Wednesday, October 19, 2016

A Christian Country?

I have chiefly refrained from discussing politics on this blog or commenting on political affairs, including upcoming American elections. No, I'm not going to tell my American readers for which candidate they should vote. That's between them and their conscience. There is something else I'd like to talk about instead.

A long time ago there was a discussion on a now defunct blog on what makes a country Christian. Someone said that a Christian country is one where people basically don't sin and live like perfect Christians so that medieval European countries weren't Christian at all since we had adultery and stuff.

Now were I to ask what makes a country Muslim what would be the answer? A country where the majority profess belief in Islam and  sharia ( or a modified version of it) is the law of the land. If the first condition is fulfilled but the second not, you have a secular Muslim country.

In a similar manner, in a Christian country, the majority profess belief in Christ and the law is based on the Scriptures, for instance, restricting divorce (or forbidding, in Catholic countries). A Christian country isn't one where the people all live exemplary sinless lives, because it is impossible!  The Bible teaches us that we are sinners and there is not one righteous among us. That includes our leaders. To pretend otherwise is to engage in a Pharisaical holier-than-thou purity spiral, especially nowadays when the worst sins are apparently "hurting feelings" and "not being nice".

So the most "Christian" candidate isn't necessarily someone pure as snow but rather a person more likely to uphold Christianity-based laws, or what's left out of them, or at least not to do a further damage like persecuting Christians, starting a major war etc etc.

I have been pondering over the life of Charles Martel, who, most historians agree saved Christianity and Western civilisation. Was he a "nice" person? Born of a polygamous union (and thus considered illegitimate by many), he engaged in war his whole life. He had a lot of blood on his hands, also of fellow Europeans, for instance, Saxons. He was also married two times (though not simultaneously) and (oh horrors!) had a long-term mistress who bore him many children. He probably had other women as well. Something tells me modern `Churchians` wouldn´t vote for him, either, because he couldn´t stand their `purity test`...

8 comments:

  1. Most of our greatest presidents couldn't get elected either today. Jefferson had a mistress and wasn't a Christian. Cleveland fathered a child out of wedlock and later married his teenaged mistress in the White House. Kennedy had affairs. Washington once fought for the British; Lincoln suffered depression; FDR smoked cigarettes; Jackson fought duels; Grant struggled with alcoholism; Reagan was married twice---thankfully today we have leaders with the moral purity of the Bushes, Clintons, and Obama!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the link, Will, it was quite interesting:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Housewife from FinlandOctober 20, 2016 at 5:29 AM

    Everybody's so exited about the next puppet in the White House. We should be more interested about their puppeteers.

    There is only one western(ish) leader who is capable of saving/re-creating christian society and he served in KGB. Need I say, in Finland you get stoned if you say something like this aloud.

    I just read that our dear parliament is concerned because women stay at home too long after they have kids. They think that some action must be taken to encourage FATHERS to stay more at home so women could work more. I guess Finland is not going to win the title of "most christian country" in the near future. It is getting harder and harder to be patriot in a country like this...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well, my husband and I have a strategy in which we vote for the most rightest party which is highest in the polls and most likely to win. Of course, later they form a coalition with progressives but it's still better than a totally left government, imo. We have several officially Christian parties, but I'm really satisfied with none of them. In fact, i find some of their ideas downright harmful as they appear to think (well, at least some of them) that "Christian" means open borders + more socialism.

    Housewife, did Finland decide to follow Sweden in their madness?:)

    ReplyDelete
  5. As for the "puppeteers", I remember back in 2008 I asked my American friend who was going to win the election. She said, "the one the bankers chose." I thought at that time that she was exaggerating, but now I'm not so sure:

    http://voxday.blogspot.nl/2016/10/how-rule-by-banker-manifests-itself.html

    ReplyDelete