From the Christian Post:
Evangelist Franklin Graham has stated that a solution to the problem of violence in American culture could be a tax on violent entertainment.Yes, "only God can change your heart," but in order for that to happen "we need to bring God's laws back into society." In other words, we can change hearts at the point of a gun.
The CEO of the international relief group Samaritan's Purse stated this in some remarks delivered Wednesday at Camp Bethelwoods in York, S.C.
"How much violence as a nation are we willing to accept?" asked Graham, who was present in York to speak about this and other issues to those involved in a Samaritan's Purse disaster relief training event.
"We tax cigarettes, we can tax violence … only God can change your heart. We need to bring God's laws back into society."
As Christians, let's quit looking for salvation through legislation and instead focus our efforts on spreading the gospel. After all, it is the power of the gospel that will actually change hearts, not laws that must be enforced through the threat of violence.
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3 comments:
That is how you are going to define a tax? Come to think of it, that is how you can define any law that the gov't passes.
Both the Bible and the Constitution establish legitimate grounds for taxes.
Government is force, no matter how legitimate or justified. I don't think Christians should be supporting taxes as a way to curb behavior (e.g. smoking, watching violent movies). That isn't how hearts are changed.
Bring God's laws back? I must have missed the violence tax in the Pentateuch. Seriously, our church is as ignorant, contradictory, and schizophrenic as the world. We possess the oracles of God, but know nothing about them nor can we construct a biblical worldview from them. On one hand we are thoroughly antinomian and insist that we are under grace and not law (without correctly understanding what that truly means). On the other hand, we are good Pharisees who need to bring back God's laws to get everyone to behave.
Nowhere do you see the recognition that the law has no power to save or to regenerate fallen man. Only the Gospel can do that. But, rather than give a full-throated exposition of Christ and Him crucified each week, we appeal to Caesar to fix us. As if Caesar could make bad trees yield good fruit. We're simply reaping God's judgment on a church that is no longer salt and light.
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