The failure of Christian witness in a world of violence ☀ Fisher and Riyashi are very different for two reasons. First, Fisher has never had her neighborhood reduced to rubble by an enemy with a crushingly superior military advantage. When she brandishes an AR-15, she is not holding a weapon that she will ever need to use; it is purely a symbol of her ideological commitment to the right to bear arms. The second difference flows from the first. Fisher has never killed anyone, but Riyashi tragically killed herself and four Israelis at the Erez border crossing on January 14, 2004, in retaliation for Israeli attacks that killed 25 Palestinians in the West Bank in the preceding weeks. It doesn’t matter that everyone Riyashi killed in her operation was an employee of the Israeli military. She’s a terrorist because her organization Hamas does not have the technological ability or, to be fair, the ideological conviction to distinguish between military and civilian targets. And thus, it’s not recognized as a legitimate military organization by the Western media. The closest Holly Fisher gets to direct combat is that her husband is in the military. No matter how many civilians Holly Fisher’s husband kills as part of his combat operations, he will never be labeled a terrorist because he’s wearing the official uniform of a military that has the technology and the ideological commitment to at least try to avoid civilian casualties (except for the drone strikes). What Fisher and Riyashi have in common is an idolatry that transcends religion: the worship of the gun. Right now, in our world, most people have bought into the assumption that violence must always be repaid with more violence. This week, Israel and Hamas are yet again locked in a worthless cycle of rockets and missiles... morganguyton.us/2014/07/09/the-failure-of-christian-witness-in-a-world-of-violence/
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 02:45:05 +0000
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