So, what is the proper response? What should individual Christians be saying and doing when the issue of the act of war of the worldwide asymmetric religious war that occurred in Orlando is mentioned?
Well, we could talk about: 1. Gun control 2. Islam as a non-peaceful religion that is at war with the West (heads-in-sand picture here) 3. The widespread delusion of the West in refusing to associate Islam with its practitioners 4. The double standard in the West between Christianity and Islam (one gets a free pass, the other doesn't) 5. Islam as being wholly incompatible with Western ideals / society But in what way would any of those things be markedly Christian? Unless you're called to one of those areas, and I think they're quite specialist areas that most people won't be in, then my answer would be: keep on trucking with the Gospel (perhaps like Paul in the Aeropagus), and try not to demonize every Muslim in the process. But I'm also garbage at these situations.
Some good points in here. It's depressingly predictable that the victims aren't even in the ground yet and the rabble on both sides are trying to use the tragedy to make their own political points as if it were really as simple as a one-line soundbite or meme. Maybe gun control might have prevented it, maybe more people with guns would have prevented it. The chances are if you've got someone burning with that level of hatred, for whatever reason, sooner or later they are going to snap and do something drastic whatever measures we put in place to prevent it. If he doesn't use guns he'll use petrol bombs or knives or nail bombs or even use a truck to ram people leaving the venue late at night. Demonizing everybody also makes no sense, unless you're into tubthumping and rabble rousing. Unless we truly want to believe that every peaceful Muslim is part of a master sleeper cell plan I suspect an awful lot of Muslims are just as horrified at this kind of thing as we are. And in keeping with your fourth point about double standards, it's absurd to regard all Muslims as being violent because one of them committed such an atrocity and then expecting anyone to differentiate between the likes of Fred Phelps' lot and the nutjobs who blow up abortion clinics, and the average Christian who is horrified by both. Just for good measure there are two major strands to Islam, based on Mohammed's writings at Mecca and Medina. I forget the full details but essentially for a time he preached peace and for a time he preached war. Needless to say the ones who follow the war side are more prone to violence than the ones who follow the peace side. Given how many Muslims I encountered in London and how few of them cause trouble I suspect even those who are notionally on the "war" side aren't actually violent warmongerers, just as the Jews who don't have the NT to counter some of the more violent punishments described in Leviticus don't actually implement such punishments any more. What would Jesus do in this situation? If I had to guess I'd say he wouldn't rush to snap judgments, he'd refrain from rabble rousing because that generally only makes matters worse, and he'd love the victims and their families. Loving the perpetrator obviously isn't going to happen because as I understand it he died in the conflict, but presumably the man who asked God to forgive the men who nailed him to a tree would preach forgiveness here as well.
Interesting thoughts. I'm intrigued by the Aeropagus link. I'm convinced that much of the wrong-headed "theology" that has been part and parcel of the North American church for decades arises out of a completely inadequate and false worldview that has no understanding of what Paul actually taught or believed, especially in light of his actions at the Aeropagus.
To me this is all about hatred, terrorism and a political agenda hiding behind the veil of religion. Pure and undefiled religion means you concern yourself with the downtrodden and disadvantaged, and help them in their plight. Such as widows and orphans. According to James. Furthermore, it means you keep yourself unspotted from the world. That means you live by a higher standard and fight against corruption and evil rather than secretly (or overtly) assenting to it, in any form. If your "religion" stands for anything else, it's worthless. Certainly it's neither pure nor undefiled. People think "religion" is some sort of catch-all where you can throw about the word, and attack it in generalized terms. In fact, the specific type and nature of religious practice matters a whole lot. It saddens me when my Christian friends demonize all Muslims. While at the same time balking when someone demonizes all Christians. It simply doesn't work like that. If your religious creed leads to you manipulating and/or victimizing other people (especially via fear and/or terror) and using "God" as your validation to engage in oppressive, manipulative behavior, then you're a spiritual abuser. Plain and simple. This kind of behavior certainly isn't confined to one specific religion either, but is noticeable across the breadth of religious experiences globally and historically. I'm personally far more troubled by spiritual abuse running rampant in Christian circles, than I am about Muslim anything. Also, Christianity has had 2000 years to self-correct from within and learn to distance itself from so-called adherents who were never truly part of us. It's also been corrected from without, where so-called adherents have been exposed for their true nature and forced out in the open. We've wisened up significantly. That's why you don't see anyone crusading and butchering heathens in the name of "Christ". That's why you don't see monarchs claiming "divine authority" with which to oppress their people and wage war against surrounding nations. That's why the Pope is now a figurehead rather than a true political force. Islam has yet to undergo that kind of correction. Hopefully it will happen soon, and we'll get a break maybe. Until the next wave of extremism rolls around under a different religious guise anyway. As an aside, I find it quite ironic how atheist dictators like in Russia, North Korea and China can murder millions of their own people and also in neighboring countries, but nobody attacks "atheism" as the scourge they claim "religion" to be. Sigh. People. ;~:
The thing I had in mind when I wrote that was the fact that Paul knew just what he believed, but what was being taught in Greek / Roman philosophy and being able to relate that back to Christ without getting tangled up in a million little details: - To the unknown God, let me tell you about the unknown God Not: - To the unknown God, let me tell you about the unknown God, and by the way Islam is evil, the West is corrupt, evolution is from Satan, gays are destroying America, trans people are the beast, etc. It's hard enough to know what you believe, and something else entirely to know what someone else believes and relate that to your purposes without getting distracted. The issue here is that Christianity has a standard re: the teachings of Christ that can be appealed to when someone says they're a Christian and does some thing (good or bad). The equivalent standard in Islam are the teachings of Mohammad, and it won't matter how many millennia Islam has to self-correct, it won't be able to unless it gets rid of Mohammad (either by discarding him or relegating his teaching to the annals of history) - and it can't. To be fair to the Crusades: they were almost always defensive wars against Islamic aggression. How many millennia did it take for modern Judaism to give up on everything, and even then we still have the ultra-orthodox? I think that's a more appropriate comparison.
