Yes, Jimmy Carter's peacemaking, almost all of it done after his short term in office as POTUS, was based on his Christian conduct.  And he's the one who got two former terrorists together to sign a peace treaty that one those other men the prize!

I don't think that few Christians have received the NPP because of the committee; it's more like that there aren't enough Christians doing enough good peacework to merit attention.  Some day, perhaps the Christian Peacemakers Team (www.cpt.org) will receive the prize.

Hearts, thanks for that testimony.  It's funny how, being only in one denomination, I could just accept their word for almost any doctrine, and hold to it faithfully.  Then I switched denominations, and suddenly the mode (method) of baptism didn't matter so much.  Pour, sprinkle, immerse: what most denominations that you and I know, seem to teach, is that an adult or adolescent should be baptized upon their profession of faith, as a believer.  The practice I have trouble understanding or accepting is infant baptism, and I also don't think you must be baptized in any outward fashion to be saved.

Thanks, gentlemen.

Skiguy, you're right that even in the New Testament, the Bible mentions soldiers (and lots of other occupations) without directly saying "This is an evil job, don't do it."  On the other hand, no one is ever told to join an army as a Christian.  There is the case of the centurion whose faith was so great.  Why was that?  Because the centurion believed in OBEDIENCE.  Our loyalty, our ultimate obedience, must be to the one we call LORD.  If we don't obey the commands of Jesus, we show a lack of faith in him as LORD.  Peter said in the book of Acts, when told not to proclaim the Gospel, "We must obey God, and not man."

War is a fact of life, but far more than that.  War is a greater threat to civiilization, and has cost the world far more lives, tears and money, than any other sin including prostitution, alcohol, tobacco smoking, grand larceny, etc.  True, it's not going to stop until Jesus returns.  In saying that ("There will be wars and rumors of war, until I come again") Jesus was not saying "Therefore, go kill all those heathen sinful pagans for whom I died without striking back."

Then, skiguy, you say well - and I commend you on how well you make your points - you state an opinion in a conditional sentence: "IF  it take soldiers and wars to stop an evil regime....then it's justified IMO."  Does it take soldiers and war?  Do Christians need to be the soldiers or the soldier-blessers or the warmongers?  If they need to be, what's the Scripture that 'justifies' (makes divinely righteous) the slaughter of millions of innocent non-combatants Christians and non-believers, for whom Jesus died without striking back?

The Mennonite scholar John Howard Yoder wrote about 26 chapters to list "Varieties of Christian Pacifism."  The variety I'll take here is primarily about OBEDIENCE TO THE LORD JESUS.  Jesus said that not all those who call him "Lord, Lord" will enter heaven.  He said, "If you love me, keep my commandments."  I have fifty more verses to share, as we continue. 

Frances Schaefer once asked in a book title, "How Then Shall We Live?"  Indeed, we must live for Jesus, as obedient slaves/servants of his commands, until we die or until Jesus comes back in victory.

I don't want to discuss dispensationalism, unless a dispensationalist feels compelled to discuss it, in which case I will ask:
a. On what grounds is the Sermon on the Mount, or any other command of Jesus that leaves out an adverb or clause of future time, reserved to some distant date that is milenia after Jesus commanded it?  No grounds that I'm aware of.
b. In what language such as Greek or English is there a clear future tense imperative command?  None.
c. If it were possible to prove that all commands of Jesus for his followers are reserved until after the Rapture - which is clearly impossible - what commands, what moral guidance, what ethical guidelines - do we have at this time?  Not the Law of Moses, which God crucified.

Enough for now.  I hope we'll agree that the Bible is the ONLY authority on matters of faith and morals (like Southern Baptists and many other evangelicals believe), but the Catholics can't accept that.  So, our Catholic brethren can show us exactly which infallible utterance of which infallible Pope announced the Just War Theory to be official, infallible dogma.  I doubt they'll find it.

Surely someone will wish to quote Romans 13:1-7.  In doing so, please don't tear it out of the fabric of its context.  Please don't assume that every king is assumed to be divinely righteous in doing God's will; surely not Hitler, Nero, Pol Pot, or Idi Amin.

