What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[abaris]

You have to understand the context this was said in, and you have to look at the entirety of the message brought by Christ. Jesus’ sword was never a literal one. This is made especially clear not only by Jesus' entire message and example, but by the fact that when Peter took up a sword to defend Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus very clearly rebuked him and told him to put away his sword, saying "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword”.

I think what he meant was that there will always be conflict between good and evil, as there should be, since we shouldn't just give up on goodness. The sword meant we should "fight" (figuratively) for goodness and not give up on it. The early Christians especially (and many Christians throughout history and even today) were severely prosecuted and tortured and killed in horrendous ways for their beliefs, but they still stood their ground in the midst of death. Even though we should seek to be at peace with all men, we should remember that Jesus warned us we will be hated for His sake by many people out there.

I understand that you see the good in the message, but there are others who take quotes like that literally. Some nutjob of a retired general even gave a speech about Jesus not coming back with a sword, but with an AK47. That was pretty recently. Also, since Rob in the meantime provided the quote in question, Jesus also says something about discarding one's parents, friends and family for him and loving him more. Now that might not be outright horrendous, but not very loveable either.

If you talk about Roman times and early christianity, there's a general misconception about martyrdom. The Romans usually accepted every religion into their own pantheon. It was a way to keep the peace in the provinces. The Romans weren't in any way evangelical and trying to convert the people they had conquered, since politics were way more important than religious issues. What the early christians were prosecuted for was not accepting the cult surrounding the Roman emperors. That was the same as not accepting Roman authority and therefore treasonous.

I would have to look up the names, but there were some interesting characters among the early christians, who were opposed to capital punishment as well as doing military service or even extraditing criminals that came in contact with them. That of course didn't sit well with the Romans either. And I consider it a rather sad sign of the course the church took when it started what I use to call the Constantinian butt kissing contest. They threw most of their good ideas out of the window in order to make it into the good graces of the emperor.