Don't fight ISIS - Islamic radical terrorist love them!

I just read an article written by JR Vassar the lead pastor, Church at the Cross, Grapevine, Texas.  He claims, “I am saddened by the tendency of some Christians to call for the sending of missiles upon our nation’s enemies more than to pray for the sending of missionaries to the hardest places.” When is he leaving for Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan? I am capable of praying for both.

He admits, “The Islamic State is a horrific evil and must be stopped. The destruction it is bringing on innocent life and human civilization is heartbreaking and should fill us with righteous indignation. Likely, it will take the international community to defeat the Islamic State, and it will almost certainly mean military conflict.” Who does he expect to volunteer for the military conflict non-Christians?

He is, “… grieved that some influential pastors and Christian leaders eagerly call for the bombing of regions that will inevitably lead to the destruction of human life (innocent image-bearers who suffer as collateral damage), and do so without tears and a broken heart.” I do not know of any Christian leader that would call for the bombing of ISIS if they thought there was another way.  I also do not think any Christian leader has ever called for the destruction of ISIS without having a heavy heart when doing so.

He suggested we, “Pray for our enemies and desire their salvation.” He claims God would want us to show them mercy and give them an opportunity to repent. He knows that is what God would want us Christians to do. If he believes in the literal translation of the Bible he must know that God called for the destruction of innocent women, children and animals of the Israelites enemies. I do not believe in the literal translation of the Bible so I think it was more the men of Israel that wanted their destruction, rather than God, but they may have thought that was what God wanted them to do.  The same as Reverend Vassar thinks he knows what God wants us to do as it pertains to the terrorist. If God wanted the enemies of the Israelites destroyed, but does not want our enemies destroyed does that mean God loved the Israelites more than He loves us?

He went on to write, “Our call is to follow the command and example of Jesus who told us to love our enemies and pray for them, and who himself laid his life down for his enemies, even praying for their forgiveness as they killed him. Again, if we are calling for missiles, but not praying for missionaries, we have lost touch with the heart of God.” I am sorry, but I am not prepared to have my throat cut by the followers of ISIS and honestly I do not think he is either. It is easy for him to write or say the things he does from Grapevine, Texas. I guess if his wife and children were caught in a terrorist situation he would prefer to allow them to be slaughtered than try to kill his enemy.

Jesus was not fighting a foreign enemy He was trying to reform His own people – the Jews. Jesus did not have a military, but he had no problem displaying his anger in the temple turning over the tables of the money changers. King David had a military given to him by God and he certainly used it. If we are going to use Biblical comparison King David and his enemies are more like our enemy ISIS and Muslim terrorist than Jesus and His enemies. If it was Protestants and Catholics (Ireland) fighting over differences I would agree with Reverend Vassar, but it is not. It is good versus evil!  

He admits that as we pray to God we know there will never be peace on this earth, “…we know that ultimately complete peace and justice are a world away, in the new heavens and new earth.”

He says, “We do not need to fear Muslims, but love them, befriend them, and seek to share the good news of Jesus with them.” I do love some Muslims, those that are not trying to kill me, my caregiver is Muslim.

I probably have more experience dealing with Muslims than he does, since I have lived on the Island of Mindanao in the Philippines for the past ten years. I live in Davao, but I am not about to travel to Cotobato or Sula where Muslim terrorist are kidnapping foreigners regularly. I welcome him to come to Southern Mindanao at any time and love the Muslim terrorist and the Communist insurgents to the peace table. The Philippine government has been trying to do it for thirty years and have failed.

 “We are not Americans first, but Christians first. We belong to a kingdom that is not of this world — a kingdom with no boundaries or borders. We may disagree on policy or diplomacy, but infinitely more important is that we agree on Jesus, his rule, and his great love for his people and for this world. We don’t have to be divided by our lesser loyalties when we are united by our greatest loyalty.” This all sounds good, but it is not realistic when it comes to dealing with terrorist in 2015. I do not think God intends for us to let Islamic terrorist cut our heads off, destroy our religion, invade our country and not resist.