Thanks for reading.

As for the media and how they portray Christ, we live in the Post-Christian era which, according to Frances Schaefer, doesn't even bother to remember what Christianity was or what it was supposed to be.  Many spokespersons for the popular media haven't a clue about real Christians, devoted pastors, faithful missionaries, etc. 

If you venture outside of Christian circles in your daily life, and speak about religion to non-believers, you may be shocked at their apostasy, the degree to which they are anti-religious, and their total hatred of all things Christian.  I believe it is our individual duty, for each one of us, to witness to what Christ has done for us.  Not to argue theology, but to be a witness.  Any courtroom judge or lawyer will tell you that the testimony of a reliable witness, about what happened to him, is nearly irrefutable.  Also, I don't defend Christianity's hideous history; I talk about what Jesus and Paul said about God.  I find that most people won't disagree anything that Jesus said, although they'll quibble about Paul.

I expect the media to oppose true Chrsitian discipleship, and they usually oppose it.

As for sex and Christianity.  I doubt the Old Testament view of sexual morality is much like that of the New Testament, and even less of what modern Christian churches teach.  We don't even have the vocabulary in the Scripture to be certain what "porneia" is.  We need to have a higher opinion of what God created to be used for His glory, and less fear of false guilt.

Apostolic succession, of course, is claimed by the (Roman) Catholic church, and many others like Episcopalian (Anglican) and Methodist who evolved from the Roman church.  They (at least the Catholics) see Peter as the first Pope, and each of his successors as an unbroken thread or chain of apostles who, after several centuries, were considered to be infallible when they spoke ex cathedra.  Presbyterians actually have their own form of polity, rule by the elders.  Congregationalists, Baptists and many smaller denominations use congregational rule, where the local assembly is autonomous, even though they're related denominationally to similar congregations. 

The congregations in the New Testament did not show much centralized control.  Paul went to Jerusalem to have a conference with the other leaders, regarding the Judaizing problem, but he refers to them as those men of reputation, rather dismissively.  But if you read all of Galatians 1 and 2 (3's good, even better), you see that Paul didn't consider himself under the control of Peter, but rebuked him publicly for Peter's error about observing the law of Moses in error.

As I understand its strict interpretation by conservative Southern Baptist preachers, you can't join the local church without a confession of faith in Christ for salvation, and then you have to have been properly baptized.  Some churches of "Campbellite" background (and I was taught that would include southern USA "Churches of Christ") teach that water baptism is essential to salvation.  This is not considered 'proper' by Baptists, who only accept baptismal procedures that used water in the proper mode and not as a condition to salvation.

Your prior pastor, kyfatboy, from what you wrote, appears to have placed too much emphasis on the denomination.

I had a manager in Oklahoma who attended the "Christian Church" denomination, which was possibly a break-away from the Churches of Christ (thus with Campbellite ancestry, so to speak), and they used instrumental music in their worship, and were more liberal.  One of those denominations had a slogan: "Where the Bible speaks, we will speak.  Where the Bible is silent, we will be silent."  To be a trifle naughty, I guess they had to be silent regarding mastur.....ba...tio...n.

My first pastor, as a Mennonite, was also a former Southern Baptist.  One day I listed several differences between the denominations, and he added one that I had overlooked: community.  Baptists say they do community, but not really. 

The USA is excessively individualist, and Calvinist denominations especially so.  I think, I guess, maybe.  Most churches in the USA are so nationalist that, other than foreign mission work, they consider themselves a national denomination, more than an international one, except for Catholics, Episcopalians, and Anabaptists.

Without saying that war was good, Jesus told us that there would be wars, and rumors of wars, until he returned.

For example, I understand that the Korean peninsula has never had a peace treaty, just an armistice, for over 50 years now.  Much or many of the wars that are described as 'religious' were nothing of the sort.  It is impossible for a truly Christian nation to wage war against a truly Christian nation.  But has there ever been a truly Christian nation?  I don't think so.

