Discrimination is discrimination, whether posititve of negative, What yo call greedy may well just be good buisness.
If everyone was levelled out for one moment, all with eactly the same money and resources, within less than a week some woould be paupers and others millionaires. You cannot level out humanity.
Richard
Which is why, as even the ancient Jews tried to do remarkably, there must be full land reform and debt cancellation.
Not when theyâre invested in changing the tax structure to move wealth from the bottom to the top.
No, but you could have a Christian government, i.e. one that treated the poor the way the New Testament advocates.
Are you by any chance a Geoist (Georgist)?
YES!!! You?
Tried and failed.
Over and over.
The Eyes of a child on same Album. This is the whole problem with Mankind, we want to grow up to mostly get away from Our Adult Parents. Without noticing the toys of the adults. When I was in the Navy the used to say âThe Difference Between Men and Boys is the Destruction of their Toysâ.
Ditto, though slightly modified from the standard.
Not that Iâve noticed. There have been semi-theocracies claiming to be Christian, but Iâm not aware of any that have actually tried to implement any of Jesusâ teachings about the poor.
My uncle, a Navy officer, used to say it as â⌠the destructiveness of their toysâ.
But not tried in the Church since its golden infancy.
We cannot create a Christian Kingdom for it was Said â My Kingdom is not of this Worldâ. We have âBad Bad Boys that make Us feel goodâ- Miami Sound Machine in this World. In the Christian Heaven It will be Boring as to some with No Bad, no Thieves or Locks, etc. This is the âWorld according to Garpâ look at Robin Williams exit from this World.
It has been tried many times during the church history, since Constantine.
Eastern orthodox tradition adapted to an interplay where the relationship between the emperor and the church was described as âsymphonyâ - the emperor was both the protector and the child of the church and ruled accordingly.
Western church history includes periods when popes had more political power than the kings and the church practically ruled what happened in the society.
During the reformation, towns ruled by the reformed became places where the religious leadership acted with the town councils so that all life was governed and controlled according to their interpretations about the biblical scriptures.
In Lutheran areas, the earthly and heavenly rule was separated but in practise, these areas obeyed what the Lutheran interpretation of the scriptures was.
Catholic, Reformed, or Lutheran, those towns could be deadly places for anabaptists and other âradicalsâ that threatened the prevailing âChristianâ order, for example by being pacifists.
During the later centuries, there have been numerous attempts to establish colonies and communities where the life is arranged and ruled according to âChristianâ teaching. âChristianâ in this context means the interpretations of the leaders.
It is sad but what Kendel wrote has been the practical lesson of these attempts.
There has often been some good sides, such as the poor have been given help and the leadership may have been less corrupted.
The bad side has usually been that those communities have not been tolerant towards people having differing interpretations or worldviews - loving mercy to those who support the goals of the leaders but not to the others.
They thought they were Christian governments. You mean they were wrong about themselves?
Even churches get it wrong within the churches, governing Christians.
Power over people is too easily corrupting. As @LikeHim pointed out Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world. Although he wasnât talking about the relationship of Christians toward government, he was clarifying the nature of his kingdom. If itâs not of this world I wouldnât expect its subjects to be able to realize or emulate it by worldly means.
Is equity, social justice, real justice, meaningful justice worldly?
Absolutely. Getting hegemony over others affects the behaviour of the dominant leader, sooner or later. The leader may not always become corrupted but is likely to behave like the rules would not be for him/her.
I have read that the dominant leaders are less likely to obey âminor rulesâ, such as traffic regulations, apparently because they subconsciously think that they are above the rules.
A common observation is also that at some point, the leader pushes his/her will over the others because he thinks that he knows what is the best answer. If he can force his will to happen, why not use it to do what the leader thinks is âgoodâ? When you have done it once, the threshold to use it the second time becomes lower.
Even if the leader would not do anything wrong, merely the fact that one person gets much power changes the behaviour of those around the dominant leader. That can be toxic to the atmosphere in the community.
I think that the Christian teaching of leaders being the servants of all the others is a healthy teaching. I just hope that the leaders could maintain such an humble attitude.
All We can do is Behave like We Belong in His Kingdom and Believe In the Everlasting Life There.
As I stated before the Christian teachings are Predominantly Judeao/Christian, which is a 2 Faced spirit and allows Deuteronomy and Forgiving.
Those were theocracies, not attempts at Christian government â at least I never heard about any of them taking care of the poor and infirm.
Or he runs into the fact that sometimes decisions have to be made to cut through the crap, and gets to like the efficiency of just doing all the deciding.
âLet your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.â -Colossians 4:6
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