I would like to hear further elaboration from you on the ideas I raised in my response to your other post. I guess this is where your culture and my culture collide - you don't see how it is possible or how one should pray for the sins of a nation in which you are residing, and Mennonites, traditionally, never having believed that those two masters could be served, but nonetheless, having been citizens of whichever country would have them, are experts at it by now. At least the theology behind the idea isn't new to me as a Mennonite. I don't mean to imply that it was easy to differentiate, only that in theory, that was what Mennonites tried to do. They did not always succeed.
There is a great difference between understanding something and even agreeing with it, and being able to actually do it, like forgiving your brother seventy times seven. That is the goal to reach for - but it is not always or maybe even usually reached, even by those who want to reach it.
I don't know if I will have any time to post tomorrow. I had nothing but unannounced company all day, so all the Martha stuff I had intended to do, went undone. So I'll go on (although I am very interested in your response to my other post) to some of the other Theses.
As far as Theses 19 is concerned, I generally agree because of the very principles of Christian pacifism. That two wrongs do not make a right. That in war, innocent people die. Christians from one country bomb their fellow citizens in God's kingdom because they are in another country. If all Christians, particularly in the Judeao-Christian west, refused to take up arms for that reason alone - that they will not risk killing their Christian brother or sister since war does not discriminate - would the second world war even have happened?
If German Christians had put Christ before Hitler, before country and patriotism - would there have been enough soldiers to fill out the ranks of Hitler's armies? German Christians believed a lot like American Christians or British Christians. They thought patriotism was a good thing. They dedicated churches in Hitler's name and gave thanks to God for him. They were patriots. They didn't have devil horns and ears, and cloven feet. And Hitler used that against them. He played on their faith and their patriotism. They weren't more Jew-haters than Americans or Canadians of that time.
But Hitler gave them an enemy. Nothing stirs up the patriot in people more than having a focus, like Osama bin Laden, or Saddam Hussein. To kill people, you first have to dehumanize them and pretend they are somehow different than you and me. That somehow they don't share 'our' values. That they love their children less. Nothing unifies a country like a common enemy, hearing all the time that your very liberty and values as a people is in jeopardy from others. Kinda like Iraq now and seeing a terrorist behind every bedpost.
They (the powers-that-be) lead up to it - they don't say it all at once because it would sound crazy and paranoid. They lead populations up to it and by the time you realise it was all a lie, you are well and truly done for. This is the spirit of the anti-Christ that is in the world today.
In some regions the US may indeed have acted for the good. Bad people sometimes do good things and good people sometimes do bad things. That doesn't change the fact that the US has very often acted badly, especially in South America because there is no power strong enough or influential enough to challenge the US policy in that area of overthrowing democratically elected governments, and there are no resources there that right now, any other powerful and influential country in the world cares to make more than a token objection about.
You wrote several posts ago, that the US is a target because it is powerful and if it wasn't the US, it would be some other country. You are absolutely right. Whoever happens to be a powerful country is a corrupted country because power corrupts. I don't see how that minimizes the bad things that the US has done. If I have less to criticise Canada about, it is only that we are not a world power, not because we are more innately good or because I am anti-American. There are plenty of areas in which Canada has behaved terribly and which I am ashamed of. And if Canada has not so openly abused its power, it is only because it didn't have enough power, not because it's citizens are morally superior to American citizens.
It isn't a virtue on anyone's part if they have never sinned because they have spent their lives on a desert island. "Virtue" comes in when you are confronted by a temptation and manage to say no. It doesn't happen when you have never been tempted.
I also therefore totally agree with the 20th Theses, that the kingdom of Heaven needs no violence to defend it. Which, I think the writers of the Theses are tying into the point of the next Theses, which is that the US is not the Kingdom of God. It trusts in its own power, not God's. But it acts and talks like it is behaving on behalf of God.
Which brings us to the 22nd Theses, that "liberty" - and only the US definition of liberty - is the main thing Americans value because they have come subconsciously to associate the US definition of liberty with the will of God and the liberty of God. I have heard that a lot of churches in the US display the American flag along with the cross in churches. That floors me. Can Baal and Christ share the same space? Any national flag and the cross of Christ are completely at odds with each other.
