{"id":162,"date":"2006-01-02T20:01:06","date_gmt":"2006-01-03T03:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shinnphoto.com\/andrewandlisa.org\/?p=162"},"modified":"2006-04-30T22:53:27","modified_gmt":"2006-05-01T05:53:27","slug":"humility-forgiveness-and-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/?p=162","title":{"rendered":"Humility, forgiveness and terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"
Previously, I wrote about terrorism and forgiveness. Perhaps I should have approached that with a little more humility. Let me be clear: I am not yet prepared to forgive the terrorists who attacked New York City and Pentagon and attempted to attack Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001. I was pointing to the cross as the only bastion of hope for stopping the cycle of violence. But I’m not ready to pull the handbrake on this sick carousel yet.When I think about forgiveness, I turn to the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” I wonder who he meant. I’ve always imagined that my enemy is probably a person across town who doesn’t like me. I think I may be able to take a stab (pardon the pun) at forgiving that guy. But Jesus seems to define one’s very neighbor as a person of a different, hated nationality in the parable of the good Samaritan. So I imagine that Jesus would define one’s enemy in even more extreme and uncomfortable terms.<\/p>\n

Even though I’m not yet able to respond to the evil of terrorism with love, I aspire to being that kind of person some day. And it helps me greatly to know that even though I’m not supposed to seek out vengeance, our God is a Just God who does. In fact, his vengeance and his wrath are more terrible than anything I can even conceive. I’m sure God’s vengeance would make any payback humans could deliver seem silly and childish. It’s like a toddler toting a wooden sword to go after the man who killed his mother.<\/p>\n

I’ve read a good bit of the Old Testament. I know if I can trust my God with anything, I can trust Him to take vengeance on those who truly deserve it. I just need to keep in mind what separates me from those I hate and strive to keep from being one whose actions deserve God’s wrath.<\/p>\n

technorati tags: Christian response to terrorism<\/a>, forgiveness<\/a>, humility<\/a>, terrorism<\/a>, evil<\/a>, Christianity<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Previously, I wrote about terrorism and forgiveness. Perhaps I should have approached that with a little more humility. Let me be clear: I am not yet prepared to forgive the terrorists who attacked New York City and Pentagon and attempted to attack Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001. I was pointing to the cross as … Continue reading Humility, forgiveness and terrorism<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy","category-politics","category-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdZlL-2C","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}