Monday, October 30, 2006

a reminder

Teh Terrorists want to kill you. and your children. in their beds. without blinking.

7 comments:

Andrew Simon said...

T-e-r-r-o-r-i-s-t-s love their children too. They don't hate yours or mine. They don't want foreign feet ruling their lands. Neither do I.

lukery said...

simon is a Terrorist lover.
(and he hates freedom)

«—U®Anu§—» said...

Naw man, Shrub's style is to have you picked up and dragged off to some out-of-the-way place for your untimely end. That's who you were thinking of, right? He's the only terrorist who comes to mind doing any serious killing nowadays like you described.

Andrew Simon said...

simon is a Terrorist lover. (and he hates freedom)

Teh Heh.

Didn't quite know what to say to that. I was trawling around a few other favorite blogs and this just popped up there sitting at the top of Richard Johnson's homepage. It says it all in a way that I can't even approach...

Do we Hate our Enemy or Love our Enemy? Do we have the courage to love the terrorists?

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.... The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

-Martin Luther King, 1963

This has become one of my favourite quotes of all time. Dr. King summarized my theory on violence, war, and destruction. " Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate." That is a powerful, powerful sentiment which carries through to this day.

We live in a culture which promotes the attitude that we must "get them over there, so that they don't get us over here." This is rhetoric which sits well with many Americans because it plays to their fears. The unknown is a frightening place; we all know that. We are inherently suspicious of those who we do not know; we are inherently angry to those who have done us harm. In this sense, there is no place for listening; there is no place for dialogue; there is no place for understanding. Men who despise each other cannot be friends or live in harmony so long as they despise each other. Peace can never be reached so long as we promote a culture of retaliation, revenge, and fear.

Jesus called on us to do something revolutionary. He called on us to "Love our Enemies." The phrase today seems somewhat hackneyed, almost cliché. Its words have lost much of their power because so many have heard it before. Yet, I'm calling on us to think about what it is that Jesus calls on us to do. He calls on us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44).

Where does this apply in our life? It rests in something which many would like to ignore or dismiss as unattainable. Some people would call it unpatriotic, treasonous, and unAmerican. Jesus called on us to love the terrorists. He called on us to pray for those who wish to harm us and our country.

Wow. Now, that suddenly means something. His instruction has meaning and is truly unbelievable. Love the terrorists? Love those who hate us, hate our country, want to murder us? Yes! Indeed he does. But why? It goes to something much more important, much more engrained on the oneness of humanity: We are all humans; we are all people; we are all members of the Body of Christ.

Paul writes in his letter to the Romans on this matter. He says, "Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law." (Romans 3: 29-31)

It is difficult, indeed painful, for us to love those who have and wish to hurt us, even kill us. But we are all in one Communion - "believers" and "non-believers." We experience Grace through each other, that is what is so powerful about The Message. It is up to us. It rests in us. The way we carry it out can be so powerful.

- Richard Johnson

http://politicswithrichard.blogspot.com/

lukery said...

thnx simon - fp'd

Anonymous said...

Well, if your are a Goddamned christian, you HAVE to love your enemy to be in good standing. Dopey and Darth think you just have to go to the same builing once a week, and move your lips while squinting your eyes shut and then they do whatever their sadisitic hearts want to anyone they don't like.

Terrorism, thy name is Bush.

lukery said...

it appears that the repugs have trouble loving neutral people, let alone their enemies.