| | |
|
JackSherrickFirstEssay 19 - 19 May 2021 - Main.JackSherrick
|
| |
| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
|---|
| | | Subsequent Attempts to Establish the Contours of Dualism
| |
<
< | Pre-Reformation | >
> | The Early Church | | | Ever since Jesus ambiguously laid down the partition between the lay and divine, Christian thinkers have been speculating as to what is owed to Caesar as opposed to God. The apostle Paul, a Roman citizen, urged early Christians to accept Roman rule, pay their taxes, and obey the emperor short of worshipping him. Peter implores Christians to "fear God, honor the emperor." Justin Martyr writes to Emperor Antonius in Chapter VIII of his First Apology, "Whence to God alone we render worship, but in other things we gladly serve you... But if you pay no regard to our prayers and frank explanations, we shall suffer no loss, since we believe (or rather, indeed, are persuaded) that every man will suffer punishment in eternal fire according to the merit of his deed." These thinkers saw civil obedience as not only permissible, but a duty they were obliged to perform as Christians as long as obedience did not violate a divine statute. Martyr suggests in his Apology that part of the rationale behind Christians' compliance with secular law is that it is God's role to mete out retribution to heretical rulers, not Christians. | |
>
> | The Merging of Church and State | | | | |
<
< | The Christian willingness to obey secular leaders yet abstain from involvement in secular government led to the establishment and rapid growth of an episcopal government. | >
> | Initially, according to Gibbon, the Christian church evolved within the Roman empire. As the church gained more prominence, the sphere of influence commanded by God and that commanded by the emperor began to merge. Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 AD and the Edict of Thessalonica a few decades later recognized Christianity as the state religion of Rome. The amalgamation become more complete with the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire. What was due to Caesar became nearly indistinguishable from what was due to God because the emperor was now seen as having a divine mandate. | | | | |
<
< | Post-Reformation Protestant Views | >
> | Protestant Dualism | | | Massachusetts Puritans chose to merge the secular and divine. According to Haskins, a number of the colony's laws were based on the Old Testament while there was also a moderate embrace of various forms of English law during the early period. (Haskins page 7). | | | Luther advocated for obedience to secular rule. When German Peasants waged war against the aristocracy, Luther penned a scathing letter condemning the peasant's plight and beseeching them to acquiesce to aristocratic rule. Luther agreed with many of the peasant's demands but nevertheless instructed the peasants to "suffer to the end, and leave the case to Him (God). " | |
<
< | | >
> | The Christian willingness to obey secular leaders yet abstain from involvement in secular government led to the establishment and rapid growth of an episcopal government. | | | Among many American Protestant Christians, there is a prevalent attitude that the secular and divine and largely unrelated. | |
>
> | Modern Views of Dualism Among American Evangelicals
Christianity is a varied faith and modern views of dualism vary from sect to sect and even from church to church. I will hone in on However, it is possible to isolate large swathes of the Christian population and conduct a separate analysis on a given population's current stance on dualism. Emerson and Smith studied American evangelicals and found that
The miracle motif is a belief held by many Christians that the best way to improve society is to "love one another" and to add more people to the church. The state of society is not dependent upon secular laws or institutions, but upon the character of the individuals that compose society. | | | | |
>
> | Many Christians are willing to subject themselves to secular laws that do not align with their religious laws because they put little stock in the quality of their temporal lives relative to the eternal wellbeing of their souls. They also have a belief that original sin has placed a low ceiling on the degree of justice that can possibly be achieved on earth. Regardless of how "good" a law is, the corrupt nature of the human condition precludes the law from having much of a positive impact. Instead, there is a prevailing belief in the that positive change is best achieved on an individual rather than institutional level. | | |
Introduction |
|
|
|
|
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform.
All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.
All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
|
|
| | |