&nbps;
CORRECTION (posted Nov. 10, 2005): I have been told that the sermon discussed below was not a recent sermon but rather one that was preached 3 years ago. I am sorry for the inaccuracy on this point.
LifeChurchVsIraq.com – a website that discusses a recent pro-war sermon by Pastor. Here’s one excerpt from the sermon (I corrected the quote some based on the audio recording)…
“…if (Bush) as God’s ordained leader of our country says it’s time for war, then at that moment, at that moment, even though I am not for war my opinion no longer matters. As a citizen of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [caps represent boastful shouting]…one nation established under God at that point my role becomes to submit to the leader of The United States, I will speak well of him, speak well of our troops and will do nothing but support that which God has ordained [uproarious applause from the crowd ensues].”
In response to this, I’ve written Craig a letter. Here’s what I said…
Dear Craig,
I heard an excerpt online (at www.lifechurchvsiraq.com) from a recent sermon in which you stridently endorsed the American war against Iraq and in which you said that your role is to submit to the leader of the United States because God has ordained him in this role.
I have a few questions for you about this…
1. If God supposedly ordained Bush to be the leader of the United States, then who ordained Saddam Hussein to rule his country? Who ordained Hitler? Who ordained the tyrants that rule Saudi Arabia and North Korea?
2. How can a Christian pastor endorse a war without question, when this war has involved the use of torture and the killing of over 26,000 civilians to date (www.iraqbodycount.org)?
3. Does Jesus love the people of Iraq as much as he loves the people of America?
4. Is it ever appropriate for a follower of Christ to disobey the law?
I would appreciate your response to these questions. I am posting them on my blog at www.jmbzine.com and will post your response to them once I receive it.
If you share my concerns I encourage you to let Pastor Craig know. I couldn’t find his email address on the LifeChurch.tv website, but I did find the email address of his executive asssistant: sarah(at)lifechurch(dot)tv.
“1 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.” – Paul
I know that you’re fully aware of Romans 13 already. You have to admit that’s where Rev. Lifechurch got this stuff. You have to admit that it would be difficult for those who believe in the very literal reading of the words of the New Testament to find a way out of it. And I know you personally are no stranger to the “literal translation” bandwagon.
This, to me, is a very stimulating topic, going slightly deeper than the war with Iraq. I guess I’m just curious what the root of your disagreement with him is. Is it that you believe this part of Paul’s writings doesn’t apply to the United States governing authorities? To the authorities who are obviously evil, like tyrants? Did this part of Paul’s writings only apply to the culture at the time? What other parts of Paul’s writings only apply to the culture at the time? How do we differentiate between which parts of Pauls letters apply to us today and which do not? OR, should this passage never have been taken literally, even by the Romans?
Perhaps I have opened a can of worms.
You’re right, it is a big can of worms.
For good or bad, I have a hard time knowing what to do with Paul’s writings (particularly in three areas — his telling a runaway slave to return to his master, his telling women to be silent in the church (and even more wacky that they will be “saved through childbearing”), and his teachings about civil government). I do think though that much of what Paul said was practical instructions on how the Christian movement could survive in the Roman empire, and I think that is why he didn’t want to upset the social order. The movement was under enough persecution just for their monotheistic beliefs (and what the Romans said was canibalism… having a ceremony in which they said they were eating the flesh and drinking the blood of christ) and their refusal to pledge their loyalty to Ceasar.
So, that’s the question to me. Was Paul speaking for himself (giving practical pastoral instructions to specific churches at a unique point in history — particularly Romans, being written to Christians in Rome itself) or was he speaking as an inspired author of scripture bringing forth God’s word?
If you believe the first possibility (which is where I lean), then it is easier to work through this because there’s plenty of other scriptures (and the teachings of the early church) that called for Christians to keep one’s loyalties straight (i.e. not saying “Ceasar is Lord”), and so I would assume that Paul’s teachings in Romans 13 is not authoratitive to our context.
If you believe the second possibility, then the problem is not solved because it leaves looming the issue of what God is doing. Why would God allow the Roman Empire to stand for so long when it was so evil (having slavery, the gladiator fights, etc.)? Why would God allow the Nazi regime to come to power? To me this question is unanswerable. I know some would say that we should just have faith and not doubt what God is doing, but I find that hard to do. Some things (i.e. the holocaust) are too horrible to believe that God is involved with.
So, I guess to answer the original question, I don’t think Romans 13 is necessarily relevant today, except as practical instruction on how to get along in this world.