World peace is not the same as living at peace, as Christ and Paul and Peter commanded.  World peace is under the influence of the nations, which are not Christian.  We are commanded not only to live at peace with all men as much as it is humanly possible for us to behave, but we are told to MAKE peace, which is not merely the absence of war, and not the same as KEEPing a secular national peace or international peace.

On non scriptural grounds, peace often makes far more sense than war.  Peace is cheaper, and more loving.

Question: when in human history did a nation, colony, commonwealth or republic live at peace, as Christian pacifists, for over 70 years, without warfare, even though they were surrounded by peoples who fought wars in nearby areas?

Yes, Don.  I'm not sure what you mean by "Could the Church have established hegemony otherwise?"  By that word, do you mean secular control?  The Calvinist author in Canada who wrote "The Step-Children of the Reformation" pointed out that now, centuries after the Reformation, reformed Reformation groups have reformed their views about the separation of Church and State, perhaps to a degree that Calvin and Zwingli could not have imagined when they argued against the Anabaptists.  The Anabaptists never considered themselves to be unfortunate to struggle non-violently without secular muscle behind them; they considered such muscle to be a spiritual impediment.  Even the Catholic church has gotten out of secular government in recent centuries, even in their traditional countries like France and Spain.

I would say that Christianity was spread by the sword per se, during the Crusades, the Conquest of the New World, and surely during the Reformation.  Not by the sword alone, but almost always with the backing of the civil magistrates and earthly princes.  Nevertheless, despite incredible persecution, the Anabaptists survived the Reformation.

Thanks, Donald, for our agreement.  Of course, there was nothing evil in bringing Scriptures to the common folk then, but it was evil for the rulers (both secular and 'sacred' rulers) to suppress that by force.  Of course, there really isn't such a thing as a "necessary evil". 

During the Reformation, there were wars between denominations - bloody wars by armies - while small groups among the Anabaptists steadfastly refused to take up arms, but they could not be wiped out by violence. 

It's always tempting to oversimplify something as complex as the entire Reformation.  The Catholic church responded with their Counter-Reformation, and while that corrected many of the abuses for which Luther nailed his complaints on the church house door, it was too late. 

Don't forget the radical wing of the Reformation, the Anabaptists (especially those whose descendants practice the faith to this day).  Luther supposedly warned them, "Don't throw the baby out with the washwater," but Luther and Calvin both left far too much dirty water in the wash basin. 

The trouble with Luther and Calvin, first of all, is that they retained the church-state sin that had ruined the church since the Council of Nicea, and which still poisons most of Christianity as organized denominations. 

Because of that error to break away from the State, they relied on kings and princes for protection, and accepted their influence.  Also, they accepted violence as a way to do Christianity, and they appealed to their earthly kings to kill their opponents. 

They had such a warped view of "community" that both Luther and Calvin, among other leaders like Zwingli, could not imagine a church independent of the society at large, could not imagine anything was wrong with baptizing mere infants, or insisting that every person in the village or nation be a church member.

First I was a Congregationlist, then a Baptist, and now I'm Anabaptist, belonging to the Mennonite demonination. 

Hi, I'm the new kid on the block (or as the Eagles sang it, "New Kid in Town"), and this is my first post.

I like that verse.  In the King James Version, including the verse before and after,

Acts 4 Verses 31 to 33
      [31] And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.
      [32] And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
      [33] And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.

This verse inspired the Hutterites under Jakob Hutter, when they were in a similar distress in Europe around 1530, to pool their meager belongings and start being a communal denomination.  Although there were centuries when they didn't or couldn't be communal, they started it again and are communal to this day (near the US-Canadian border, especially).  Not Russian or Marxist Communist, just sharing all their property.  It was voluntary, as part of their faith.

Early Christian practice, like much of Jewish history, was communal, or at least collective.  Their experiences were shared within a community.  Some denominations of Christianity today are more communal than others.

When you see the verse 32 in its text, you see that this act happened when those people were filled with the holy spirit, and then great power the apostles gave witness, and grace was upon them all.  So, it must have been good and right.

I don't think we know when such sharing of personal property stopped, or why.  Today, Christians who don't want to stress community say that it was very much the exception, not the rule.  Again, I don't think we know.