Boxgum.
That God chose Israel to exist in covenant with Him is axiomatic for a biblical theology. Israel is chosen to be the covenant partner with God, not a vassal nation in slavery to Him but a partner. “I will be your God and you shall be my people”. The bible is quite specific about this: “Salvation is from the Jews”. It is the Jews, among all of the nations, who through their struggle with God come to truth and this truth is shared with the whole world. Jesus is the culmination of this struggle.

The bible thus starts with the particular and proceeds to the universal. Your question is about the individual who is caught up in this history of God’s choosing. As such he is not left alone to create his own choices but is directed by what he has come to understand of the truth. The truth is the truth of all things as revealed in the history of Israel and the man Jesus and witnessed to in the bible. It tells him that he is directed towards the opposite sex, that he will find his life in the one next to him, that life will contain suffering and that he will die the death of all creatures. It also tells him that he is to have only one Lord, the Christ, who will set him free and remove the shadow of death from his life. This begins to sound like the Eucharistic prayer. Set as he is in the Christian story and in the Christian community he finds he has a vocation of service to that community. In no way is he in bondage in this but finds his way through discernment of his capabilities, his charisms all directed towards the building up of the body of Christ the Church. This one freely chooses that which he discovers in the Spirit.

On other words my answer to your question is yes. The Matthew text must be left to another time.

Sells, thanks for the part compliment in your earlier post, but can’t quite get your point of view?

In old age have acquired a post-grad in political science, majoring in International Relations with Honours. Also have historical geography, a major dealing with the change we have inflicted on the environment. Further, in the last 12 years have been leading discussion groups in Philosophical Topics with the Uni’ of the 3rd Age.

Could agree us oldies might have lost touch while sunk in history, but in our talks we would have mostly agreed that political or religous choice historically has much to do with the choice between faith and reason.

Sinking in history again, it was Peter Abelard the French monk, who after meeting Moorish scholars really took on the message of Sic-et-Non changing it to the Search for Enquiry, and which any genuine historian will tell you, got the Christian Western world out of the social rut brought on by the Dark Ages.

Some modern historians do say, in fact, that it is the formerly wonderfully progressive Islamic world that is now in its own eschatological Dark Ages caused by us former barbarian but now very pushy over-progressive West.

You never know, Sells, maybe the faithlike hold that corporate capitalism and economic rationalism has got on us right now, might find us wishing to escape into the old faith once again that gave us our own Dark Ages?

No offence meant, though mate, always ready to discuss.

George C - WA - Bushbred

Brushy
you are always mentioning Peter Abelard and the Moorish Muslims and Reason.

Can you give us some solid documentation for this and some accessible references ?

Appreciated.

Yes the conservative section of the Christian Church has never been at home with choice.

What choice were the Jews/Muslims given in Spain? Not even allowed the choice of not eating pork. What choice did the Protestants/Catholics give to each other in England Spain France and Germany? Burning people to death and forcing the children and wives/husbands to watch or hanging drawing and quartering the other side were regular events when the Church was in charge. Jesus had it easy - the Romans only crucified him, much less painful. The population of Germany fell to one third thanks to the lack of choice the Churches gave to each other.

And of course the native Americans and the aborigines were denied choice as Christianity was pushed onto them.

For God´s sake spare us a return to the dark ages. (The last act of the Holy Inquisition of charging a woman with the heinous crime of laying eggs with prophesies written on them occured as recently as the 19th century).

Hitler and Stalin were further examples of what happens when choice is denied by fanatics. That is why modern Christians distance themselves from the conservative Church and practice a doctrine of choice, tolerance and respect.

“W is painting a picture in which his preferred civil society leaves people alone to do as they will, whilst the religious element interferes.”

Yes, most definitely. “The religious element,” being a subset of society, has no mandate to speak for the greater whole.

It’s a fairly simple concept, and I’m pleased you’ve grasped it, Mark. Governments operate in the areas of shared values and concerns – shared by the entire society, that is. Subsets of society are free to make rules for themselves, to the extent that (a) their members consent, and (b) these rules don’t conflict with the rules of the greater society.

To relate this specifically to Sellick’s article, his arguments are grounded in his own religious subset. People of any religion who support a secular society have an obligation to resist religious identities trying to exert influence beyond their ambit. That’s why I’ve joined in this debate.

Fortunately, there is no such thing in our country as a “state religion,” Mark. Contrary to your claim, reforms “against the views of the majority” may sometimes occur in democratic societies (Workchoices may prove to be a good example), but they don’t survive subsequent elections.

Your rights are protected (and your views respected) in the civil society you say is mine. Rather than railing against me, and railing against political correctness, I think you should join me in being grateful that *our* society protects your values equally with mine.

The debate so far seems to revolve around 3 lines of argument-

1)Choice is/isn’t good

2)The article presents “philosophy” of choice as a poor inherent good/the article presents an over simplified “philosophy” of choice

3)Peter Sellick, and/or Poster “x”, is biased/moronic/overbearing/wise etc…

1)On this first line of argument, most of us, including Peter Sellick, seem to be ambivalent. Sellick says freedom is a “higher good” and talks about the subversion of higher goods. Though choice is not specifically mentioned as a higher good, the sentences condemning “WorkChoices” as propaganda come straight after the line about the highest goods being used subversively…

Choice is presented as outweighing “haunted mother…demographic extinction” etc in a “Pro-Choice” argument supporting the killing of “unborn babies”, and as a “weak excuse” for running a church school. However, in this forum, the defenders of “choice” have not defended “choice” without qualifying that choice involves choosing between ethical options.

In these early examples, Sellick has set choice up as a banner used to justify evil actions, though the article proceeds to outline a “philosophy” of choice, or self-autonomy as the actual unethical “mask” (this philosophy has several tags, but the idea of it is that freedom/choice/self-autonomy is to “choose between a range of value neutral options”).

2)Hence the argument in this forum has centred around if Sellick is condemning our idolization of a “philosophy” of choice as a poor inherent good, or if Sellick has presented an over simplified “philosophy” of choice, that excludes from consideration any valid ethical basis of behaviour other than Christianity or “self-autonomy”. To me, both sides of this argument are correct.

If “Choice has become a word that signifies that we believe in nothing”, and this same philosophy is used to justify behaviour, then all of us moral realists (surely most of us with enough passion to write on this forum are moral realists…) would be alarmed at that, for then that is the same as saying the behaviour has no ethical basis. As no one here seems to be debating moral realism though, there must be a reason that there is debate…