Posted on 08/01/2007 2:10:05 AM PDT by Clive
What are Christian Korean women doing in Afghanistan anyway?
Haven't there been enough horrendous incidents involving missionaries, Christian activists, peace-at-any-price zealots in both Afghanistan and Iraq to dissuade others from plunging into the morass, ostensibly to do the Lord's work?
In too many cases, it's fallen to NATO or other soldiers, who risk their lives to rescue such people from their reckless courage, and refusal to recognize the dangers of their humanitarian selfishness. Especially women, foreign or not, who are Taliban targets.
Presuming most are still alive, the Korean Christians held hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan pose a huge dilemma for the Korean government, the struggling Afghan government of Hamid Karzai, the NATO troops trying to secure peace and reconstruction in that country.
The only ones in the catbird seat are the Taliban of Mullah Mohammed Omar (how come he's still surviving?) and the al-Qaida of Osama bin Laden.
A series of deadlines have passed in the Korean hostage case, with the Taliban demanding captured prisoners be released before they'll free the hostages. Meanwhile, they, the Taliban, are killing the male Koreans one at a time to encourage Kabul's capitulation.
No word at this writing whether the 18 Korean women are still alive.
Of all governments involved, none know better than the South Koreans the folly of cooperating with, or succumbing to, terrorist demands. Since 1953, South Korea has survived, lived and thrived under perpetual threat from North Korea, the world's most merciless and perverted regime.
The Taliban also have German hostages, whom they seem to be killing one by one.
While one has sympathy for anyone in Taliban (or al-Qaida) hands, one also cannot escape the conclusion that it is largely the fault of captives that they are in such a precarious and frightening situation.
In 2005, Canadian James Loney and four members of the Christian Peacemakers Team (CPT) in Iraq were kidnapped and held as hostages by something calling itself the Swords Of Righteousness Brigade. Before being rescued by British SAS troops and Canadian JTF2 specialists, an American member of the CPT, Tom Fox, was murdered.
The gratitude of those rescued manifested itself in Loney refusing to wear a poppy on Remembrance Day, and refusing to testify against his suspect captors later held by the Americans. A similar response came from Norman Kember, a British CPT member who was rescued.
Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, peace-types made a big hullabaloo about chaining themselves to supposed targets in Baghdad to deter air strikes -- but they cut-and-ran as soon as their demands were ignored and bombs fell.
The martyr complex exists among Christians as well as Muslim suicide bombers. Doubtless the Korean Christians exude sincerity, courage and probably forgiveness. But that's not the point. They shouldn't be there.
The Taliban are not Iroquois whom French Jesuits once felt faith-bound to rescue from paganism -- and suffered torture and death as a consequence. Those were different times, and one would think we, or the church, would have learned a lesson.
Apparently not. Christian groups should be discouraged from dabbling in regions where their religious faith is not appreciated, and where others are required to risk their lives to save them when inevitably they are kidnapped, to be used as political bargaining chips.
On the other hand, the fact that peaceful, decent people like the Korean Christians are captured and killed by such as the Taliban, is more evidence why Canadian and NATO troops are needed in that country -- not for the sake of hostages, but to help bring peace, security and a modicum of freedom to the Afghan people.
Let me add...and ignorant and morally obtuse, besides.
Your ignorance is overwhelming. The Commandment is “Thou shalt not MURDER”. I realize that folks like you refuse to make that distinction when it suits your purposes, but the distinction is there for anyone with a modicum of common sense to see.
Monocle’s got a dog in this fight, alright. It’s called anti christian. You offend his sensibilities by practicing your faith unless you do so in a closet. He, on the other hand, is free to spout off in a public arena his anti christian diatribes. Too bad for your sensibilities.
What a hypocrite!
Of course, being in Afghanistan doesn't really compare to either of these activities. I think it's more like juggling chain saws and playing with matches in an ammo dump.
