Free your mind from the colonization of thinking within the obtuse parameters of 'right' and 'left', of conservatives and liberals.

First of all, Jesus clearly tells us not to swear oaths.

God doesn't want to give Israel a king, because God knows, being the rather observant deity God is, that the Israelites will become like all other nations: they will worship their king and not God.

Basically, you know, write the book you want to read, be the band you want to hear, grow the food you want to eat, create the world you want to live in, and so on and so on. I think this translates well for how Christians should approach their present-day situation where the current goal of most everyone, Christian or not, seems to be to procure power.

Grow a garden, give food away, resist the temptation to give into hate, change it up and try peacemaking for once, love your neighbor, love your enemy.

I don't think anyone is committing idolatry by wanting to live in any part of the world where they can enjoy the basic necessities of life. Granted, many of us here, in the U.S., have well beyond what constitutes basic necessities.

I am not going to say that people who enter the military are doing anything wrong. As I often jokingly tell my students, "Many of my best of friends are in the military!" But it's true. Perhaps not in the Aristotelian sense of the word "friendship" but on so many other levels that matter, we are truly friends.