I think a diplomatic solution would be impossible with groups like ISIS or other groups of Islamic Muslim Terrorist. Reverend Vassar wrote Jesus faced radicals and He did not try to kill them if I am not mistaken Jesus was killed.  Jesus knew pain, suffering, persecution and terrorism first hand is Reverend Vassar willing to do the same, is he willing to sacrifice his family without a fight, I am not.

If men like Reverend Vassar had reached out to the young men that make up ISIS and other terrorist groups a decade ago maybe we would not be in the mess we are in today. I think Reverend Vassar should consider that perhaps the church failed in reaching out to the Arabs in the Middle East.

Paul was once a terrorist killing Christians just at ISIS is doing today and he came to accept Christ as his Savior so there is hope. But, who is willing to go today and try to convert ISIS members. Is Reverend Vassar willing, if not he should not be so asking someone else to.

Jesus’ way of putting His enemies in their place was by shaming them. How does Reverend Vassar propose that we shame ISIS?

Christian leaders should have taken more seriously education reform, business opportunities, economic reforms and employment opportunities in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Africa and Afghanistan and maybe there would be no ISIS today. Was Reverend Vassar pushing for those reforms prior to now?

I am not Reverend Pat Robertson and I do not say, “Convert or die”. I would like to see them convert to Christianity, but that is not a requirement for me to have peace. But, I do not think it is possible for us now to love the members of ISIS to a negotiated peace. I say that because they are telling us, “Convert or die”.

The Iraqi Christians since 2003 until about 2014 were known for being passive. They finally realized they could no longer be passive and stay alive. Unfortunately they began to stand up for their religious liberty and their freedom too late. Are Americans being ask to do the same by religious leaders like Reverend Vassar? Are we going to wait for ISIS to tell us to convert, pay a tax or die as they did the Christians in Mosul? Did not Obama take the passive role and allow ISIS to grow stronger, accomplish more evil and kill more Christians?

I am not for the destruction of ISIS only because they are killing Christians. I am for the destruction of ISIS because I am against any group of people that practice genocide against a weaker group of people.

ISIS is nothing more than a gang like those in any large city in the United States that kill people in order to expand their territory.  They both are criminals (terrorists) who are determined to murder people in order to gain control. They must be stopped and I truly believe God condemns their actions.

I do not believe God expects us to only pray and take no defensive action against them. Most of us do not sit back and refuse to work and expect God to feed us. Most of us do not refuse to take preventive action to maintain our health simply because we believe God can heal us. Most of us would not sit down on the couch and watch while a robber took our belongings and possibly raped our wife and do nothing but pray. Why do some Christians expect us to only pray and take no military action to protect our families, neighbors, country and us?

I believe in prayer and I have no doubt that pray is powerful, but I also believe God expects us to take action along with prayer. Why don’t we just stop being charitable and pray to God to take care of the poor, orphans and widows?  

Should the Bible be "X" rated?

The Old Testament, talk’s a lot about sex and violence. It includes stories of fornicators, adulterers, prostitutes, polygamists, ethnic cleansing and other forms of cruel activity.

The Old Testament is also full of sexual violence. We read of rapists, pimps, and other perpetrators of sexual exploitation. The Bible is not different than everyday life in 2015. There are moral lessons to be learned from the Bible that apply to us today.

Most Christians tend not to read those stories or they don’t pay attention to them and in doing so they miss out on the moral lessons the authors are trying to teach. We certainly miss the main premise of the Bible which is the love of God and His forgiveness when we try to ignore them. It always amazes me how some ministers can manage to take the ‘X’ rating out of these stories when they present them on Sunday mornings.

Father Abraham slept with his wife’s servant. In Egypt he ordered his wife to tell the Egyptians she was his sister. He allowed the Pharaoh to reward him for permitting him to make his ‘sister-wife’ part of his harem. Abraham was more concerned for his own safety than his wife’s. Yet, the Bible calls Abraham a man of great faith and he was, but he was far from being perfect.
 
