Independence and unalienable human rights (a phrase they coined) are known to have been kept by most if not all of the Founding Fathers. The Irish-American-Brit-Germanic people built their legacy on the back of disagreement and military action. Since WWII, the Jews and Israel are not treated with the same level of scrutiny or hostility.

IMHO, Israel and Jews are perceived as an Allied bounty of war and as partial conscientious appeasement for the sacrifice of our own humanity during those wars. Israel is the physical manifestation of the soft power this sacrifice bought, our propaganda in the Middle East.

The Allies (+ Germany, ironically) would not permit any nation that they jointly developed classified technology with, other than Israel, to dictate policy unilaterally. That's Uncle Sam's job, everybody knows that. It's also no secret that the US and EU would administrate Palestine in a way which was fundamentally rejected by the recent election manifesto of PM Netanyahu.

Let's be honest - if Israel violated the human rights of Christians or Americans in the same manner as Muslims or Palestinians, the US would probably have invaded by now. It's only the favoritism Israel and Jews have enjoyed over the last 70 years amongst conservative evangelicals in Allied nations, particularly America, that saves them from this fate.

Perhaps Islamist provocations have focused America's attention in recent years, with Israelis and Jews being embraced more than ever as brothers in the struggle against Islam and Communism, but IMO, this has always been the case.

I strongly disagree with this owing to the origins of the Bill of Rights.

The concept of unalienable human rights was derived from faith by the most humble Francis Hutcheson. His profound conclusion was that mankind had a "6th sense", the "Moral Sense", given to us by God and that all of us are equal under the law.

Hutcheson wrote the legal framework for Independence (as well as the Bill of Rights, copied by FFs), so therefore the "evangelical Christian" position in the US has not changed since its inception in 1776/1791. Man was no longer legally subservient to the British crown nor any other entity based on the logic of racial or social divisions, although Protestant elitism was practiced for several centuries and still is today.

The slavery issue was purely economic and was used to entice earlier settlers to some states by the British crown via headrights (each slave transported was worth a 50 acre headright in e.g. Virginia, until circa 1700).

The origins and industrial structure of slavery pre-date Independence, we know Jefferson had no racial boundaries in his personal affairs and that many, including Lincoln, had tried to abolish slavery prior to the Civil War. It is reasonable to argue that slavery was banned in Union States a long time before the Civil War - indeed the crossing of Confederate landowners with slaves into Union states is sometimes pointed to as an Archduke Ferdinand moment.

PS: Don't forget the majority of slaves were or became Christians. When you say, "the majority of all evangelical Christians in the South would have believed in slavery", you are grossly over-estimating a slave's love for tobacco.

Has it become official evangelical doctrine that God replaced His laws with whatever documents the founding fathers came up with and that's how said documents became authoritative? (fwiw?)

Citation please, as this is pretty obviously false.

The United States government has duties towards protecting the human rights of Americans that it doesn't have towards Palestinian human rights, so this isn't really a fair comparison. And Christians are persecuted in other countries much more than Muslims are in Israel without our intervening, so I don't think your assertion here is supported by the evidence.

I do think it is true that the U.S. has more cultural affinity with Israel than with some of its surrounding countries, and no doubt that has at times caused the U.S. to favor it over some of its neighbors. But I don't think your claim about the influence of conservative evangelicals over the last 70 years is warranted.

Christianity Today. Google Christianitytoday.com Obama evangelical-in-chief. This is not the only publication to use that phrase


Unalienable human rights do NOT just apply to Americans, my friend.

I believe recently when (Kurdish and) Christian minorities were being persecuted by ISIL, the coalition forces acted immediately, even if such actions were in stark contrast to the stated policy of the Obama administration (end US combat role in Middle East and elsewhere).

While it is true that severe (fatal) persecution of Christians also occurs in India and Pakistan (and Africa), for example, the US influence there is significantly smaller and scale of military challenge significantly grander.

Perhaps you are right. I base my assertions on my own personal experiences and the differential used by the US (+ Commonwealth) when considering the nuclear infrastructure and humanitarian record of Israel in comparison to Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, China, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.

