We will be continuing this week with The Great Energion Political Debate Roundtable. Participants in the roundtable are:
Bob CornwallElgin Hushbeck, Jr.Allan R. BevereArthur SidoJoel Watts
I had some trouble creating our next question. It’s on taxes, but I wanted to ask something about taxation that would get our participants’ more general take on the topic, but yet be narrow enough to permit an answer in ~1000 words. Here’s what I came up with:
Should the capital gains tax be changed (raised, lowered, eliminated)? In very general terms, how would this relate to your general view of tax policy?
Remember that you can comment here or on the individual blogs, though I recommend the latter.
(Image credit: clker.com)
Category: Politics
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The Great Energion Political Debate Becomes a Roundtable
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The Great Energion Political Debate – Answers to Question 2
As I thought likely, one thing that will separate our participants is the choice of which issues are of most importance.
Elgin Hushbeck’s answer: The Big Three
Bob Cornwall’s answer: 3 issues: Income disparity; Immigration; Health Care. Hard choices.
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The Great Energion Political Debate – Question 2
I’m going to continue with a question that will allow both authors to introduce themselves and their overall views. Next week, I’ll be getting very specific. Please feel free to send me questions you think should be asked. You can comment on this post or email pubs@energion.com.
Here’s the question:
What are the three most important issues a voter should consider this year in choosing a candidate to vote for at the federal level (President, Senate, House of Representatives)? Why are these issues critical?
I will suggest that the authors feel free to make some adjustments. For example, can one successfully draw a boundary after just three issues? How are the issues ranked among themselves? But each author has only about 1,000 words in which to respond, so I don’t want to overload the question.
Remember to check out our authors, Bob Cornwall and Elgin Hushbeck and their books, Faith in the Public Square and Preserving Democracy.
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Election Online Debate – First Answers
Both Bob and Elgin have posted their responses to the first question:
Bob Cornwall: How does faith inform your political decisions?
Elgin Hushbeck: Faith Politics and the Election
If you join in by posting on your own blog, post your link in a comment here or e-mail it to pubs@energion.com.
Both writers also took the opportunity to comment on the vice-presidential selection:
Elgin Hushbeck: Paul Ryan
Bob Cornwall: The Teams Are Set: Let the Political Games Begin
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Energion Authors on the Election – First Question
The breaking news this morning is that Mitt Romney has selected Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate. That’s the sort of breaking news this type of extended debate is not really equipped to keep up with. I’m sure the blogs will be filled with commentary today. If either of our participating authors blog on that, I’ll link to it from here, but we won’t have an immediate question on running mates.
Our introductory question is:
How does your faith inform your decisions during this election season, including both thinking and actions leading up to the election (involvement, etc) and your vote?
Your participants are Elgin Hushbeck, Jr., author of Preserving Democracy, who blogs at Elgin Hushbeck: Politics and Religion, and Bob Cornwall, author of Faith in the Public Square, who blogs at Ponderings on a Faith Journey.
Links
Bob Cornwall has posted on the vice-presidential selection. -
Two Energion Authors Examine the U. S. Election
SPECIAL SALE OFFER!
Remember that our political titles are on sale until the election, including both Preserving Democracy and Faith in the Public Square.
Energion authors Robert D. Cornwall (a progressive) and Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. (a conservative) will be engaging in a blog discussion about issues related to the election.
Elgin is author of Energion title Preserving Democracy along with Evidence for the Bible and Christianity and Secularism. Bob is author of Faith in the Public Square along with Ephesians: A Participatory Study Guide and Ultimate Allegiance: The Subversive Nature of the Lord’s Prayer.
So how will this discussion work?
Each Saturday, beginning August 11, Energion owner Henry Neufeld will post a question for the coming week here on Energion.net. By Wednesday of the following week, both authors will post an answer to that question on their blogs. They will then each have an opportunity to respond to the other’s post. As a rule, they will be writing just one blog response to the other’s answer. I will post links to each entry here on Energion.net.
If you’re interested in a serious discussion of the issues, you can also publicize this discussion via your blog, Facebook, Twitter, or other social media.
This being the blogosphere, you’re naturally wondering how you can get involved. We couldn’t keep you away if we wanted to, and we don’t. Feel free to respond to the question on your own. You can post a link to your post in the comments or you can e-mail us the URL and I will link to you here as well.
You can comment on Elgin’s or Bob’s blogs or right here at Energion.net. Each blogger is fully responsible for moderating comments on his own blogs. Under the rules of Energion.net you can also post comments here.
Watch here for the first question to be posted on August 11. -
Energion Authors React to the Health Care Ruling
— Henry Neufeld, Energion Publications owner.
For the election season here in the U. S. A. we have put our political titles on sale. Look for savings in the neighborhood of 30% on four titles, Preserving Democracy, Faith in the Public Square, Christian Archy, and The Politics of Witness. (Note: To get the sale price, follow the link to Energion Direct.)