There is a word for that and that is arrogance. And God overthrows nations who are arrogant, who say, by my own strength I have done this. That is why he did what he did to Babylon and to Nebuchadnezzar. And personally speaking, I think that is why the US is in the trouble it currently is now, with the war in Iraq, and general world opinion because God does not reward arrogance. He humbles people and nations who are proud, who believe their achievements and victories are the result of their own superior strength and doing.
He says (Daniel 4) The kingdom is departed from thee. And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field: they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.
It is very easy to think that the Germans were somehow stupid or flawed in some moral sense - more flawed than the rest of us, but that is not true. That is the real lesson of the second world war and one, I fear, we are doomed to repeat.
Layla
Showing posts with label New 95 Theses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New 95 Theses. Show all posts
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Friday, December 7, 2007
Well, I don't know if your school system is bad or not. People complain about the school system here too. They complain about school systems everywhere. But there does seem to be a lack of knowledge about the rest of the world amongst Americans. But what I think that what the writers of the 95 Theses are objecting to, when they mention liberty as they do in some of the Theses, is that ignorance can also be arrogance, when people don't know they are ignorant and then make sweeping generalizations about their place in the world vis a vis that of other countries.
Putting something like 'freedom of speech' into a Christian context, for example - we are told to guard our tongues, and be careful what we say so that we don't hurt other people. Far too often 'freedom of speech' means (and this is by no means just an American thing) means freedom from being held responsible for the hurts your words cause. A little more responsibility and a little less freedom isn't all that bad a thing.
I don't want to get into the whole Iraq war thing, but on 60 Minutes they had a show this past Sunday, in which they interviewed the last remaining Christian bishop (I believe he was a bishop) in Iraq. He ministers to a very small Christian congregation in secret - mostly women and children because the men have all been killed since the American invasion.
I don't think that most Americans realised that Saddam Hussein was for a secular society in which all religions were equal. He was not an ardent Muslim. His second-in-command was Christian. Iraq was certainly not a democracy but in many ways there was the kind of liberty that the US is supposedly now trying to bring there.
I don't want to address whether the war was right or wrong, since I think that war is wrong. It is clear that the American public were lied to and it is also clear that by anyone's standards, Saddam was not a nice man. But I think that if the word 'freedom' was not an idol, a sacred cow, that Americans would have been more skeptical and questioned more before rushing into that war. When people believe that they have a monopoly on an idea, like freedom for instance, and there is such a great value placed on that idea that to even question what 'freedom' means is enough to be called anti-American, then I think it is an idol by any definition.
I'm not sure what you mean in your reference to Theses 18. Are you saying that you think that there will still be freedom in the US when the Rapture happens?
I was also looking over the Theses wondering where you got 'repenting' from. From the preamble to the Theses? I think that just as nations have national days of mourning when someone important in that country dies, the intent is broad when the preamble speaks of the nation repenting. I think they are saying that just as Israel 'repented' nationally, time and again of their sins in the Old Testament - which also goes on today during the Day of Atonement - that since by definition we are all sinners, there is always something to repent from.
I guess where they don't make much sense is that if they are saying that the US has been holier than thou in talking as though they are somehow special and have a special Christian heritage, and that Americans should accept the essentially secular character of their country, faith being the province of the individual, then why are they calling on a secular nation to make a religious repentance?
On the other hand, Jerry Falwell also said famously that he believed that 9/11 was punishment by God upon the US for their collective sins.
I think that God does call nations to repentance. I don't think that in God's mind, He says, "oh, yes, the US, well now that's a secular democracy, with freedom of speech so we have to give them leeway and not punish the nation since they were never founded on principles of Jesus Christ."
God clearly speaks of punishing the nations, from Israel, a chosen people, to nations like that of Babylon or Nineveh or Tyre or Sidon, or what the prophets call the nations of the sea. He doesn't excuse any of these nations on the grounds that they are not the people with whom he made a covenant on Mount Sinai. He seems to punish on the basis of an internal moral law, like that which Kant espoused, that should be inherent in all people, regardless of their faith and culture. He doesn't punish Gentile nations on whether they keep kosher.
