"We would never baptize prostitutes or bank robbers and allow them to continue their professions. Yet baptizing new converts who join the military and prepare to kill others doesn't trouble us. Military service is a matter of 'individual conscience,' we say. Would we say the same about prostitution and robbing banks? Which is worse?" (Kraybill, The Upside-down Kingdom).
This is out of the text book I have to read for my Bible class. Yes, I do have an older edition and this paragraph has been edited out of the newer edition, to be replaced with something that means the same but sounds a tad nicer, but this is just so wrong in so many ways. Really really ticked me off!
5 comments:
It really ticks me off too, why the heck would you refuse to baptize a prostitute? By that logic we wouldn't be able to baptize any sinners.
well, it seems to have started.
...Hey, Fluff, keep in mind that a lot of your readers disagree with you on a number of matters.
Personally, I'd say that soldiers have a necessary part in society because (sorry Bethany, Laralyn) we are incapable of supporting a pacifistic socialistic theocratic anarchy. We just... can't. And for as long as we can't, we will need soldiers; and for as long as there are soldiers, we ought to honor them for the mentally and morally difficult job they have chosen to do. I wouldn't call them practicing sinners any more than the rest of us.
But I think the point of your quote is that we should not baptize people who are living and continue to live in situations of blatant sin without attempting to fix it. We don't allow the _professions_ that we consider sinful; the _people_ are all welcome (theoretically and ideally). In either case, I agree with you that this quote is rather unfair to those of us who take the military path.
Why (exactly) does it anger you?
uh cory pina..why doesn't it anger you!
your immediate supervisor and namesake of the male child in your wife's wombroom...wants to know
young fathers with precarious job situations should be careful what they blog that might be seen by NRA types like me...
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