{"id":4456,"date":"2015-09-10T07:35:50","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T13:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/?p=4456"},"modified":"2015-09-10T07:59:38","modified_gmt":"2015-09-10T13:59:38","slug":"kim-davis-hypocrisy-began-the-moment-she-became-an-agent-of-the-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2015\/09\/kim-davis-hypocrisy-began-the-moment-she-became-an-agent-of-the-state.html","title":{"rendered":"Kim Davis&#8217; Hypocrisy Began the Moment She Became an Agent of the State"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/230\/2015\/09\/davis.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4457\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/230\/2015\/09\/davis.jpg\" alt=\"davis\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\"><\/span><\/a>I\u2019ve honestly been trying <em>not<\/em> to weigh in on the Kim Davis situation, because the whole situation smells\u00a0rotten to me. But there\u2019s a blatant hypocrisy to her position that I haven\u2019t seen anybody mention\u2026 so here goes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">First off, let me say that I think both sides are wrong in this issue, and both sides are right (at least in a way).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Judges like Justice David Bunning are required to\u00a0compel people to follow the laws, which he did. Kim Davis ignored his order and continued\u00a0breaking the law\u2026 hence the arrest for contempt. But, Bunning should\u2019ve never sent this woman to jail. Bar her from entering the clerk\u2019s office, maybe; remove her from office and order a special election, but don\u2019t put her in jail. Bunning has effectively made a martyr out of a mole hill. But, as wrong headed as his actions have been, Kim Davis\u2019 have been worse<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">I don\u2019t fault Davis\u00a0for her\u00a0convictions. I understand her position and how she got\u00a0there. I don\u2019t fault her for wanting to stand on her convictions. There\u2019s something\u00a0admirable about that, no matter how strongly one may disagree them them. I fault her for her hypocrisy, and Davis\u2019 Hypocrisy began the moment she became an agent of the state.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">If you want to go on a strict literalist reading of the scripture (which is how Davis gets to her\u00a0condemnation of gay marriage), then how does she justify the fact that she took an oath of office\u2013an act that is strictly forbidden by scripture?\u00a0<\/span>(Matthew 5:34-37)<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">This is the inherent problem when\u00a0Christians become agents of the state. If one\u00a0swears an oath to uphold a set of laws, what should one do when those laws run counter to their\u00a0religious convictions? Davis seemed to believe she only had two options: break the law or break her religious convictions. She chose to break the law. But, she missed the third option. Resign.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">The moment Kim Davis\u00a0took an oath of office she agreed to put her reverence for the law above her religious convictions. Where\u2019s the literalist biblical\u00a0protest for that? Where\u2019s the\u00a0moral outrage among Christians for that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">I actually think there\u2019s some wiggle room on Christ\u2019s stricture of oaths, but if you want wiggle room on that, then you bring in\u00a0wiggle room on a whole set of ethical issues, including homosexuality and the ban on gay marriage. Her position, in regard to the bible, is blatantly inconsistent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Davis\u2019\u00a0hypocrisy doesn\u2019t stop there. When she took the oath, Davis promised to uphold her duties and follow the laws of the state. When she broke the law, she effectively made a <em>lie<\/em> of her oath. She took an oath (which by her reading of scripture is forbidden), then she broke the oath (and made herself a hypocrite).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">It\u2019s fine with ALL of us if she disagrees with the law. It\u2019s fine with ALL of us if her conscious won\u2019t let her issue a marriage license to same sex couples. But that\u2019s the gig. If you can\u2019t do the gig, resign. Don\u2019t hold everyone in your county hostage to your religious beliefs, then become a publicity hound and pretend you are some kind of martyr.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">An elected official is not allowed to impose their own personal will on the rest of the citizens. That\u2019s fascism, and its disgraceful (as in not-grace-ful). In trying to protect her integrity she forgot that the Jesus way is down. The Jesus\u00a0way out of this\u00a0situation was to humble herself, and empty herself of the office she held (Phil. 2:9-11). <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">I don\u2019t know what possessed her to do what she\u2019s done, but to blame it on her Christianity is embarrassing. I wish she would\u2019ve resigned. I wish Mike Huckabee would\u2019ve stayed out of it. All\u00a0Kim Davis has done is stir up another ugly round of culture wars, and set herself up for a fat advance check on a book deal.\u00a0She has become part of the problem \u2013 not part of the solution.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve honestly been trying not to weigh in on the Kim Davis situation, because the whole situation smells\u00a0rotten to me. But there\u2019s a blatant hypocrisy to her position that I haven\u2019t seen anybody mention\u2026 so here goes. First off, let me say that I think both sides are wrong in this issue, and both sides [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":4457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[321,1373,1372,1374,1375],"class_list":["post-4456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-jesus","tag-justice-david-bunning","tag-kim-davis","tag-mike-huckabee","tag-same-sex-marriage"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Kim Davis&#039; Hypocrisy Began the Moment She Became an Agent of the State<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I&#039;ve honestly been trying not to weigh in on the Kim Davis situation, because the whole situation smells\u00a0rotten to me. 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