I think that as partakers of our nation, although we are not of this world, we have a moral responsibility like Abraham had, when he prayed to God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah. We are told that by James to Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
I think particularly in so far as both the populations of Canada and the US were settled predominantly by Christians, when our nations behave badly, either internally or in matters of foreign affairs, we are especially badly reflected upon since we are, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
And we are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Our 'house' being our nation, just by acting like Christians, if Christians are a majority in the country, there ought to be an impact in the way a nation, even an officially secular nation, acts. I don't mean in terms of politicizing Christianity or in terms of politicians spouting God's name in order to win elections, but by quiet, every day deeds, Christians ought to make more of a difference than they do.
I can't remember who it was who said this, but someone said that a nation ought to be judged not by how it treats its strongest members, but by how it treats those who are the weakest.
1 Corinthians 5:6 ...Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
Layla
Putting something like 'freedom of speech' into a Christian context, for example - we are told to guard our tongues, and be careful what we say so that we don't hurt other people. Far too often 'freedom of speech' means (and this is by no means just an American thing) means freedom from being held responsible for the hurts your words cause. A little more responsibility and a little less freedom isn't all that bad a thing.
I don't want to get into the whole Iraq war thing, but on 60 Minutes they had a show this past Sunday, in which they interviewed the last remaining Christian bishop (I believe he was a bishop) in Iraq. He ministers to a very small Christian congregation in secret - mostly women and children because the men have all been killed since the American invasion.
I don't think that most Americans realised that Saddam Hussein was for a secular society in which all religions were equal. He was not an ardent Muslim. His second-in-command was Christian. Iraq was certainly not a democracy but in many ways there was the kind of liberty that the US is supposedly now trying to bring there.
I don't want to address whether the war was right or wrong, since I think that war is wrong. It is clear that the American public were lied to and it is also clear that by anyone's standards, Saddam was not a nice man. But I think that if the word 'freedom' was not an idol, a sacred cow, that Americans would have been more skeptical and questioned more before rushing into that war. When people believe that they have a monopoly on an idea, like freedom for instance, and there is such a great value placed on that idea that to even question what 'freedom' means is enough to be called anti-American, then I think it is an idol by any definition.
I'm not sure what you mean in your reference to Theses 18. Are you saying that you think that there will still be freedom in the US when the Rapture happens?
I was also looking over the Theses wondering where you got 'repenting' from. From the preamble to the Theses? I think that just as nations have national days of mourning when someone important in that country dies, the intent is broad when the preamble speaks of the nation repenting. I think they are saying that just as Israel 'repented' nationally, time and again of their sins in the Old Testament - which also goes on today during the Day of Atonement - that since by definition we are all sinners, there is always something to repent from.
I guess where they don't make much sense is that if they are saying that the US has been holier than thou in talking as though they are somehow special and have a special Christian heritage, and that Americans should accept the essentially secular character of their country, faith being the province of the individual, then why are they calling on a secular nation to make a religious repentance?
On the other hand, Jerry Falwell also said famously that he believed that 9/11 was punishment by God upon the US for their collective sins.
I think that God does call nations to repentance. I don't think that in God's mind, He says, "oh, yes, the US, well now that's a secular democracy, with freedom of speech so we have to give them leeway and not punish the nation since they were never founded on principles of Jesus Christ."
God clearly speaks of punishing the nations, from Israel, a chosen people, to nations like that of Babylon or Nineveh or Tyre or Sidon, or what the prophets call the nations of the sea. He doesn't excuse any of these nations on the grounds that they are not the people with whom he made a covenant on Mount Sinai. He seems to punish on the basis of an internal moral law, like that which Kant espoused, that should be inherent in all people, regardless of their faith and culture. He doesn't punish Gentile nations on whether they keep kosher.