It's not "blaming the victim" to point out that it's irresponsible to be strutting through a biker bar in a miniskirt with no underwear at 11:00 on a Friday night. It's not blaming the victim when something they do makes you wonder, "Just what in heck were they thinking?"
I saw a statement awhile ago, wish I could say who said it...you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
Reminds me also of another article I saw, that said most people were sheep. Nothing wrong with that, except there are wolves out there...so that's why guard/sheep dogs are needed.
That's why you don't irresponsibly put the sheep dogs in harm's way.
Which is, of course, irrelevant...one can argue that it's not productive to offend others, but no one has the right to not be offended.
I'm sure that you aren't implying that having one's head lopped off is merely another form of "offense."
I do not know the motivations of the Korean Christians involved. I don’t know their doctrines, either. I have hunted for a doctrinal statement of their church, but have yet not found one. Could they be professing Christians with a mere martyr complex? Don’t know.
It is worth the risk for eternity to take the Gospel into Muslim lands. And if Muslims hear the Word of God and repent toward Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21), that nation is better off for each convert (and so is the whole world).
The Christian Gospel of the Grace of God (Acts 20:24) is to be spread without a steel sword. The Sword of the Spirit will do.
I do not know how much the Korean Christians, their church, their families, have made actual demands on their government or upon others. But any Christians, if they believe that God has specifically led them to dangerous fields of service, should not demand deliverance from human authorities. God is able to deliver them if He so wills.
But Christians have a mandate to go to EVERY CREATURE, EVERY NATION, to THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. I do believe that includes Muslim nations. I believe it includes communist countries. I believe that includes other totalitarian countries.
I am one of four who was indited in the Philippines in January, 2003 for having (allegedly) “offended the religious feelings of . . .” This is a FELONY in the Philippines! The affidavits that led the prosecutor to file the complaint and issue the charges were sworn by members of a psuedo-Christian religious cult, under the orders of their cult leader and hierarchy. Why? Simply because they DO NOT APPRECIATE OUR MESSAGE AND FELT OFFENDED BY IT. The possible result if found guilty? FOUR YEARS AND SIX MONTHS in prison!
We used no sword, no knife, no gun, no stones, no yelling or screaming . . . not even preaching. We never approached any members of that religious cult. We had Scripture signs.
Our response? We keep preaching the Gospel, even in dangerous places. We are not in the Philippines right now, but were are at this moment in a dangerous place. We have a biblical mandate to go to EVERY CREATURE, EVERY NATION.
Had Christians been obeying that mandate as they should have, I dare say that Islam would not be nearly as influential today.
Remember what Jim Elliot wrote in the flyleaf of his bible before he was killed by the Auca Indians who he and his fellow missionaries were trying to reach with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
Those missionaries who were killed by the tribe they were attempting to evangelize were martyred for their faith, but after their deaths practically every member of that murderous tribe was saved and became missionaries to other unreached Amazon tribes themselves. Many thousands of Amazon Basin Indians will be in Heaven for all eternity because those young men were faithful witnesses for Christ until death.
God often works out His will in mysterious ways that we can't understand, but as in the cited case, from time to time he gives us a glimpse of how and why he works as he does. If those precious Korean girls are martyred for the sake of bringing the message of salvation through grace by faith in Jesus Christ to the Afghan people, we may later see why God planned it that way. For a committed Christian the death of this body of sinful flesh is a small price to pay for the eternal joy that is laid up for those who are faithful to our Lord until death. The Apostles and millions of others in the early church and throughout the church age understood that much better than the vast majority of American Christians today, many of whom seem to see Christianity primarily as a magical key to earthly wealth and health.
But thanks be to God there are still many others who hear and answer the Macedonian cry of the unreached people of the world, and I thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that my precious daughter is among those who have heard and obeyed His call. She has served with a large nondenominational foreign mission organization for over 16 years in places as diverse as former com-bloc eastern European nations to the interior of Africa. She now serves in the mission home office, but she is available and willing at any time to go wherever on the planet the mission believes God is calling for workers. Of course like any other father would do I pray fervently that she will not be called to give her life in the course of her ministry, but if He wills it He will give me grace to bear the grief.
