Tom Fox: I Really Don't Care
Tom Fox was the "Christian Peacemaker" who went to Iraq and found himself kidnapped, held hostage, tortured and ultimately killed. His group issued this in a statement today...
Source: Wapo
But when your faith causes you to denigrate those who lay down their lives to protect and keep us safe you have passed beyond the pale. To then hide behind theology is the rankest of cowardice. I say this as a believer, as a person who has accepted Jesus as his savior. I don't say it lightly, but you don't get to just do whatever the hell you please and then hide behind Jesus skirts, that's not the way its supposed to work.
Let's say for a moment that in my readings of the bible I become convinced that god will grant me power over gravity. If i'm truly faithful I'm really only left with one choice, to go to a high place and test it out. So I look down from the high place, take a deep breath and jump.
Two days later Forest Rangers find my partially digested carcass. Does this suggest that there is no god?
No! It suggests that I'm an idiot.
Ironically, I do believe in miracles. In fact I've seen them, witnessed god's hand moving in people's lives. This isn't an argument against divine intervention, rather an argument against our presuming to know better than god.
Evil exists. To not believe that is to deny the triumphal message Jesus delivered two thousand years ago. We are all called to fight evil, and to presume that the fight would not be physical as well as spiritual strikes me as the height of arrogance. This isn't in the bible, rather, it's a perversion of the bible's message.
Jesus never told the Centurian to throw his sword away, in fact several of the disciples were armed, but rather Jesus clued the Centurian into a universal truth. Violence is never the ultimate solution, but how sick would you have to be to wish we'd never joined the fight in WW2?
These "Christian Peacemakers" have confused liberators with killers, conflated those who sacrifice themselves to build and create with those who sacrifice themselves to darkness and despair, never building only destroying.
What we do in Iraq isn't perfect, nothing done by human hands is. But it's the best we got and sometimes that's enough. If they can't understand that I have to wonder if they can understand anything at all.
Technorati Tags: Tom Fox, Christian Peacemakers, Iraq war,
Source: Wapo
"We believe that the root cause of the abduction of our colleagues isI have no compassion for this guy and this really rubs a sore spot for me. You are welcome, in my book, to believe whatever you want, Tooth fairy, Dungeons Dragons or The Great Spaghetti Monster, it's all good in my book.
the U.S.- and British-led invasion and occupation of Iraq."
But when your faith causes you to denigrate those who lay down their lives to protect and keep us safe you have passed beyond the pale. To then hide behind theology is the rankest of cowardice. I say this as a believer, as a person who has accepted Jesus as his savior. I don't say it lightly, but you don't get to just do whatever the hell you please and then hide behind Jesus skirts, that's not the way its supposed to work.
Let's say for a moment that in my readings of the bible I become convinced that god will grant me power over gravity. If i'm truly faithful I'm really only left with one choice, to go to a high place and test it out. So I look down from the high place, take a deep breath and jump.
Two days later Forest Rangers find my partially digested carcass. Does this suggest that there is no god?
No! It suggests that I'm an idiot.
Ironically, I do believe in miracles. In fact I've seen them, witnessed god's hand moving in people's lives. This isn't an argument against divine intervention, rather an argument against our presuming to know better than god.
Evil exists. To not believe that is to deny the triumphal message Jesus delivered two thousand years ago. We are all called to fight evil, and to presume that the fight would not be physical as well as spiritual strikes me as the height of arrogance. This isn't in the bible, rather, it's a perversion of the bible's message.
Jesus never told the Centurian to throw his sword away, in fact several of the disciples were armed, but rather Jesus clued the Centurian into a universal truth. Violence is never the ultimate solution, but how sick would you have to be to wish we'd never joined the fight in WW2?
These "Christian Peacemakers" have confused liberators with killers, conflated those who sacrifice themselves to build and create with those who sacrifice themselves to darkness and despair, never building only destroying.
What we do in Iraq isn't perfect, nothing done by human hands is. But it's the best we got and sometimes that's enough. If they can't understand that I have to wonder if they can understand anything at all.
Technorati Tags: Tom Fox, Christian Peacemakers, Iraq war,
posted by jakejacobsen @ 10:04 PM
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