Concerning both the WWJD and the WWPD ideas, I think it is interesting that neither Jesus nor Paul ever seemed particularly concerned with political/military/economic policy debate going on around them, never instructed Christians to be engaged in such concerns, and generally took a laissez faire approach to the actions of sinful people in relationship to Christians. Both focused primarily on the individual, the relationship to God, and the relationship to one's oikos.
Honestly? There is no "proper Christian response" to this situation. No matter what they say, or how they say it, Christians will be vilified by non-believers. Best just to keep their mouths shut. Who needs the aggravation? Seriously. We have too many hot topics in this tragedy. Islam and gays. I wouldn't touch this situation with a ten foot pole if I could help it...
It seems to me to be a matter of addressing the consequences of human nature as expressed through political, military, and economic polices, or addressing human nature itself. I'd argue - not that I think anyone here would disagree - that the latter is far more important, and if changed will necessarily also change the former things. Why should we spend our time and effort forcing sinful people into a Christian view of the world? Wouldn't it make a billion times more sense to make Christians and then go from there? To increase the number of people who have oriented their lives towards Christ, and then say, 'hey, so about...'? The alternative is that as Christians we are engaging with people who, in Kierkegaardian terms, are in a state of despair, who don't want to be (or don't realize they are), but are unable to bring themselves out of despair unless they reconcile with their creator through Christ. It makes no sense to work with people whose every action, known or unknown, is a failed attempt to fix themselves. Which of course means that they are incapable of recognizing the solution. Which is also why I'm so fond of Kierkegaard.
Speaking of a proper Christian response. Notorious anti-gay pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona decided to ‘look on the bright side’ after the attacks in Orlando on Sunday and celebrate what he called the “good news” that came out of the shooting: “there’s 50 less pedophiles in this world.” Sigh.
Look, I'm not going to deny the fact that I find homosexual sex acts gross, but why does this guy confuse consenting adult homosexuals with adults who like to molest kids? ???
The proper Christian response............heck, I don't even know what the general proper response should be. From the political aspect (since both sides can't even wait until the bodies are in the ground first): -We could ban guns or create stricter gun control laws. Could it have prevented this, or other mass incidents? Perhaps. But if someone wants to get a gun of any sort badly enough, they'll get them. -"Everyone should have guns". Could this have prevented this, or other mass incidents? Perhaps. But it also could've made things a lot worse also. Could allowing security or the bouncers do pat downs (don't know the legality of this) of everyone coming in the door, even if they've just stepped out for a smoke, or whatever and re-enter have prevented this?? Maybe. But then again, it may have just moved the carnage to the outside of the building. We can offer all the "thoughts and prayers" we have. Not a whole lot of comfort to the families of the victims I imagine at the moment. All that to say, "I don't know".
If further investigation proves that the gunman was himself conflicted with or had previously tested the waters of the gay lifestyle, which some reports seem to suggest, then the whole affair takes on infinite complexity. If the reports prove true that he drank and had gotten drunk on numerous occasions in that very club, then the aspect of religion also takes on terms of personal conflict. In such a case, the religion of Islam, and Isis in particular, could become a convenient scapegoat for a twisted mind bent on murder. I think the dialogue should center on the further development of security measures and ways to protect all public venues from weaponry that invariably gets through the main entrances. These incessant calls for gun control as a solution are redundant for the most part. It is not difficult to get a weapon of any caliber, regardless the legality. Keeping assault weaponry out of public venues seems an insurmountable challenge, but also seems a more practicable approach. I think.