From: RFaussette@aol.com
Date: Sun Jun 29 2003 - 13:37:12 EDT
In a message dated 6/28/03 4:05:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
deborahjmann@insightbb.com writes:
> Take it to the extreme - reducto ad absurdum - do you really want every rich
> person, which also means every person with any real power, to NOT be a
> Christian? Do you want the world as a whole controlled by non-Christians?
> Corinthians says that the powers that be are ordained of God. Do you think
> that he would only ordain those who do not accept His Son?
>
Brilliant, Deborah, you reminded me of a quote from Augustine:
"That saying, "The elder shall serve the younger", is understood by our
writers, almost without exception, to mean that the elder
people, the Jews, shall serve the younger people, the Christians. And
truly, although this might seem to be fulfilled in the
Idumean nation, which was born of the elder (who had two names, being
called both Esau and Edom, whence the name
Idumeans), because it was afterwards to be overcome by the people which
sprang from the younger, that is, by the Israelites,
and was to become subject to them; yet it is more suitable to believe that,
when it was said, "The one people shall overcome
the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger," that prophecy
meant some greater thing; and what is that except what
is evidently fulfilled in the Jews and in the Christians? [...] He [Christ]
is the Lord of His brethren, because His people rules over
the Jews."
(The City of God, XVI:35, 37)
What is "evidently" fulfilled in the Jews and in the Christians is
dependent upon the personal decision each Jew and each
Christian makes regarding his devotion to his people's religious and
historical mandate. for the Jew that mandate is world dominion promised
by God, for the Christian it is the conversion of the Jews. Augustine's
last line bears repeating. "Christ is the Lord of His
brethren, BECAUSE His people rules over the Jews."
The suggestion that christians appropriately be powerless and poor in order
to build the kingdom of god is like an early christian turning himself in to be
thrown to the lions - it's simply wrong and injurious to the maintenance
from generation to generation of the entire christian belief system that has been
bequeathed given to us and put under our care. Augustine didn't convert when
he experienced a miracle. he converted after watching the bishop of milan
excommunicate theodoric for massacring 7,000 people. the people who love should be
in power. the people who hate should be powerless. any other position is
rationally and religiously incomprehensible.
rich faussette
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