90% of the people we executed with drones were completely innocent<\/a>. During our drone war, we\u2019ve executed untold numbers of innocent children, we\u2019ve blown up entire weddings, and as we saw just a few weeks ago, we\u2019ve blown up hospitals with our own doctors in them.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s time we wrestle with the truth folks.\u00a0America has been systematically executing\u00a0innocent people and children, and has spent years creating terror in\u00a0people who have done us no wrong. This should be outrageous to all of us, regardless of political or religious persuasion. Even conservatives who embrace Augustine\u2019s just war theory should be morally appalled\u2013 Augustine would be.<\/p>\n
While I am a Christian opposed to all hatred and violence, let me ask you to use some empathy and imagination for a few moments: would it not be understandable and expected\u00a0for the people who have endured years of watching innocent loved ones killed by American drones\u00a0to develop fear, hatred, and a desire to retaliate against us?<\/p>\n
What if you grew up the son of a\u00a0simple farmer and several times a day, for your entire childhood<\/em>, you had to run for cover because you heard a noise in the sky that you thought could be a drone? What if you were celebrating at your older sister\u2019s wedding and witnessed almost your entire family being blown apart or set on fire? What if you saw your uncle blown in half and crawling without legs until he bled to death? What if you were playing in the street with your friends after school one day, and in a flash looked around to only see\u00a0bloody limbs?<\/p>\nAnd what if you spent your entire life seeing these gruesome deaths, and knew all of them were just innocent people\u2013 people like you?<\/p>\n
Who in this situation would be the terrorists?<\/strong><\/p>\nJesus promised that those who \u201clive by the sword will die by the sword\u201d because violence is a never ending cycle. America has chosen to ignore Jesus, and as such we\u2019ve spent many, many years slaughtering innocent people in the name of \u201cjustice.\u201d Of course, those on the ground far away from the drone operators know that when 90% of the people killed are innocent, that\u2019s not justice at all<\/em>. This, quite naturally, has planted fear, hatred, and an understandable desire for retaliation in the hearts of children all across the Middle East\u2013 the precise\u00a0outcome Jesus promised it would have.<\/p>\nOne day, these children\u00a0be adults and they will quite naturally seek justice for the thousands they saw slaughtered as they were growing up.\u00a0They will see themselves as justice-seekers or freedom fighters (and rightfully so) but we\u2019ll just see them as terrorists.<\/p>\n
When that day comes, we\u2019ll most likely respond to their aggression in kind\u2013\u00a0and we\u2019ll grow terrorists from their children, too<\/em>. Terrorists aren\u2019t born, they\u2019re grown when you water the seeds of fear, hatred, and a desire for retaliation. For some reason, that\u2019s what we keep doing\u2013 and yet, we wonder why the cycle continues. It\u2019s time for a culture change, because with a 90% innocent kill rate we\u2019re creating terrorists faster than we can kill them.<\/p>\nFor those of us who profess to follow Jesus, we are invited to show the world a new way\u2013 the way of love, the way of forgiveness, and the way of non-retaliation. We are invited to be a shinning city on a hill, casting the light of his nonviolent example on the world around us in hopes that one-by-one, more and more people will sign onto this better\u00a0way of living.<\/p>\n
If we as Americans don\u2019t want to continue creating endless generations of people dedicated to annihilating each other,\u00a0living differently\u2013 living the way Jesus invites us to live\u2013 is our only hope.<\/p>\n
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People aren\u2019t born terrorists. No one crawls out of their mother\u2019s womb, finishes weaning and learning how to walk, and then finds their first words to be words of hatred. No one is predestined to become a terrorist, and terrorism isn\u2019t some genetic issue. Rather,\u00a0terrorists are created out of otherwise beautiful image bearers of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1638,"featured_media":13327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[109,134],"class_list":["post-13320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-nonviolence","tag-nonviolence-2","tag-terrorism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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