Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself...unless, of course, they're different

It was supposed to be H1N1; the pandemic that would engulf the world in disease and death. Oh, there are plenty of people dying but flu is not the killer; rabid, rampant, sectarianism is the killer, and very efficiently at that.
The conundrum on the topmost body of a growing heap of bodies is not new, nor is it without precedent. During the "Dark" and "Middle Ages" Christians...so called...killed Christians also called. Here is the lesson: while self-righteous murder is rampant the world over we can be angered but not surprised. Muslims kill each other at the drop of a sect; Sunni vs. Shia. If the children of Mohammad find it immortalizing to murder self and others, I find this not a lot different from Christian murdering Christian and then going home to a warm dinner after they sanctimoniously wash the blood off their hands.
But the blood is still there.
Scientists worked to produce an antibody for H1N1. There is not an antibody for sectarian hatred and bloodshed. Christ's response to bloodshed past, present, and future was to shed His blood for all mankind; past, present, future. Of course, the message of Christ and His sacrifice is being diluted and devolved both in the world and in the church. The church is trying to reinvent itself and what is emerging from this faulted pupa is a church with a christ smaller to none; not the Son of God, not the salvation of the world, not with a message of hope for all; just a god. [Read "Faith Undone"]
Expect the future to be more vile, more bloody, and more sectarian as hatred cross pollinates from religion to religion, sect to sect, person to person. I say again; don't be surprised, don't be in fear. Be in Christ.
There will be blood on the hands of many and it may be ours. There are those who are waiting. To understand this is to possess 'nous'. Look it up (Merriam-Webster online), but keep looking up. The Lion of the tribe of Judah will return with the vengeance of eternal destruction on the wicked and they shall be consumed with fire as stubble [Malachi 4:1, 2].
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." [Matthew 5:3]

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