Joe Carter talks to the Religious Right

"As a matter of political liberty I believe it is important that we support such issues as prayer in schools and public displays of religious symbols."

Hmmm, ya mean like the Q'uran? The Torah? Pentangles? Little Buddha statues?

Why do I get the feeling he means public displays of CHRISTIAN symbols to the exclusion of all others?

Keith, we are not a theocracy. We have a secular - perhaps even shall we say, unreligious - government. Do you remember that even Israel had spies while en route to the Promised Land? If we fail to defend the safety of our neighbor, we're not 'fulfilling Christ's demands", we're failing to honor the first and great commandment to care for our neighbors.

Every now and then, someone makes a speech like the above quotes, which always comes out as some large surprise or even seemingly "out of the ordinary", but they're not, really. They are how mundane, ordinary, even ordinary politically involved people, live their lives. I found no new or strange concepts to any of it. It's how I think - even as a "right wing" Christian. Now, maybe Rod, who's somehow lost his mind or something, and rambled off into the far left, might find some kind of surprise there, but I sort of doubt it. Even though the poor soul has lost his way politically, he still seems to have the rest of his mind intact.

Many comments to this point have revolved around the "our ideological opponents consider us the enemy". Truth, that very much is, sadly. Even some of our political allies have too. But these people have lost their judgement. They have substituted politics for morality, their judgements no longer allow room for disagreement, and thus, they find themselves hemmed into corners from which they cannot escape, and retreat into radicalism. That's why and how a father can kill his daughter for having done nothing other than to marry a man not of his choosing. Can you see where we're going with this?

If some deranged lunatic, terrorist(s), madman, or God-knows-who, is holding my neighbor with a gun to his head, reciting the reasons for which he should die, my Christian obligation means I put a bullet in HIS head to save the life of my neighbor(s). For those who have lost their capacity to reason and to understand judgement and wisdom, they resort to the kind of radicalism that says they'll only vote to send him to jail for the rest of his life AFTER he murders. I don't have to hate him or want to kill out of anger or vengeance (definition of murder in the Ten Commandments), I only need to care for my neighbor to understand what to do.

This capacity for judgement is what is at issue, not whether we're in perfect agreement on political, or even theological, issues. As is rightly pointed out, LOTS of people have either given up, or else have never obtained, that capacity for judgement. Judgement is not prejudice, nor "judgementalism", nor radicalism. Nor is it a failure of conscience... it is instead, the application of the God-given sanctified standards of righteousness, along with a conscience and an intellectual grasp of our moral obligations, and then making decisions about how to apply all these to an imperfect world and imperfect situations.

It is not relativism, nor is it "everyone for himself", for the message to the Christian is exact opposite - love your neighbor and your enemy. Do good for both. But understand that sometimes you have to take a life to save more. We cannot be like a little child who clings to a shiny penny and refuses to trade it for a wrinkled 100 dollar bill - displaying no judgement or ability to value the greater for what it actually is. No, we must learn judgement and reason. After all, our God is intelligent and reasoned, and those two are among His greatest gifts to us.