I think that as partakers of our nation, although we are not of this world, we have a moral responsibility like Abraham had, when he prayed to God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah. We are told that by James to Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
I think particularly in so far as both the populations of Canada and the US were settled predominantly by Christians, when our nations behave badly, either internally or in matters of foreign affairs, we are especially badly reflected upon since we are, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
And we are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Our 'house' being our nation, just by acting like Christians, if Christians are a majority in the country, there ought to be an impact in the way a nation, even an officially secular nation, acts. I don't mean in terms of politicizing Christianity or in terms of politicians spouting God's name in order to win elections, but by quiet, every day deeds, Christians ought to make more of a difference than they do.
I can't remember who it was who said this, but someone said that a nation ought to be judged not by how it treats its strongest members, but by how it treats those who are the weakest.
1 Corinthians 5:6 ...Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
Layla
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Theses 11 - 18
I am not sure what the point is about Theses 11 and 12. I am not sure if the writers of these 95 Theses are saying that they think that the founders of America should have based the country only and entirely on the Bible, specifically the New Testament? If they are not saying that, I am not sure why they are saying anything at all about it. If they are saying that, then I think they undermine their own point, which is that we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven first and that Kingdom has nothing to do with kingdoms of this world.
Maybe they worded it that way because they think that there is a large body of American Christians who believe that the intent of the founding fathers was in fact to create a Christian, New Testament style country? Is that what you think a lot of American Christians think the intent of the founding fathers was?
I am thinking that these Theses, based on the preamble, was probably written shortly after 9/11, and the beginning parts of it, have some of the same fever of irrationality about it that spawned some of the more hideous comments by a small sector of Americans shocked by what happened (like the people who said to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, to nuke them and say they didn't care how many died).
I don't think that most Americans felt that way. I think a lot may have felt a burning desire to do something, even a desire for revenge, right in the aftermath of 9/11. That's what humans do. When we are hurt, we want to lash back but for most of us, as the anger subsides, the desire to shoot ourselves in the collective foot if necessary to obtain that revenge also fades.
I see it more as a hysterical reaction on the part of most who felt that way than an actual wish that the US would have done those things. But these Theses, in these first examples we have been discussing, also exhibit some of the same hysteria - an hysterical response to an hysterical response to 9/11 - in my humble opinion.
I could be wrong since I'm not an American. I was shocked beyond words when 9/11 happened. Sickened beyond belief. When they have replays of what happened on 9/11, I am still as speechless and frozen in front of the TV as I was the day it happened and for many days after.
I agree with Theses 13 that they did create a space in which a new civil American religion could arise. That religion I would label as excessive love of country (patriotism), in that Americans often show (and this is shown statistically often enough on American news broadcasts) that Americans very often are completely ignorant of what's going on in the world around them, in other countries. One of the things Americans often say is that they 'live in the best country in the world.'
I have always wondered what the standard was for 'best country in the world.' It can be a throw-away saying, just something people say but don't think about but I have come across a lot of Americans who believe they are the best country in the world. I have come across Americans who seem to believe, literally, that in other countries they don't have freedom of speech and that freedom of speech really only exists in the US. I have come across Americans who believe that Canada is basically communist, since we have a national health care plan.
My impression has been that because they have heard 'best country in the world' so often, to them it has to mean that no one else has the same amount of freedom of speech and that in other countries, even democracies like Canada, we are in constant danger of the thought police throwing us in jail.
Since I have generally found that people who have strongly held beliefs like that aren't interested in facts, I just kept my mouth shut. So I am only guessing as to what they might or might not mean :-)
I therefore also agree on the same principle with Theses 13 and 14 and 15, that this patriotism has a religious fervor about it, as does what the Theses calls the 'highest value' of this new religion, that of personal liberty. I think that any idea can become a person's religion, so yes, I think that personal liberty, in and of itself, can be a religion.