The starkest differential is over nuclear weapons.

There are 4 countries currently believed to possess nukes that are not recognized by the NPT (proliferation treaty) - North Korea, Pakistan, India and Israel. Is there one country on that list that develops classified military tech with Germany, US and UK? And three with whom we will never do that sort of business?

The reason for the differential is evangelical politology - Jews are generally neo-liberal capitalists, occupy the Holy Land and are the nemesis of our arch-enemies - Communism and Islamic radicals.

This is a bit Wizard of Oz. What you are essentially saying is that the 1-2% of "Real" Christians have never changed, so just ignore the 98-99% of the Christian population that have massively shifted their political and moral viewpoints because they are not "Real" Christians. The Protestant elitism that you refer was the prevalent Christian moral compass for 200 years in this country. Thankfully, most modern Christians have moved past this archaic view.

Jesus is the same yesterday, today, forever, all may change but Jesus never.

Modern evangelicals may permit female ministers or even homosexuals and transgenders but that doesn't make it right.

You can't claim the Bible is correct then contradict the teaching, officially, in an evangelical church. It's technically blasphemy or worse, CATHOLICISM.

I am interested to know in which ways you perceive 99% of the Christian population has massively shifted their politological viewpoints though

The Evangelical church was born completely out of the Catholic Church. I think it is worth noting that without the Catholic Church there would be no Evangelical movement.

I am not Catholic I just find it ironic when Evangelicals slam Catholics for poor theology.

I assume you are referring to this article. I find it completely unconvincing - more a polemical piece of campaign literature than a serious examination of Obama's statements on religion. We've had a President in recent times who was an evangelical Christian--Jimmy Carter--but if Obama is one he certainly has been secretive about it.

So? The government of the United States has a responsibility to protect the rights of American citizens. It doesn't have a responsibility to protect the rights of other people. This is akin to saying that a lawyer has a duty to protect the legal rights of his clients--not of all people everywhere.

The U.S. governmnent has intervened in global conflicts for ostensibly humanitarian reasons. That is maybe (depending on your political views) justified, but I see no warrant for claiming that the U.S. government has a duty to intervene in such conflicts.

We fought a war in Iraq (ostensibly) to depose a dictator, which we did. We then supported the formation of a new government on at least nominally democratic grounds and withdrew our forces. That government was then attacked by ISIL forces and so we have started intervening again on behalf of that government and against ISIL forces.

You can tell a story where this is all about protecting Christians, but it seems to me much less likely than the standard geopolitical one.

I think you are underestimating the amount of blood and treasure we that have gone into the Middle East and the intractable nature of those conflicts if you think they are significantly less than in other places.

The bolded is what you must argue for, not simply assert. There seem to me obvious reasons beyond religion why we would be relatively more worried about North Korea and Pakistan having nuclear weapons than Israel. We fought a war against North Korea in the recent past, and it is ruled by a government that is extremely unfriendly to the U.S. (and this has nothing to do with religion). Pakistan has been the home to terrorists who have attacked the U.S. and its border with India has been a flashpoint for decades. Israel, on the other hand, is a client state of the U.S. and poses no security threat to us.

We can't switch culpability in that way. Those whom are condemned are still culpable based upon their own sin rather than the belief/disbelief of the Jesus story. Disbelief, according to Evangelicals, simply leaves them in their state of culpability.

Back to your point: Is a pardon unfair if it requires adherence to a set of beliefs when other competing beliefs are also reasonable? No, I would argue that fairness only requires that the set of beliefs have sufficient reason to be believed.

I think we could make a better case that the pardon is unfair if not offered to everybody. And this is a bigger problem for the Evangelical: what about those who never hear this Jesus story?

I respectfully disagree. The US has legally binding agreements with several nations to protect the rights of their peoples. NATO would be one. The agreement Obama just signed with Abe would be another.

Humanitarian reasons? Nope. North Korea and Africa are exponentially worse.

Was it not Dr. Fox and his sexxed up intelligence on WMDs? Or maybe it was oil or a Bush legacy thing.

