This ministry needs your financial support! Donate now!
Posted by Anthony on March 24, 2010
“the “right” within the church attempt to leverage the gov. to legislate morality. The “left” within the church attempt to leverage the gov. to legislate compassion. Both approaches fail miserably and are an abdication of our responsibility to be the voice, hands and feet of Jesus in this world.” – spoken by a friend.
Someone slid this article across my desk that inquires as to why evangelical Christians are against universal health care. Now, strictly speaking, I’m not an evangelical. Also, I don’t think that all Christians oppose universal health care, and I will not presume that Christians who do will share all my reasons. I hope this caveat spares me the litany of comments accusing me of ‘generalizing.’
I will take the article as my foil as it is one of the finest expressions of liberal hubris and arrogance that I’ve seen in a while. The author begins by indicating he seriously wanted to know why Christians who are supposed to be all about love would oppose health care. The end includes a long screed:
(p.s. this opinion is reserved for those Christians who have not actually thought about the consequences, and decided that more people are harmed than helped by the new law. They are being consistent with their beliefs. That being said, if you think you are in that camp of people excluded, you probably aren’t. You probably are just being geedy [sic], selfish and jerkish, but convincing yourself that this is why you oppose it, while the truth remains you just dont want taxed, or adhere to some abstract notion of how this bill is UnGodly).
Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on January 20, 2010
I had an article published with Worldnetdaily.com today that essentially answers in the affirmative. Here is a snippet:
Can it really be said, though, that all taxation represents a reduction in freedom? The answer to this must be yes, even if we recognize that the effect on freedom might be slight in some cases. To illustrate, imagine a small income tax of a dollar. It might be an easy matter to get by without that dollar, but it is still one more dollar that you cannot spend according to your own priorities. Consider what the impact is if instead the tax is 25 percent of your income!
We also have to ask about those who are doing the taxing. They obviously believe they have the right to take your resources from you. They must believe that they can obtain some good that you, and perhaps few others, would have subsidized if left to your own devices. They must believe that they know how much they can fairly extract from you. They must believe that they have the right, if you protest, to incarcerate you and take your possessions by force if need be. In sum, they are almost indistinguishable from tyrants.
Christians should not support tyrants or adopt their methods and so become tyrants ourselves. If there is a cause we wish to support, we ought to do so from our own resources out of the free expression of our own hearts (2 Corinthians 8).
Read the rest of the article.
Posted by Anthony on July 23, 2009
Please see my previous posts on this topic for more important background. In the course of those posts I have tried to lay out a couple of important principles. My audience was strictly Christian in those cases. In this post, nonChristians are potentially included, too. Here are the earlier posts in sum:
- Taxation always has some impact on the liberty of those taxed.
- Using government/taxation to provide important and necessary social programs differs from using private individuals, organizations, or churches to do so on a very important point: the funds that the private entities use are freely given within the private organization itself… while the funds the government uses comes by coercion and threat of punishment.
- Christians should not abrogate to the government the tasks and duties given to them.
- When Christians use the government to advance their social causes this requires taxation, and thus a diminishing of liberty to some extent within the community taxed. Importantly, Christians are then using someone else’s (coerced) funds to do their good deeds.
And some important clarifications were required.
- None of this implies that anyone, and certainly not Christians, should be indifferent to the plight of those with various needs around us.
- None of this is to say that even within the Christian world view there is no proper place and function for the government.
- None of this is to say that Christians shouldn’t pay taxes or that governments shouldn’t tax.
- However, since in this country all citizens, Christians included, have the right under the rule of law to participate in and even change the government and how it operates, Christians should think very carefully about how to proceed.
It is possible to be enslaved within a tyrannical system without actually being locked up in chains. Nor does there need to be an identifiable tyrant at the top for it to be tyranny. Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on May 12, 2009
I discovered today that a post a couple of weeks ago about Christians and the environment popped up on a Christian environmentalist blog. My post was ‘Shouldn’t Christians Care about the Environment?” and the brief response (if it was a response at all) was called ‘Self-interest makes Christians better ecologists.’
I actually couldn’t tell from the entry whether or not the blogger agreed or disagreed with my post. There is only one sentence: “Anthony suggests that the reason Christians make better ecologists is that they put people first.”
This isn’t much to go on but there was still something about it that compelled me to reply.
While I’m glad that the blogger recognized that I was not in the slightest maintaining that Christians should be indifferent to the environment, what I was communicating (I thought) was not that this is because Christians ought to put people first.
To sum up some basic points and offer some clarification that wasn’t in the original post… Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on March 30, 2009
In a recent entry I bemoaned the fact that a law was coming down the pike that could make it a Federal crime to collect rocks on Federal land. Punishment includes jail time and the confiscation of certain assets. ‘Casual collecting’ may be permissable- what kind and to what degree will now be decided by the Secretary.
The 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act is being reported on CNN as being signed by Obama but Thomas shows that it hasn’t yet. I’m assuming that Thomas hasn’t been updated yet? At anyrate I guess its possible that CNN got it wrong.
In case you’re wondering, the ambiguous language that allows for tyrannical application remains in what appears to be the final version.
Naturally, CNN didn’t report on that.
Posted by Anthony on March 30, 2008
I wrote a letter to the editor regarding the Holmen cross which sits on public property. It was published today. The power of the personal blog gives me the ability to comment further and even respond to other letter writers. Let’s start with my actual letter.
Beware tyranny of the minority
It is not every day that Holmen has the opportunity to have an impact on the affairs of the entire nation. The decision to sell off the land that the cross on Star Hill stands on in order to avoid controversy is understandable in light of what happened in La Crosse.
However, is Eric Barnes happy with transferring it to private property? No. We might legitimately wonder if the only thing that would satisfy those with his views is a complete purge, public and private. Where would the “Freedom from Religion Foundation” stop? Where would Richard Dawkins, who believes teaching some religious doctrines is child abuse stop?
In light of the gulags, the concentration camps, the re-education camps, etc, the loving thing might be to take a stand. I know that there is an overwhelming urge to “preserve the peace” at all costs. History shows us that this approach could very well lead to our very own Kristallnacht. If it goes that far it is too late.
As citizens, not just as Christians, we should be concerned if a minority can inflict on the majority their own narrow view on what constitutes the ‘establishment of religion.’ If Eric Barnes should like to call for a referendum on the cross, I would support him. Put the matter before the people. Hear the arguments. Have the discussion. Have a vote. That is healthy conflict resolution.
The village should scrap its plan to sell the property. The Supreme Court has yet to issue a clear ruling that balances both the establishment clause with the free exercise clause. We could give them an opportunity to do just. If Holmen doesn’t face this issue communities around the country will continue to be subject to the “tyranny of the minority.”
I suspect that not everyone knows what I meant when I said Kristallnacht, so if you didn’t notice the link I added in the text, here is the Wiki article on it. The basic concept is simple: No one wakes up in the morning and says “Hey, I got an idea! Let’s throw the Jews in a concentration camp and send priests to the gulags for re-education!” Such decisions follow years of development of thought and circumstances. History makes it painfully clear that even beliefs can have consequences and if you let those beliefs bear fruit without hindrance, there will be some beliefs that bear bitter fruits, indeed.
Martin Niemöller famously said (with variants):
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I am not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I am not a trade unionist. Read the rest of the entry… »