What we do with Paul as a whole, I still don’t know though. I do think it is worthwhile to read and learn from, but I’m not sure I would see it as any kind of binding authority. (probably the only thing I see in that kind of light is the teachings of Jesus himself)
In regard to your second question, are you aware that the war sermon you are discussing was given three years ago? Steve Hunt, who put up that critical website doesn’t tell anyone that. Your second question to Craig is totally bogus. His talk was given at a time when over 90% of people across the political spectrum believed that the Iraq war was the right thing to do. Craig’s talk was assuming that the Administration was acting in good faith, an assumption that, at the time, was reasonable. How can you be so sure that Craig feels the same way three years later?
I was not aware that this sermon was delivered 3 years ago, and I have to say that Steve should say that on his website. I was under the impression that this was last week’s sermon (based on the date given)
On the second question… 90% of Americans never supported the war. According to http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/10/opinion/polls/main930772.shtml, at the beginning of the war, 69% of Americans supported it, a very high number but nowhere near 90%. Even in Oklahoma, I think 90% is a stretch, maybe 75% would be closer to accurate.
But if Craig does feel differently now, he should say so.
Thanks for the mention and thanks for noting I did not mention that this was a sermon 3 years ago. I thought it was understood, but now that I look at the site as it now is I understand where one could be confused. I will put the date of the talk up right now. I disagree with LCadvocate that this has much to do with anything that is on the site, as it’s central focus is that A.> Groeschel said this was one of his most important and contraversial topics ever, yet he did NO reasearch on it and merely used Rick Warren’s talk and B.> To try and get Groeschel interested in facts that he ignored at the time, causing him (and tons of people like him) to endorse this filthy, shameful war. He states in the talk that Bush had information that we do not have access to and therefore it all makes perfect sense. He omits the fact that we have soooo much on these matters from the fact that this is the freest country in the world that there was MORE than enough for us to come to the conclusion that this was wrong. If you look at the links at the bottom of my site, there are articles I wrote in ’02 that clearly stated why this was wrong and completley non-sensical.
Also, let me add that in the many months of the leadup to the invasion I took a lot of crap from people like the lifers. Now that it is so obvious that this was beyond wrong to anyone who has any interest in the real world I take crap for pointing out that they were wrong. Im not interested in an “I told you so”, I am interested in accountability and not sweeping things under the rug. That is why these things happen over and over and over and over.
70% is merely a whopping majority rather than an overwhelming majority. Your correction hardly undermines my point. Polls I have viewed show around 80% approval rating for Bush in March of 2003, which makes me wonder how many people were not accurately represented in the Iraq poll you cited in that they passively approved of war without being confident it was “the right thing to doâ€. One could probably argue persuasively for 80%, which almost gets us right back to where I started. (And lets not forget that virtually everyone believed that Saddam had WMDs at the time. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/21/iraq.hillary/ ). However, I’ll take 70% and I do accept your criticism and admit my error, an error that doesn’t seem to undermine what I was getting at anyway.
The point is that a large majority of Americans supported Iraq either actively or passively at that time. If one maintains that the Iraq war was a colossal mistake (a position that is still divisive, but that I personally agree with) then one can hardly blame Craig Groeschel. He received his information from the same source that we did at the time; the Administration.
As for holding Craig accountable, you need to go to the source of the faulty intelligence and that is not a pastor in Oklahoma (think about how absurd it is to hold LifeChurch.tv accountable for the war in Iraq!).
A case in point, should I blame J. M. Branum for distributing false information about the date of Craig’s sermon, or should I blame Steve Hunt? If Branum doesn’t issue an apology on his blog, I will assume that he agrees with me that it was Hunt who misled and was not careful to relay this crucial information (and quite conveniently and deceptively on the part of Hunt I might add—his website has been up for weeks without disclosing that the talk he is criticizing is ancient!). Similarly, Craig need not apologize for assuming that the Administration was operating in good faith at a time when we had no reason to think otherwise (and who would Craig apologize to? The majority who believed the same thing at the time?). In fact, it seems wholly arbitrary to blame a pastor in Oklahoma for the war in Iraq! Indeed, it is asinine! Hunt is clearly trying to gain some local notoriety at the expense of Life Church.
What does Hunt mean when he says that Craig “did no research� What was there to research? Faulty intelligence? The American people had nothing to go on but the word of the President… and no clear reason up to that point for thinking that Bush was not acting in good faith. All Craig could do was give the Christian perspective when one is assuming that the leader of one’s country is operating in good faith. Biblically, you submit—unless you know something to the contrary. Clearly, Craig’s entire sermon was presupposing as did most people of that time that the Administration was operating in good faith.