Guthrie is essentially accusing Campolo of posturing with his recent "Red Letter Christians" tag, asserting that concern for justice means being on the left but then acting as if the whole thing is nonpartisan.
Campolo replays his usual rhetoric that ignores the obvious point Guthrie makes.
Furthermore, Campolo shows himself a poor theologian to boot. Note how he sets up Jesus as the adversary of Moses. This is simply a poor reading of the Hebrew Bible, not to mention a poor reading of the New Testament. We'd say more, but we talk about this so much in class that we expect many readers of this blog, being current and former students, can fill in the blanks.
Here's Guthrie's most excellent closing observation:
How we vote as Christians may differ, and that's okay. But let's not insist that we are somehow above the political fray. That is just the kind of sophistry the Lord warned against.
We most heartily agree.
Please, Dr. Campolo, Jim Wallis and all who act as if Christianity and pacifistic socialism are identical: quit claiming to love Jesus more than Christians who support free markets, small government and just war. It's just possible that socialism impoverishes and pacifism kills.
2 comments:
While I do enjoy the idea of a "pacifistic socialism" I would have to agree with you if only on the basis that it is not certain economic or governing systems that lead to killing and impoverishing but the people who participate or rule in those systems. I do think that there are serious flaws of both capitalism and the just war theory, but I also recognize that any other option is less than perfect as well. I am starting to learn that instead of pushing for a mass overhaul of the economy and government perhaps the proper thing to do is to find a way to function in a Christian manner within a system that may not line up with my particular Christian mindset, as opposed to pushing for a whole new system that will be inevitably flawed as well.
Indeed!
A worldview that takes flawed human nature into account will not seek a different system but will understand the limitations of all systems.
The genius of capitalism is that it harnesses human greed and ambition for the common good. The debate should be about the means of maximizing those outcomes, not about whether the system itself is flawed or not. At this point in human history, we ought to be able to draw some lasting conclusions on this point.
Similarly, the moral justification for war is that sometimes people act so destructively that their destruction can only be ended by destroying them. The people who do the ending-by-destroying are themselves flawed and so need restraint too, and can certainly turn the whole thing into a pretext for their own evil. But that doesn't negate the need to use force to restrain evil in certain, awful circumstances. Again, we think that the evidence is so substantial as to be incontrovertible on this point.
Neither of these "systems" will ever yield ideal outcomes. But objections to either must realize that both are predicated on the essentialy unperfectability of humanity.
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