Posted on 08/25/2005 5:40:10 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
Liberal reporters since 9-11 have frequently equated conservative Christians with Quran-thumping Muslims, but the differences between the two religions are huge. For example, Islam initially expanded through the slaughter of opponents, but Christianity grew through the martyrdom of believers -- and the apostle Paul taught Christians in Rome, "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink."
Early this week, Pat Robertson, on his long-running TV show "The 700 Club," seemed more Muslim than Christian when he suggested that U.S. operatives assassinate Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Yesterday, he said he was misinterpreted and was suggesting kidnapping, not necessarily assassination, but he already had caused an international furor by using the A-word.
The televangelist should have remembered Spiderman's message that "with great power comes great responsibility." By his blurting, Robertson aided Venezuelan autocrats such as Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel, who sarcastically said that assassination advocacy was "very Christian" and went on to argue that "religious fundamentalism is one of the great problems facing humanity."
National and international journalists also played up the story, often treating Robertson as if he were the Protestant pope, as did some Islamic groups. Under a press release heading, "Pat Robertson's Fatwa," the Muslim American Society screamed that "someone should remind the darling of the Christian Right about the Ten Commandments. About the one that says 'thou shall not kill.' If that had been a Muslim cleric talking about killing a head of state, you would have never heard the end of it."
(Actually, Muslim clerics have done more than talk -- their fatwa followers have murdered intellectuals such as Faraj Foda, Hussein Muruwwa, Mahmoud Taha and Al-Sadeq Al-Nayhoum, and U.S. reporters have largely ignored that.)
None of these prudential concerns would matter much if Pat Robertson were biblically correct in calling for assassination -- but it's hard to see either general or specific biblical warrant for his fatwa. In general, as Paul wrote to Timothy, Christians are to pray "for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions."
Hugo Chavez is an evil tyrant, but so were many Roman emperors -- and Paul told Romans to "bless those who persecute you. ... Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all." Last time I looked, "assassin" was not on the general list of honorable callings. Wartime is different, but last time I looked, we weren't at war with Venezuela.
Applying Old Testament history to current politics is sometimes exegetically tricky, but the wartime assassinations in Judges 3 and 4 -- Jael hammering a tent peg into Sisera's brain, Ehud the left-handed man thrusting his sword into the fat belly of the king of Moab -- also do not provide warrant for taking out Hugo Chavez. Nor do any of Christ's words or deeds suggest a WWJA (Who Would Jesus Assassinate?) list.
The people most affected by last week's tempest, of course, were Venezuelans, one of whom wrote on www.worldmagblog.com of Chavez's demagoguery and election-rigging, but noted that "after decades of corruption and ignoring the needs of the poor, our country may deserve a leader like Chavez. The fact is that Venezuela needs revival; corruption ... is a way of life there. All potential leaders are corrupt, and we could end up with someone worse than Chavez. Pray for my people!" Prayer should also be for missionaries who now face greater danger.
God is the God of history. He raises up leaders and strikes them down. The Christian goal is to follow biblical principles, including "just war" ones, and not to create new orders. Christians who are careless bring dishonor to God's name by making many believe there is no difference between the pre-eminent religion of peace and the many religions of violence.
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That thinking is as dangerous as it is historically flawed. In terms of who did the truly heavy lifting against Hitler the commie Soviets come in first by a mile.
If a jihadist gets lucky and takes out Bush he will claim that God endorsed it and just used him to achieve His goals. You would have to agree if you really believe what you wrote.
What more can you expect from a man who agreed with a statement that "it was the pornographers and homosexuals fault for 9/11" shortly after? The man's a nutcase.
I'm just glad he doesn't represent my Church.
What a lot of people don't realize is that Christ is the god of the OT, the God of Israel, the great I AM. Christ was every bit as merciful during his ministry on Earth as he was to ancient Israel. I don't see the OT as fire and brimstone and the NT as peaceful and merciful.
Paul's comments about supporting and upholding your govt. were directed towards a specific group of people at a specific point in time. When a govt. fails to uphold the natural rights of its citizens, it's the peoples' right and duty to overthrow that government.