We left before the job was done for political reasons and indirectly armed ISIL with heavy coalition equipment. ISIL was fine while attacking Bashar al-Assad but when the Kurds and Christians starting taking fire, we returned to Iraq, for political reasons.


I don't get how any of that is in question.

So you hope. If Israel decided to unilaterally bomb Iranian nuclear infrastructure, as she has claimed intention to in the past, I can assure you that is a major security threat to us. The Palestinian situation is also a perpetual security threat for the US and her Allies.

Sorry for de-rail.

But that would make the belief in a competing theory unreasonable.

So following its guidelines on slavery should be ok for an evangelical?

Really? I don't know all the details of the NATO treaty or the recent agreement with Prime Minister Abe, but my understanding is that they are mutual defense pacts, not treaties on human rights. Furthermore, we do not even have a mutual defense pact with Israel, or any of the other countries you've listed, let alone a human rights treaty.

Okay?

Not sure what job you thought wasn't yet done. Also, what is "political reasons"? Do you mean domestic political pressure? For what it is worth, I think domestic political pressure actually kept us in Iraq longer not shorter than we would have if we were responding solely to the national interest. It was apparent pretty early on--in 2005-6, that the war in Iraq was not only a failure, but a pointless one. At that point most of our strategy seemed oriented more towards figuring out a way to withdraw than to achieve victory (including the "surge").

Then you're not following the conversation. You claimed that the reason why the U.S. treats Israel differently than the other four countries you listed was due to the influence of evangelical Christianity on American politics ("the reason for the difference is evangelical politicology"). That assertion is what I'm contesting. While evangelicals theological views might have some limited role in the U.S. treating Israel's nuclear arsenal differently than N. Korea or Pakistan, much more important is the fact that North Korea's government is virulently anti-American and one of the most repressive in the world and Pakistan has harbored terrorists and terrorist organizations that were attacking US troops in Afghanistan and has an unstable and corrupt government. I just don't think a relatively minor domestic political pressure has that much impact on foreign policy.

Meh. What vital national interest does the U.S. have in Palestine? As for Israel's potential decision to bomb Iran--well, two points. First, you'll notice that Israel's relationship with the Obama administration has grown increasingly frosty because in part of its threats to unilaterally bomb. Second, the U.S. government has tended to view Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons as an unacceptable outcome, so it isn't clear to me that it would be opposed to Israel bombing Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

My perceptions align with yours, i.e. evangelical Christianity was largely anti-semtic a generation or two ago, and is very pro-Israel today. Furthermore, the pro-Israel stance is tied to bible prophecy.

However, as for why this change has occurred, I don't have any great insight, but it looks to me like a subculture within the evangelical movement which had strong political motives were very pro-Israel, and as they moved into positions of power and influence, their views spread and proliferated.

It seems like a topic that some academic somewhere could give a more nuanced account of, but I have not researched it.

The only other tidbit I can add is to give some context for those who may not be old enough to remember. The change -- as I perceived it, as an outsider -- seems to have started to make big gains in the 80s, so this is definitely a phenomenon that predates the 9/11 thing. (Although the early 80s was a time of great terrorism on the news, so the idea that Islamic/Arab/Palestinian terrorism had an effect on it is not ruled out).

Edit: maybe irrelevant, but I just remembered a secular Jew I know got married in 1974 and her pious Christians in-laws (although they were not members of the evangelical movement, or from the USA) told her that they loved/respected Jews... because Jews are god's chosen people... so they will get a second chance to repent an accept Jesus when they die. Or something to that effect. Which makes me wonder, even today, are the pro-Israel people actually pro-ordinary-everyday-Jew, or are they essentially still antisemitic except when it comes to foreign policy?

This is kind of the point an interpretation is just that, an interpretation. We can discuss forever about whose interpretation is right but ultimately each group has a different perspective on the same thing.

However, in this case because Evangelical Christianity is an offshoot of Catholicism, Evangelical theology is actually an interpretation of an interpretation.

I don't fancy myself a defender of the Catholic Church but if the Catholic Church had not carried the torch so to speak there would be no Evangelical interpretation of Christianity.

It is kind of like criticizing ones own parents. I can level plenty of criticism of my parents but the fact remains I only exist because of them.