The word 'liberty' is a sacred cow in the US. That is how I see it as an outsider. I shift uncomfortably when Americans talk about liberty and try not to look at their impassioned, glazed-over eyes. Fanatics make me nervous. I don't think that Americans realise how non-Americans react to American speeches about liberty. I feel fairly confident in saying that this idea that liberty is a religion for Americans is something an awful lot of non-Americans would agree with. Sometimes you have to be an outsider to see something like that. I think that the emotionalism about the US flag and flag-burning as a form of dissension, and the famous saying, "Give me liberty or give me death" and your hand over your heart thing that you do, and the Pledge of Allegiance are all pretty weird and do indicate an unhealthy obsession with personal liberty.
Not that I have any desire to burn your flag. I'm just sayin'.
One of the more wise sayings that I read a long time ago was, that if you want to make a point, wash the flag, don't burn it.
I agree with Theses 15, that liberty is a virtue but not the highest virtue. It makes for a much more comfortable life, but Jesus never told us that being comfortable was what we were to strive for or what we were to expect. What is most comfortable isn't always best for us. When we are made uncomfortable, we are forced to grow.
He told us that we would share in his sorrows, every time we were persecuted - in other words, when our personal liberty is taken away, we have a tried-by-fire liberty in God.
Which also takes care of Theses 17 and 18 for me.
Layla
Maybe they worded it that way because they think that there is a large body of American Christians who believe that the intent of the founding fathers was in fact to create a Christian, New Testament style country? Is that what you think a lot of American Christians think the intent of the founding fathers was?
I am thinking that these Theses, based on the preamble, was probably written shortly after 9/11, and the beginning parts of it, have some of the same fever of irrationality about it that spawned some of the more hideous comments by a small sector of Americans shocked by what happened (like the people who said to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, to nuke them and say they didn't care how many died).
I don't think that most Americans felt that way. I think a lot may have felt a burning desire to do something, even a desire for revenge, right in the aftermath of 9/11. That's what humans do. When we are hurt, we want to lash back but for most of us, as the anger subsides, the desire to shoot ourselves in the collective foot if necessary to obtain that revenge also fades.
I see it more as a hysterical reaction on the part of most who felt that way than an actual wish that the US would have done those things. But these Theses, in these first examples we have been discussing, also exhibit some of the same hysteria - an hysterical response to an hysterical response to 9/11 - in my humble opinion.
I could be wrong since I'm not an American. I was shocked beyond words when 9/11 happened. Sickened beyond belief. When they have replays of what happened on 9/11, I am still as speechless and frozen in front of the TV as I was the day it happened and for many days after.
I agree with Theses 13 that they did create a space in which a new civil American religion could arise. That religion I would label as excessive love of country (patriotism), in that Americans often show (and this is shown statistically often enough on American news broadcasts) that Americans very often are completely ignorant of what's going on in the world around them, in other countries. One of the things Americans often say is that they 'live in the best country in the world.'
I have always wondered what the standard was for 'best country in the world.' It can be a throw-away saying, just something people say but don't think about but I have come across a lot of Americans who believe they are the best country in the world. I have come across Americans who seem to believe, literally, that in other countries they don't have freedom of speech and that freedom of speech really only exists in the US. I have come across Americans who believe that Canada is basically communist, since we have a national health care plan.
My impression has been that because they have heard 'best country in the world' so often, to them it has to mean that no one else has the same amount of freedom of speech and that in other countries, even democracies like Canada, we are in constant danger of the thought police throwing us in jail.
Since I have generally found that people who have strongly held beliefs like that aren't interested in facts, I just kept my mouth shut. So I am only guessing as to what they might or might not mean :-)
I therefore also agree on the same principle with Theses 13 and 14 and 15, that this patriotism has a religious fervor about it, as does what the Theses calls the 'highest value' of this new religion, that of personal liberty. I think that any idea can become a person's religion, so yes, I think that personal liberty, in and of itself, can be a religion.
The word 'liberty' is a sacred cow in the US. That is how I see it as an outsider. I shift uncomfortably when Americans talk about liberty and try not to look at their impassioned, glazed-over eyes. Fanatics make me nervous. I don't think that Americans realise how non-Americans react to American speeches about liberty. I feel fairly confident in saying that this idea that liberty is a religion for Americans is something an awful lot of non-Americans would agree with. Sometimes you have to be an outsider to see something like that. I think that the emotionalism about the US flag and flag-burning as a form of dissension, and the famous saying, "Give me liberty or give me death" and your hand over your heart thing that you do, and the Pledge of Allegiance are all pretty weird and do indicate an unhealthy obsession with personal liberty.
