(10) No robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Thus far, I have not contested any of St. Paul's claims -- I have only paraphrased his claims. I must admit that thieves and robbers seem to mean the same thing, but I'll skip over this.
Now, St. Paul claims that he is making statements about the kinds of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God -- and the kinds of behavior that will prevent people from inheriting the kingdom of God. I can understand what he is saying. But does he know what he is talking about?
DIGRESSION: For a perceptive discussion of the kingdom of God, see The Way to Love: Meditations for Life by Anthony de Mello, S.J. (2012). END OF DIGRESSION.
Next in my thought experiment, I want to stipulate that if Catholics and Protestants want to use St. Paul's statements about possibly inheriting the kingdom of God as guidelines for their personal behavior, hey, we live in a free country. But I also want to stipulate that other people are free not to use St. Paul's statements as guidelines for their personal behavior.
Historically, however, Christians have used St. Paul's statements about possibly inheriting the kingdom of God as a guide for enacting civil laws in the United States.
But this does not strike me as a fair or prudent way to proceed to enact civil laws in the United States where we have a tradition of separating church and state.
For understandable reasons, we Americans might include a number of the kinds of behavior mentioned by St. Paul in our civil laws. But not all of them belong in our civil law.
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