In addition, it is the right of all men to defend themselves. Chavez is a Castro wannabe and I wouldn't shed a tear of Chavez was taken out.
What approach? Kennedy confronted Khrushchev over the missiles equipped with nuclear weapons the Soviets placed in Cuba. We blockaded Cuba and placed our troops on high alert throughout the world. The Soviets blinked and withdrew the missiles from that country. Firm and forceful action worked against the Communists then, just as our irresolute action in 1961 resulted in the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. The Kennedy brothers learned the lesson of weakness and equivocation in 1961, and acted firmly the next year against Khrushchev.
That is like saying we shouldn't throw rapists in jail because we wouldn't like it if the rapist threw us in jail.
Do you believe it would have been wrong to take Hitler out before WW2 began? Would your objection look something like: "We wouldn't have liked it if Germany took out Roosevelt before the war so how could we justify taking out the leader of Germany?"
the article title is blasphemous.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1514
http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,12716,1419780,00.html
A couple of stories on the subject. Perhaps Chavez was making it up, but if Bush wasnt plotting he should have been , and he should have carried it out.
>>>>Do you believe it would have been wrong to take Hitler out before WW2 began?
Given 20/20 hindsight and a time machine, sure, whack the bum. The problem is, we have no time machine to predict who other US Presidents would choose to take out in future administrations. The US remains a civilized nation because we limit the absolute power of our rulers. How does President Dean with an assassination squad sound to you? Laughable? That's what the average German would have said in 1931 if you asked him what he thought about the probability of Chancellor Hitler.
Yes, Chavez was making it up, and, no, Bush should not have carried it out.
That about sums it up. Were it not for undeserved kindness, none of us would be here.
I take it you were opposed to Reagan's attempted "whacking" of Qaddafi?
There has been an alliance between the international Left, including the remnants of Communism, and radical Islam, at least since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even our domestic anti-Iraq War protests resemble those staged by leftists against the Vietnam War, with some of the same players, such as Joan Baez and Jane Fonda, crawling out of the woodwork to join the protests. The fact that Chavez is friendly to both Communist tyrants like Castro and the ayatollahs of Iran is clear evidence of this alliance.
The Marxist-radical Muslim alliance has gone unnoticed by the MSM and even by most conservatives. Robertson has performed a valuable service by highlighting the danger in our "near abroad" from this Castro wannabe.
What you are saying is that: Since we have very screwed-up and evil people like moveon.org who are a threat to get into power, we cannot do something good using good judgment of good and evil, because a leftist moveon.org type group may get into power one day and use bad judgment and do something evil.
This only points out why it is so necessary to empasize how important the righteous character of our leaders has always been. It is not just the economy, an evil pervert could inherit a good economy.
The Bible teaches us what is important in the leaders we elect.
Our leaders must be righteous men, able men. That is, they have to be righteous men who have great ability also. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean etc. miss the mark by a mile.
I was young at the time but I don't remember a lot of outrage over Reagan's attempted Qaddafi whacking back then, certainly none by conservatives.
With all of the apparent conservatives who are outraged by Robertson's comments, I guess Reagan couldn't carry out such an attack today or his own party would be trying to impeach him.
At the time of the Cuban missile crisis, the Communists had been entrenched in the Soviet Union for over 40 years. Domestic opposition, including post-World War II guerrilla warfare in the Baltic States and Ukraine, had been ruthlessly crushed well before 1962. Millions of regime opponents were killed in the Gulag under Lenin and Stalin. Those Russians and others who had fled Communism were in no position to take power over such a vast nation from their exile in places like Paris or New York. The Soviet Union was far more powerful than Cuba, and Communist rule was not dependent upon the charisma of one man. Assassinating Khrushchev would have only resulted in another Communist taking power, just as the assassination of Kennedy (or for that matter Lincoln, McKinley, or Garfield) did not cause our government to collapse.
Assassination is a tool that would have worked against the Cuban regime, but not against the Soviet dictatorship. I doubt anyone in a position of responsibility in the 1960s considered assassinating Khrushchev.
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