And now we have a motive
too … ISIS felt that Parisians had to die because “that city is a place of
infidels and prostitution”, but probably more because of its "crusade" against them.
Of course it didn’t mention the captured women that ISIS regularly sells or the children they feed to its leaders. You don’t need more details – it is sordid, but I do wonder why they don’t sort out their backyard mess before sorting out everyone else’s?
However, it’s not limited
to them. Although long-forgotten, Catholicism was as pernicious in the dark
ages. Other groups around the world are as intolerant and brutal.
I have witnessed more
subtle expressions of it. Legalism and the view that it is a God-given
prerogative to change others has haunted my own life in many ways, not just in
terms of the legalistic circles I once moved in, but also through people I met along the way.
Of course, the worst
offender was myself. In more recent years that shifted, but even so I was
recently faced with an offense that I agonized over until I finally resolved that my
role is not to change the offender, but to love first.
It is part of a personal
revolution in which I have shifted, somewhat agonizingly, from a toxic mind
that was full of negative thoughts, to a liberated mind that is finding freedom
in reflecting on the good all around me: as in Galatians 4:8’s, “Whatsoever is
pure, true, lovely, noble and of good report - think on such things”.
The fact is, “as a
man thinks so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). Its allied to another principle, “a
little leaven leavens the whole lump”, which is well expressed in an African
proverb, “a fish rots from the head”.
What I mean by all that,
is that if our minds are toxic, our bodies will be sickly, short of energy,
wasted away, worn out and inclined to age faster.
However, toxicity here
refers to much more than a critical mind. Worry, fear, fretting, trying to work
it all out, introspection – it all adds up to a toxic spill.
In Romans 7, Paul speaks
of us being freed from the law of condemnation, the way the death of a spouse
freed a woman from any further obligation to him under the same law.
Thus, being dead in
Christ, we are no longer defined by a written law of edicts and commands, of
do’s and don’ts, and so on. The law never set out to modify our behavior (as a
friend observed), it came to reveal our wretchedness and offer a way out.
Therefor Paul continues
with, “but I am alive in Christ”. Now I no longer serve the law, for the law of
condemnation was replaced by another law, “the law of spirit of life”. It’s
more like the law of gravity: not a written precept, more a principle rooted in what Jesus did for us.
The Puritans who arrived
in Boston were an incredibly legalistic, ultra-conservative right wing of the
English church, when the new world was being colonized. Their faith hid behind
insular palisades, separated from the contamination of the world.
The dissenters to the
left were Quakers, who had no physical palisades, but used a principle, like
the above, to virtually bound the state of Pennsylvania. They used a ground
rule or constitution, to define how to belong, not what didn’t.
Paul continues his own
monologue by saying, “O wretched man, who will save me from myself, for what I
want to do I don’t, and what I don’t I do.”
He exalts in the
solution, “I thank God through Christ my Lord, for the law of the spirit of life
has freed me from the law of sin and death”.
What he meant was that
instead of being told what not to do and all that was so wrong about his life,
the rise of that spiritual life, in him, freed him to live a new way.
So now you know why I
think that using any means, be it words or bombs, to change others, is wrong.
Let the change start within us. As Mahatma Gandhi so rightfully said, “Be the
change you want to see in others”.
I love that. Such a
spiritually enlightened idea. “Be” the change. In Christ “I am” a new creation
and in so being I better the world around me. Let your life be the letter of Christ, written in your heart for all to read (2 Cor 3).
All that the ISIS
approach will do is what dogmatism has always done – it will make matters
worse, breed cynicism, drive people apart and worsen our world. If they were
inspired by God at all, they would know that love is the only path to victory.
My joy is that the
process of restoring our lives in Christ, starts at the cross as a
peace-offering, with all the forgiveness and mercy that goes with that. It
doesn’t start with condemnation and feeling worse, but with reconciliation and
hope.
He taught us that love
and acceptance changes lives, for love covers a multitude of sins, mercy heaps
coals on our enemies, and compassion glorifies God more than religion ever did.
(c) Peter Missing: bethelstone@gmail.com
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