use as you wish<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>Asking the question, \u201cHow would Jesus deal with terrorism [or a terrorist]?\u201d<\/em> is asking the wrong question. Why? Because the question is a reactionary question, ignoring what caused the terrorism, or the terrorist, in the first place. I think the proper question is, or should be, \u201cWhat does Jesus teach us about not causing the rise of terrorism in the first place?\u201d<\/em> The idea is, if we lived by the teachings of Christ to start with, terrorism would not be an issue.<\/p>\nSo, what do I think causes a terrorist in the first place?<\/p>\n
Bombing their family:<\/strong> I don\u2019t understand\u00a0how any person who follows the teachings of Christ would ever, for any reason, bomb entire villages, kill children, older people, or kill anyone, and justify it by saying \u201cthey might kill us<\/em>.\u201d Hearing Pastors, and yes there are many, who support such bombings is heart breaking. Could you imagine Jesus ever saying, \u201cWell, in a war on terror, you need to kill those who might grow-up to be terrorists.<\/em>\u201d If you can, you\u2019ve just defined the problem.<\/p>\nMany who justify these actions are quick to claim. \u201cIt says in the scripture. \u2018An eye for an eye;\u2019 we have the right to harm those who seek to harm us; we have the right to defend ourselves.\u201d <\/em>But what does Jesus say about that?<\/p>\n\u201cHere\u2019s another old saying that deserves a second look: \u2018Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.\u2019 Is that going to get us anywhere? Here\u2019s what I propose: \u2018Don\u2019t hit back at all.\u2019 If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously. [Matthew 5:38-42 MSG]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Bombing simply breeds the next generation of those seeking to harm us \u2013 and the cycle continues. Our goal should be to seek forgiveness for our actions, and not seek to harm others. [A short side note, the idea of defending ourselves breaks down when we kill children<\/em>]<\/p>\nMarginalizing their voices:<\/strong> I\u2019ve heard many Pastors, and others, say, \u201cMuslims always lie<\/em>\u201d or \u201cThe Quran allows all Muslims to lie<\/em>.\u201d \u00a0When I hear people say this, my mind always goes to the classical liar\u2019s paradox; everything I say is a lie<\/em> [Star Trek moment implied].<\/p>\nTrying to wrestle with this binary assignment causes brain overload, so we don\u2019t even try, we just accept the fact that Muslims lie; we ignore thinking through the logic. I tend to think the Muslims always lie<\/em> myth is propaganda deliberately designed to marginalize the voices so we can justify actions against them; besides\u00a0it assumes WE<\/em> always tell the truth. Jesus never assumed people where liars. While he\u2019d question people\u2019s motives, or even their desire for power, he didn\u2019t question their honesty surrounding their words, or actions. Why do we? When we assume that someone is lying, we marginalize their voice, we question their motives. This basic assumption is not a place to start a conversation.<\/p>\nTreating\u00a0people as if they were\u00a0not human:<\/strong> Discounting a person\u2019s humanity\u00a0because you don\u2019t believe in their faith tradition is one of the most horrid things humanity could every believe. Jesus was out to revolutionize Judaism, to being about a new look, a new direction, a new understanding, a New Covenant. He sought to being about changes, bring about his New Covenant, yet, he never questioned the humanity of others. He never once dehumanized those who thought differently. The easiest way to\u00a0justify violence, is to dehumanize others. We do this, and have done this, for many centuries.<\/p>\nI recently read an article, among many, [I will not give a link to this article, because the article is disgusting<\/em>] where the author questioned the humanity of Muslims\u00a0he wrote,\u00a0\u201cThe real Muslims who follow Muhammad and believe in whatever he said are not humans<\/em>.\u201d This mindset, this philosophy, this [now] theology, spouted by many, simply adds to the tension that cause those who follow Islam to question our motives, our hearts, our desire for peace.<\/p>\nClosing<\/strong>
\nI have no desire to be political; my desire is to center on the teachings of Christ. In those teachings, we should never marginalize others, we should hear their voices, we should not seek to destroy them because they have a different faith, and we should never justify the killing of anyone based on fear. In Christ, we are called to love, to embrace, to lift-up, and to stand against the voices who strive to move away from those core teachings, and use\u00a0fear as a way to manipulate voices.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Asking the question, \u201cHow would Jesus deal with terrorism [or a terrorist]?\u201d is asking the wrong question. Why? Because the question is a reactionary question, ignoring what caused the terrorism, or the terrorist, in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2697,"featured_media":1004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122,121,119,86,8,9,120,11,12,15,123],"tags":[22,29,30,34,38,40,43,48,56,59,61,67,77,83],"class_list":["post-1003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuse","category-discrimination","category-doctrine","category-faith","category-good","category-grace","category-justice","category-love","category-missional","category-peace","category-truth","tag-abuse","tag-care","tag-change","tag-compassion","tag-discernment","tag-evangelism","tag-forgiveness","tag-friendship","tag-jesus","tag-love","tag-mercy","tag-positive","tag-spirit","tag-unity"],"yoast_head":"\n
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