Not that I have any desire to burn your flag. I'm just sayin'.
One of the more wise sayings that I read a long time ago was, that if you want to make a point, wash the flag, don't burn it.
I agree with Theses 15, that liberty is a virtue but not the highest virtue. It makes for a much more comfortable life, but Jesus never told us that being comfortable was what we were to strive for or what we were to expect. What is most comfortable isn't always best for us. When we are made uncomfortable, we are forced to grow.
He told us that we would share in his sorrows, every time we were persecuted - in other words, when our personal liberty is taken away, we have a tried-by-fire liberty in God.
Which also takes care of Theses 17 and 18 for me.
Layla
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Theses 4 - 10
I figured I would jump start us onto the next few Theses because to me they are completely irrelevant. Is it just that I don't understand because I'm not American? I know on debate boards, what is or is not in the constitution of the US with regards to freedom 'of' and freedom 'from' religion is always a hot topic but I have never understood what the brouhaha is about. I don't doubt that what the Theses say about the founding of the US and the religious beliefs of its founding individuals is true, but I don't see how that is really relevant to anything. Do you?
With regards to Theses 10, my reaction, is well, yeah, dude! They were forming a country, not a religion. Of course they selected basic principles of justice from the Bible and their own common sense understanding of justice but it was a secular society they were planning.
So I really have nothing to say to any of these but if you have something that you want to say about any of them, go ahead.
Layla
With regards to Theses 10, my reaction, is well, yeah, dude! They were forming a country, not a religion. Of course they selected basic principles of justice from the Bible and their own common sense understanding of justice but it was a secular society they were planning.
So I really have nothing to say to any of these but if you have something that you want to say about any of them, go ahead.
Layla
First of all, I am more interested in the theology rather than the stuff in the beginning about 9/11 and how it relates to US patriotism. I don't really understand the connection there, since I am against patriotism on principle and I don't think that 9/11 showed anything that wasn't there before. I find the beginning of the whole 95 Theses a little peculiar for the emphasis on the US. I think that I agree with most of the Theses but they apply to everyone and every nation, not specifically or even exceptionally the US. It seems to me that if you are going to do another 95 Theses, you would write it more generally than that.
Yes, I am in agreement with the first Theses that Jesus called us to become citizens of His kingdom. To Pilate, Jesus says very clearly ... “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”
If He had not called us to be citizens of His kingdom, then who are the servants He is referring to in this verse?
The same verse above is in agreement with the second of the Theses, that the Kingdom of God cannot be understood to be a world kingdom.
I am in full agreement with the third thesis, that the US has no special place as a nation in that kingdom nor does any other except for Israel - although there seems to be a bit of a quibble about it, since Paul tells us that we are adopted into the nation of Israel through our belief in Jesus Christ. We are told that those who believe among the Gentiles will also serve God as priests in the New Jerusalem and somewhere, not sure where exactly, that it is faith, not genetic material, that sanctifies us into a kinship with Abraham.
Layla
Yes, I am in agreement with the first Theses that Jesus called us to become citizens of His kingdom. To Pilate, Jesus says very clearly ... “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”
If He had not called us to be citizens of His kingdom, then who are the servants He is referring to in this verse?
The same verse above is in agreement with the second of the Theses, that the Kingdom of God cannot be understood to be a world kingdom.
I am in full agreement with the third thesis, that the US has no special place as a nation in that kingdom nor does any other except for Israel - although there seems to be a bit of a quibble about it, since Paul tells us that we are adopted into the nation of Israel through our belief in Jesus Christ. We are told that those who believe among the Gentiles will also serve God as priests in the New Jerusalem and somewhere, not sure where exactly, that it is faith, not genetic material, that sanctifies us into a kinship with Abraham.
Layla
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