[TK Burk]

Originally Posted by OP_Carl

This little boat of consciencious pacifism and nonviolence has sailed this far only because it floats in a river of blood of the patriots. The practice and even attainment of the mindset of pacifism is a luxury bestowed upon its practitioners by men who knew that freedom of conscience and religion were worth dying for.

Christian pacifism has its roots in the Anabaptist tradition, which early on had some serious P.R. issues to contend with. Some of the early Anabaptists went loony, conquered the town of Munster, and promoted polygamy and other such horseplay at the behest of "heavenly visions." This only lasted for a couple years, but their surviving contemporaries in the new movement of adult baptism, or re-baptism, needed to stress that they were completely devoid of dominion theology, and completely unlike those "Munsters," lest they be stamped out like the group at Munster was. The cages in which the bodies of the tortured and executed ringleaders were allowed to rot still hang from the steeple of the church in Munster, Germany. The origins of Christian pacifism are reactionary in nature. Some may call it cowardice, and some may say it was the pragmatism of survival. I would fight in the American Revolution or in the Confederate Army, if I were in those times.

Some things simply don't need explaining, or chapter and verse, to be acceptable practice. Brother Strange has very clearly and patiently shown this, and why.

Your approach is called “poisoning the well.” It makes for good argument in a court of law or for human reasoning, but is unacceptable evidence in biblical hermeneutics.

To use your reasoning, remember Jim Jones began as a UPC minister, and David Koresh was a dispensationalist. So do we now teach against the apostolic faith and against pre-trib eschatology because of the evils of these men? You can’t use what you said and not do the same with these.

Why not just list your scriptures. The Bible, not slander, is the way we determine biblical Truth! oloroid