I would like to here and now call on all Christian FReepers to join with me in going down on our knees before the throne of almighty God to ask in the name of Jesus Christ that he spare the lives of those faithful Korean girls. God has said that whenever His people agree in asking for anything according to His will he will answer. But we must remain open to the very real possibility that God in His perfect will has other plans for them, and that those plans will be far more advantageous to the spread of the Gospel of Christ than anything we could imagine or plan ourselves. God has said that he will not require us to bear more than we are able, and millions of martyrs have born what most of us would say is unbearable. If the Koreans are required by God to further the cause of spreading the gospel to the Islamic world by shedding their own blood, then He will give them grace to endure whatever they suffer and will reward them beyond our ability to imagine for all eternity. If the servants of Satan who call themselves Islamics are willing to blow themselves up for the obscene pleasure of their abominable false god of death and hate, we should be even more willing to surrender our lives in the service of the one and only great God of peace and love, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who died in blood and agony so that we might enjoy eternal life with Him.
Let it go. Stop ridiculing those who follow Christ and take His commands seriously.
Using a “biker bar” analogy for Christian missionaries is beneath contempt. Have you been imposed on for their rescue?
I suspect the men and women trying to save them are much more charitable than you.
Have you been under cover for nearly 10 years, troll? Surely you understand the difference between Christians sharing the love of Christ and jihadists demanding submission to sharia?
Take it up with Jesus, Who commanded His followers to share the good news with those around them. “Jihadist Jesus” — is that your take on the Messiah?
You forget why sheepdogs exist in the first place. If you don't want to guard the activities of the sheep, don't be a sheepdog.
Bears repeating.
What he will realize too late is that it is an either/or proposition. Either the Christians will win or the Muslims will. His "principled realism" will not help him when the knife is to his throat.
Secular humanism has created a vacuum in the West. That vacuum will be filled either by a resurgent Christianity or by Islam. It cannot sustain itself.
They were "selfish" for laying their lives down so that others might hear the good news of Jesus? I guess I never thought of it that way....
The true Gospel of Jesus Christ IS radical according to the wisdom of men, and every true and faithful believer in Him is a radical Christian. Not all those who say Lord, Lord, are faithful believers, but only those who have committed everything in life to Him and His will for them can truthfully call Him Lord, and in the eyes of nonbelievers that makes them radicals.
No, you asked it to be a wise-ass. You wanted to call the person a hypocrite. In this case, you just got bit in the ass, since the poster (and others) have devoted their life to something beyond themselves. However, even if they hadn't done so, they are perfectly justified in supporting that intellectual position. It is only a moron who would expect every person to interrupt their lives to support every cause they feel is worthy.
Haven't been to Arlington Cemetary? Then I guess you don't support those who gave their lives for your freedom.
Haven't seen the Mona Lisa in person? Well, I gues you don't really like art.
You took a business trip without your spouse? Then I guess you're not really dedicated to your marriage.
You haven't been to a war zone yet? Well then, you must not really support liberating enslaved peoples.
All of those are the same kind of insipid dreck that passes for "logic" in some circles. Sadly, you apparently perpetuate it as well.
By the way, I'm not going to Afghanistan, but I admire those courageous souls who do so. If you think our brave troops don't want to be responsible for protecting them, then you clearly don't know anyone in the military... or, at least, you don't know anyone with guts and heart and a spirit of liberty in the military.
Thus the missionaries actions were indecent and selfish
They were “selfish” for laying their lives down so that others might hear the good news of Jesus? I guess I never thought of it that way....
Psssst, oh pious one?
NOT MY QUOTE.
Please make a note of this, thanks.
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