Recently in politics Category
In Iraq, there are three major factions: Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish. 60% of the Kurds are Sunni, mostly of Sufi sects.
We here in the United States are mystified, amused, or aghast at the influnce of slamic clerics in the politics of Iraq. They seem to be able to dictate who will vote for whom, and how the political leaders will act. And many of us decry the treatment of the religious minorities, such as Judaism and Christianity, in Iraq.
On the heels of Rick Warren's political debate at his Saddleback church, with an eye on James Dobson's and Pat Robertson's (et al) views on the candidates, and remembering the scandal of the sermons of Reverend Jeremaiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, we might take the time to recognize how the US is not all that different from Iraq.
Interestingly enough, if there was ever an occasion for someone to have argued against the death penalty, I think Jesus could have done so on the cross and said, "This is an unjust punishment and I deserve clemency."After all, if Jesus wasn't OK with it, he might have prayed "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want." Oh, yeah, he did - as documented in Matthew 39, Mark 14:36-39, and Luke 22:42-44.
Well, why didn't he say something about his unjust treatment on the cross, like "you guys are wrong" or, knowing his gracious nature, "Father, forgive them." Oh, yeah, he did - as documented in Luke 23:34.
Yet if we are going to use the death of Jesus, who by tradition and faith was innocent and blameless, as justification for capital punishment, it is only a minor step to say that it justifies the execution of the innocent.
That's the problem with using past violence to justify violence in the present - it assumes we cannot learn a better way. The rule of "an eye for an eye" was meant as a limit - that one could not extract more in vengeance than the initial harm. Yet even "eye for an eye" leads to the eternal violence of retaliation.
There is a better way - the way of deescalation, of relaxing the tensions, of mending relationships. That does not mean we should let murderers go free - but it means that revenge does not offer anything more than temporary satiation of our own blood lust.
I cannot make my enemy stop hating me by killing his loved ones.
References:
http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/12/huckabee-faith-baptist-pastor-sermons.html
Perhaps their pastor.
The Reverend Wiley S. Drake,(First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park California) asked people to pray for the deaths of the Reverend Barry W. Lynn (United Church of Christ), Joseph Conn and Jeremy Leaming. The three men, leaders of People United for the Separation of Church and State, had filed a complaint with the IRS because Drake had drafted an endorsement of Presidential Hopeful Mike Huckabee on church letterhead.
Perhaps the prayer went something like this:
Heavenly Father, we call upon you to send death upon the Reverend Barry Lynn. We pray that you would make a widow of his wife, and orphans of his now grown children. We pray that his grandchildren would seek and yet not find him, and that his denomination, the United Church of Christ, would mourn his loss.As I wrote the above in jest, I found this:
- http://www.civilbrights.net/node/4673
He gave as examples of imprecatory prayer:
"Persecute them. ... Let them be put to shame and perish."
"Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow."
"Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg."
I am overwhelmed by shame: shame that a member of the body of Christ has called out "I have no need of you" to other members, shame that an ordained minister has cried to God not for blessing but for punishment for men and their families.
Not all Christians are like this.
I promise.
References:
- http://pietyandpolitics.com/3/barry/
- http://www.civilbrights.net/node/4673
- http://www.auok.org/who_is_barry_lynn.htm
