This two-year old boy named Ali was killed in an explosion in Iraq on April 29th. I ask you to look into his face for at least 30 seconds and then ask: "Does any principle, no matter how lofty, justify this?"
I'm pissed right now at my own nation which began this conflict and at my own church which has largely supported it. The church kept silent as our country marched to war and, in fact, condoned this brutality by blindly supporting a so-called "Christian" presidential administration.
I feel the need to allow some vitriolic sarcasm to escape my lips. I pray the prayer of Mark Twain: "O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale form of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolate land in rags and hunger and thirst."
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Greg.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very gripping post, and is actually something I have been doing quite a bit of thinking about lately, viz., regarding an Old Testament understanding of ethical conquest, as it was culturally understood. The theory is as such: In short, the ANE understood the war of the gods (God) in a said context-to there was no contradiction whatsoever in the perceived discrepancy of praxis and ideaology. We know longer understand the metaphysical, for the most part, in such categorization. Therefore, it is not probable that God would continue to use a method, e.g., Just War, in a context that no longer interprets its use as something good and/or necessary.
To say again, a very gripping post, and I have been watching "Bush's War" on Frontline-thanks for the suggestion.
-Jon Earle
Lord, forgive us for the many atrocities against Your holy name. Father, forgive us. We are guilty of bloodshed. Forgive us. We have defiled and made a mockery of Your sacrifice on the cross by believing we are acting on the basis of the "greater good."
ReplyDeleteLord have mercy
Christ have mercy