>
> Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for
> it is written, ³Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.² 20 To the
> contrary, ³if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him
> something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his
> head.² 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Random riffs on this scripture and the thread in general:
I wonder what would happen in the Muslim world
if Christian leaders advocated forgiveness and
forbearance as a response to terrorism. That
doesn't mean Western governments couldn't
react militarily -- it just means the church
leaders would respond via a 180-degree
different tack. I'd like to ask Christian leaders
why they haven't endorsed such a response.
I know from experience how healing forgiveness
can be. It can provide the closure that victim's
families say they seek. But what effect can it
have on the perpetrators of violence?
We admire Ghandi and Martin Luther King for
leading non-voilent movements, but attribute
their success to the fact that those movements
took place in England and the United States at
a point in those countries' histories when they
were inclined to respect non-violent protest.
We don't really trust non-violence as a response
to aggression by such nasty foes as the Soviet
Union or Islamist radicals. From that perspective,
non-violence isn't a moral precept. It's a calculated
political maneuver.
I wonder what the Muslim world's reaction has
been to the Moussaoui verdict. Are people
surprised by the fact that we're not killing him?
Or do they see the life sentence as more cruel
than execution?
I'm against the death penalty in general, but the
one time I felt it was the kinder, more pragmatic
action was when I read about the life of an inmate
in Marion, Illinois. His life is like that described
for Moussaoui. No human contact. Nothing to
live for. On those rare occasions when this
inmate was around people, he killed them. As
I read about the lives these inmates lead, I'm
struck by the vicious circle of their lives. They
aren't allowed anything that promotes humanity,
so they become more and more inhuman, to which
we respond by denying them their humanity. When
I read about this, I thought, Jeez, maybe execution
has its place. We're not going to change. They're
not going to change. Just end it, and spare us both.
As I said, just random thoughts.
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