Christian Compassion
So it’s been over a year since Cach has started the wheels turning in my head about how Christians should be pacifist, and although I disagree with being a pacifist I have become much more aware of how violence is condoned in our society as a logic response to solve problems.
I am not saying we condone that if your pissed at Little Timmy for letting his dog take a poop in your yard you should go beat the crap out of him, but we condone an eye for an eye. If Bill the axe murderer killed 50 people he should be put to death, but the deeper I get into the post and the more I think about how Christ has forgiven me the more I think that an eye for an eye isn’t very Christ like.
I am really glad that God forgave my debt and am I really better then the guy who was forgiven his debt and went after the guy who owed him a little if I start making blanket judgments.
This whole line of thought is coming out of something a fellow Christian said in a group containing non-Christians, in reference to the Muslim extremist shootout right around Thanksgiving. This person said “we should just go kill them all” and I made the comment that you would have to know which ones were the extremist to know which ones to do act upon, to which was replied “nope just kill them all”. I am not sure if the person meant it or if they thought about what they were saying but I thought man what a great way to show how appreciative we are for God’s love and forgiveness. This is still a conversation in progress in my head so we shall see what comes out of it.
So two thoughts about this topic.
1 – I think the comment by the person in the last paragraph is somewhat symptomatic of politically right-leaning Christians. The bad part of this is that these positions aren’t Christian positions, but rather right wing positions. Equating Christianity to any political party is pretty terrible as both sides really have big differences with what the Bible teaches.
2 – However, the concept of ‘an eye for an eye’ is extremely Biblical as it …drum roll…. comes directly from the Bible. Christ came to fulfill the law, not to do away with it. I think it is a pretty tough case to make that the concept of capital punishment are cultural or don’t apply today. Additionally, the Bible also says that governments and rulers are set up by God to provide justice, and capital punishment is the ultimate form of it. This isn’t to say that government is flawed in how it does it (Christ being the greatest example of injustice done by a government), but that doesn’t change the Bible’s position on it. On top of all of this, our God is a God of love, but equally of justice. Hell exists, and in Revelation, it says that the saints cry out to God to do justice on earth. This does not violate God’s nature, but rather fulfills it and makes it consistent. Praise God I am saved.