Zach Myers's Page

That's an argument from silence. I you don't have any passages that oppose freedom of religion, and if there are also no passages that promote it, then how can either of us claim that the Bible is either for or against freedom of religion? I agree with you that Christianity is the only true religion, Jesus is the only way to the father, etc. and I agree that we should "demolish strongholds" and convince people (if we can) that Christianity is true and other religions are false. But according to the Bible there are right and wrong ways of doing this, and I am not convinced (yet) that government enforcement is a good approach.

I agree about the Caesar passage. Scripture tells us to contend for the faith, but it also tells us that there are correct and incorrect ways of doing this. I'm not convinced that using the government is a good way to go about spreading the gospel and opposing other worldviews. Are you aware of any Bible passages that are clearly opposed to the idea of freedom of religion? (Remember, I haven't looked into this subject much, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were Bible passages about this that I was not aware of)

Don't worry, I'm not angry, I'm actually enjoying this conversation. It's thought-provoking. You said that the goal of Christians is to spread the gospel and demolish false religions. But do you think that using the government to do this is the best approach?

I agree with calling out false teachers, and we should proclaim the truth. But allowing people to worship false gods doesn't prevent us from trying to persuade them not to. And while trying to persuade someone to accept the truth is good, I would question the effectiveness and Biblical basis for enforcing the truth.

Jesus did not enforce the truth. He allowed people to reject him. In fact, this seems to be God's approach in general, and why there is a hell as well as a heaven. People have the freedom to reject God.

Like I said, this is an area where I still have questions, and one of things I'm not sure about is if having freedom of religion is equivalent to saying that all religions are equally valid. It seems to me that you could allow other people to practice their own religions even though you don't believe that their religion is true. I guess I tend to think that allowing a religion to exist and be practiced isn't the same as endorsing the religion. It just means that you're not enforcing your own.

What do you mean? I agree that many Christians have compromised their faith in many different ways, but are you referring to something in particular?

I think the most difficult aspect of it is finding a balance between upholding Christian principals and yet still allowing people the freedom to disbelieve and not be Christians.

To be honest, that isn't really a subject that I feel I can give an informed opinion on yet. I have not come to a decision about it, mostly because I have not had much time to look into what the Bible has to say about it. For now, I am only comfortable saying that the best government would probably be the one most soundly based on Christian principals (whichever one that turns out to be).

I'm sorry if this isn't a very helpful response, but this is an area where I have a lot of questions of my own. However, feel free to keep asking questions. I enjoy good discussions on Christian and creation topics :)