| Fighting Terror with Terror |
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Congressman and presidential candiate Tom Tancredo recently propsed a solution to terrorism: threaten to bomb Muslim holy lands Mecca and Medina as a response to any serious attack on the United States. Read the story on FoxNews here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,162795,00.html.
This is one of the most morally reprehensible suggestions I've ever heard. It also makes absolutely no sense. How about bombing the Vatican because of the Crusades, while we're at it? Or bombing the church that any American terrorist happened to attend? Not only would doing something like this murder innocent civilians, it would also make approximately 1.2 billion people absoutely furious. Furious enough, I would think, to take action against the aggressors. So instead of a select few extremists attacking America, we would have 1.2 billion people defending what is really akin to their homeland.
At youth group tonight we'll be looking at Mark 8:1-10. I couldn't help but think of that passage as I listened to a Christian talk radio broadcast about this subject. The text says that Jesus had compassion on the people following him, because if he sent them home without food, they would pass out from hunger. He also has compassion on and feeds a group of people in Mark 6. While comparing these passages, I was struck by the fact that Jesus has compassion on them for no reason. And most likely, these were sinful people who, much more than they did things to deserve Jesus' compassion, did things to give Him every "right" to NOT have compassion on them.
I thought of Extreme Makeover Home Edition. That show works hard to make you feel like your heart is being ripped out of your chest and stomped on, because the people they pick have had such a horrible lot in life that you can't HELP but have compassion for them. Jesus had compassion on everyone, not just the people in dire straits. I can't help but think that He would (and does!) have compassion on every Muslim terrorist that has ever thought about attacking America. Shouldn't we have compassion on them, then, and even more so because "they know not what they're doing"?
Of course there are different tactics that are used when you've been attacked, or when you're in the middle of a war. However, I don't believe that God would think that an attack on our homeland justifies us making ourselves terrorists in our self-righteous retribution. |
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