All of the authors of these books have responded in some way to the decision by the supreme court. The differences in viewpoint illustrate the Energion approach to publication. They come from different points of view.
Elgin Hushbeck, Jr., author of Preserving Democracy, looks primarily at the constitutional aspects, rather than on the particular impact of the law in his post The Roberts Legacy.
Robert D. Cornwall, author of Faith in the Public Square, looks more at the impact of the law itself and to our duty as Christians in his post Health Care Reform, The Court, and Jesus!
Allan R. Bevere, author of The Politics of Witness, launches a three part series regarding the way in which Christians interact with politics. The first installment is Some Reflections on Health Care, Judicial Philosophy, and the Witness of the Church – Part I.
David Alan Black, author of Christian Archy, made a few comments and linked to another post. Because his blog doesn’t permit linking to individual articles, we link the copy of this item on The Jesus Paradigm.
Finally, I wrote something myself, not really about the health care decision, but it does reference it. So here’s my short story, Can Either of You Recommend a Church? -
Elgin Hushbeck: Prager, Irrationality and Religion
by Elgin Hushbeck, Jr.
In his latest column, “Mormons Have Irrational Beliefs? Who Doesn’t?” Dennis Prager falls into some common errors concerning the concepts of faith, belief, reason and irrationality. First, let me point out that I do not disagree with all of the claims in his column and those made during the discussion of his column on his radio show, in particular the importance of behavior.
Where I do disagree can be seen when Prager says, “I read and hear these dismissals of Mormonism with some amusement — because everyone who makes these charges holds beliefs and/or practices that outsiders consider just as irrational.” While true, this is completely irrelevant, and in fact only makes sense if one accepts a sort of intellectual relativism.
Continue reading at Hushbeck.com …
(Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. is the author of Energion titles Preserving Democracy, Christianity and Secularism, and Evidence for the Bible.) -
American Politics and the Christian
D. Kevin Brown has an interesting essay written as he watched the most recent Republican debate. I think a key sentence is this:
The only way to change a person is on the inside.
Read Kevin’s post and comment.
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The Limits of Romans 13
Paul’s admonition in Romans 13: 1-7 is quite familiar to most Christians…
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. (Romans 13:1-7 ESV)
While many Christians are familiar with this passage, at least in concept, there is far from a universal understanding of how we should apply it. I believe that this passage is a crucial one for understanding living under Christ’s Archy because it is one of the most extensive and explicit dealing with the relationship between Christians and the world’s government structures we all live under to one extent or another (see also 1 Peter 2: 13-17). We also need to be very cautious when using these passages to form our understanding of living under Christ’s archy and this certainly is a place where the community hermeneutic is crucial.
I have found that the most important thing I needed to wrap my arms around when interpreting and applying Romans 13: 1-7 is the context in which it was written. I think we tend, at least those of us who are Western Christians living in America or the former strongholds of Christendom in Europe, to read Romans 13 in the context we live in. I have never lived with even a hint of persecution. I have freely voted in just about every election I could since I turned 18. My idea of “governing authorities” are the elected officials in America. Many of them are scoundrels or incompetent but they are hardly tyrants. When Paul wrote these words? The world was the kind of place few of us can imagine. It was a world under the rule of Rome and the governing authorities were the conquering and occupying Romans and their cronies. When Jesus was sentenced to the cross there was no reading of His Miranda rights, no public defender, no decades long appeals process. He was arrested, tried, sentenced and cruelly executed in a matter of hours. The governing authorities Paul was referring to in Romans 13: 1-7 were some of the most unjust, cruel and tyrannical to have ever lived. When examined in light of the Roman Empire, Paul’s words get a lot more sobering.
Having established that, the question becomes one of application. What does it mean for us to be subject to the governing authorities? To what extent? If we are commanded to render unto Caesar and those tax dollars go to paying for abortions, should we pay our taxes? If a Christian is drafted and ordered to fight and kill for their country should they dutifully march off to war? What if the government doing the drafting is not the United States but instead is Nazi Germany? If the government is confiscating your property and taxing you without representation, should a Christian still submit quietly or rise up and overthrow that government by force? These are hard questions but important ones that need to be considered. We need to move beyond cultural expectations and our traditional assumptions and examine closely what it means as followers of Christ to submit to governing authorities.
There are some times when Romans 13 is obviously trumped. When the governing authorities try to demand that we do something that violates what God has commanded, Christians cannot submit. When charged by the Jewish council to stop preaching Christ, Peter and the apostles replied that they “must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:27-33). I would put “going to war” in this category although many others would disagree. I am interested in your thoughts here. Living under Christ’s Archy, what are the limits or the applications for Romans 13: 1-7 in our lives, our churches and our families?