Does this not apply to Evangelical theology too?

You are right, there is no official defense pact with Israel akin to the North Atlantic Treaty.

Would it be helpful if regional adversaries knew the US would automatically go to war if they attacked Israel? Or is that somehow a perverse incentive for radicals and a burden for Israel?

The official US position is:

"The U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship is strong, anchored by over $3 billion in Foreign Military Financing annually. In addition to financial support, the U.S. participates in a high level of exchanges with Israel, to include joint military exercises, military research, and weapons development. Through the Joint Counterterrorism Group and a semi-annual Strategic Dialogue, the U.S. and Israel have enhanced their cooperation in fighting terrorism."

So the US is funding, training, developing, trading with and fighting alongside Israeli national agencies. That's more a symbiotic relationship than a defense pact!

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed by the US in the 1990s. I quote:

"recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world"

Ya know the best reference I can give you for that is HBO's Vice: Season 2 Episode 1. Or if you check out the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and statements given by various Defense Ministers around the world, you might see how much was left undone and how staggeringly wasteful early exit was.

I mean the fact the sitting President used withdrawal from Iraq and the Middle East as an election pledge.

Really? The war in Iraq has been polled and repeatedly found to have virtually zero credibility amongst US and coalition citizens.


OK I'm not going to derive evangelical politology again. From my POV, protestants are neo-liberal capitalists (Catholics prefer centralized power) and are somewhat fulfilled theologically by Jewish presence in Israel. The international rivals to our way of life are Islam and Communism (dictatorships), plus to a lesser extent, Rome. Jews are no friend of Islam or dictators and indeed were persecuted by Rome. So politologically (politics + religion), the Jewish people are the only international religious group who share much of our agenda yet don't seriously rival the rest.

If you don't know that already, I don't think I can help you.

The Economist ran several pieces on this. The conclusion was that not even a strong coalition using combined intelligence, aircraft and the most advanced conventional weapons available, could be assured of safely destroying Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Simulations suggest a ground-assault would be necessary to complete the job. Neither air only nor air+ground attacks were deemed currently affordable to the US, fwiw.

The Israelis by themselves would just seriously piss off Tehran - they don't possess the munitions required to eradicate heavily fortified/underground structures (Uncle Sam does). Nor does Israel possess either in magnitude or efficacy, the prerequisite nuclear clean-up technology - there is no way to bomb a nuclear reactor without sending particulates into the atmosphere, food and water supplies. Agents (e.g. thermate) would be required on an industrial scale to stop nasty stuff hemorrhaging all over the EU, Israel and the States. About the worst thing we could do is a semi-efficient job and leave a bunch of Fukushimas in the Middle East.

Not correct.

"make it up as you go along"

No. The basis of Christianity is the Bible. The basis of the evangelical church is the NT part of that Bible. While interpretations can and do occur over relatively trivial things (how many Protestant denominations are there, 10 +?), the arguments are transparent and recorded, if not widely known or understood.

The Catholic Church had the same Bible (albeit with revisions). Rather than misinterpretation, the Catholics are guilty of KNOWINGLY making it up as they went along (taking advantage of the fact the Bible was once written in Latin and no ordinary citizen could speak Latin, only Priests etc). The Papal authority used informational monopolies to write himself as a living god and elevated Priests, Bishops and Cardinals (war mongering simonyous liars) to the level at which they could forgive the sins of the hoi polloi.

Protestants and Catholics have very similar theological viewpoints on many issues, however, the chasm of god-men and men forgiving sins is too wide for any Protestant to cross. Even from an unbiased (atheist) position, could anyone believe the Pope is somehow directly connected to God, or that a paedophile priest can forgive your sins, if sins even exist? It's a scandalous affront on so many levels.

I think we have differing ideas in mind of what constitutes reasonable in this case.

I have in mind fairly minimal qualifications such as: possible, non-contradictory, and some amount of reason or evidence which backs it up.

We can have multiple competing sets of beliefs that meet such criteria, yes?

Did you have other criteria in mind and that only one set of competing beliefs can be reasonable?

TIA