A blog I read posted some clips of Facebook users celebrating Bin Laden's death and making jokes about his damnation and the writer was disappointed at Christians reactions. This post started an explosion of comments, as you may guess.
This has been bothering me all day anyway and his blog post just makes me feel a bigger desire to say something about it.
I hesitate to post politically-charged topics on my blog, but I have decided that this is something I feel strongly enough about to comment. So, if you don't completely agree, I hope you'll have a little grace and love me anyway!
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An acquaintance who lives in the Middle East has told me that many of those who live there are nominal Muslims, as many in America are nominal Christians. She says that the news there is slanted in ways against Christianity, as ours is, or at least used to be, slanted against Islam. She also said that everything they know about our culture, they equate to what Christians do or the way we think, since America is considered a Christian country (and they get some very immoral American television there). As Americans, we equate things we see on the news about other countries as how all the people in those countries are and that just isn't right.
I am not bothered by the fact that this man has been stopped. I am bothered by the fact that many Americans feel like we are better than other countries & some even believe that we are on some sort of higher Spiritual plane where God has given us the right to be judge & jury over the rest of the world. History shows us that politics play too much of a role in countries' military endeavors to be wholly righteous. History also shows us that conquests that were believed to be for holy purposes at the time were discovered to be for monetary or political gain in retrospect.
When people in predominately Muslim-believing countries see Americans on T.V. celebrating in the streets, with commentators who are putting their spin on things, it looks really similar to what we see on our news when people are celebrating death in the Muslim cultures. We watch it and think, "How sick those people are, that they would be so exhilarated by killing," and we feel afraid of what those people could or would do to us. This type of celebrating will not end terrorism. In fact, it adds fuel to the fire. It makes people more angry, more scared for their countries' safety and their own safety, and more willing to fight. In some cases, it incites people to action who would otherwise not. It also builds more animosity between the general public and military personnel in countries that are occupied by armed forces.
In reality, the majority of people everywhere around the world, no matter what religion they profess, do not harbor the amount of sadistic hatred that makes mass killing something that seems right & good. We all mostly suffer from mass ignorance (in the definitive form of that word) and a pathetic amount of self-righteousness and pride. In most cases, poverty plays a devastating role as well. Poverty puts people in desperate situations, with lack of options and education, which leaves them vulnerable to influences and schemes of those who hold wealth and power.
In the Bible, when David learned that Saul had been killed, he mourned his death. Saul wanted David dead & David knew he was supposed to succeed Saul to the throne, but David wept, fasted & tore his clothes when he learned Saul was dead.
I am not saying we need to mourn Bin Laden in the way David mourned, but I think we also should consider what is causing this excessive celebration and if it is furthering the purpose Christ called us to or hindering it.
We all want to be on the winning team & the one that is on the side that is right. Unfortunately, "right" can vary depending on your perspective.
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