Before you start condemning Abraham you need to ask yourself how many Christian church goers cheat on their wife’s and how many Christian church going women do the same? What would you do if today you were faced with death or telling an untruth. Abraham chose to lie, would you? When reading these stories do you stop and think how they can apply to our lives in 2015? 

Judah was tricked by his dead son’s widow Tamar to have sex with her. He did not know who she was because she was disguised as a prostitute. Should Judah a man of God be having sex with a prostitute in the first place?  Judah was sexually immoral and a judgmental hypocrite when he planned to have Tamar killed for having sex with an unknown man. When he discovered that the twins Tamar was carrying were his own he became a changed man and repented.

By all cultural and tradition practiced at the time Tamar was only doing what was right to make sure her dead husbands line continued, but she went about it in the wrong way. Even so God blessed her in the end. God forgave Judah and Tamar and God will forgive anyone today that repents and changes their life. When you read the story, if you did, what did you focus on, the forgiveness of God or the sin?

The most notable rape story in the Bible is one that most people don’t associate with rape: David and Bathsheba. The story is familiar. David is at home in Jerusalem when he should have been off at war with his men and the army of Israel. Walking around on his roof one evening, David noticed an attractive woman, Bathsheba, bathing. He summons her, they have sex, and she conceives. When David’s plan to cover up the scandal fails, he has her husband, Uriah, killed in battle. We ministers sometimes try to pretend that Bathsheba had the freedom to say NO to the king. That way we can make it appear it was not rape and Bathsheba was as guilty as David.

I even heard a minister say Bathsheba was used by the devil to tempt David. She paraded around on her roof top naked and bathed on the roof. That was the custom of the day. They wrapped a large piece of cloth around them and bathed on the roof. They bathed underneath the material. The Bible does not say Bathsheba was naked. David just had a wild imagination and a large sex drive and he let it get the best of him.  It is also interesting that in many countries today when people do not have indoor showers they bathe the same way Tamar did outside and I do not think any of them are inviting someone to rape them.

God blamed David. Nathan blamed David. David blamed David. So why do we have a difficult time admitting David was a rapist. Sexual violence was rampant in the ancient world, as it is today. The authors of the Bible did not try to hide these stories they told them so thousands of years later we could understand that we Christians and really society as a whole are called of God to a greater standard. We are made aware of sexual temptations that are in the world.

Ruth, Rahab and Tamar are even mentioned in the New Testament as part of Jesus’ genealogy. They all had questionable backgrounds. We should not be judgmental of others. We should not be hypocritical. God used people with shady backgrounds then and can do the same today.

In some way’s Jewish Law was more just than our laws today. There had to be proof of a woman’s infidelity and immorality before she was found guilty. A woman’s accusation of rape was listened to then. Today our court system still leans towards punishing the women more than the men involved in rape or sexual misconduct.  God instituted laws to protect women. Unfortunately men of power ignored those laws as many do today. We still read of cases like Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby who use their position to sexually abuse women. There are many members of government and church leaders around the world that have raped women, young boys and girls.

You may have wondered why God does not act quicker or intervene more when women are abused and rape – I do not know! Perhaps God expects us to protect those that are being treated unjustly. I am a firm believer that God does not do for us what He has equipped us to do for ourselves.  I have learned not to question God’s justice.

It is important to note David did not escape punishment. His later years were filled with trouble and bloodshed. God’s punishment can be severe, but His forgiveness is even greater. No sin is beyond God’s redemption. This is not to say there should not be or there is not consequences for sin, there is. But, we must always be willing to forgive a repentant sinner as God does. God disciplines sinners because He loves us and there will be times when we must discipline members of society not out of hatred or revenge, but out of love. 

The Bible presents the reality of life so we can learn from it. People can mock the Bible or learn from it and I choose to learn from it. These stories if read with an open mind teach us that God can and does use imperfect people, God has a heart to love and forgive, there are consequences to sin and we should be very careful when passing judgment on others.