Posted on 11/14/2007 5:15:06 PM PST by Graybeard58
Rowan Ford’s pastor urged mourners at her funeral Wednesday to put away anger and hate over the death of the 9-year-old girl who authorities allege charge was raped and murdered by her stepfather and another man.
Speakers remembered Rowan as a “sweetie” who loved everybody at her church in her southwest Missouri village of Stella and was always the first to show up for services and youth activities.
More than 300 people filled the Gospel Lighthouse Church in Neosho, about 15 miles from Stella, a larger building than her hometown church that was chosen because of the anticipated crowd.
Rowan’s mother, Colleen Ford, 44, did not speak during the service. She sat with her four adult children — two daughters and two sons — in the front facing Rowan’s closed white casket that bore a bouquet of red and white roses.
The service program, featuring a photo of a smiling Rowan, did not list stepfather David Spears among the surviving family.
Spears, 25, and his friend Chris Collings, 32, are in jail without bond on charges of first- degree murder and rape after investigators allege they both admitted attacking Rowan. A judge entered a not-guilty plea for the men at a court hearing Tuesday. Both are applying for public defenders.
“Many of you, if it was up to you, you’d organize a vigilante committee today and go after them,” the Rev. Glenn Ennis said during the funeral service. Ennis is pastor of Stella Baptist Church, which Rowan attended in her hometown of about 170 people.
Ennis urged mourners to remember that Rowan “is in a place today that is full of love, joy and peace.”
“If we focus on the evil in the situation, guess what? Who gets the glory? Satan
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Put away HATE, but not responsibility - and the earthly requirement to atone (as best one can in the flesh) for one’s sins.
Love the sinner, but despise the sin.
I think you make an important point.
Selected passages from the Gospels
Many Christian scholars have pointed to Jesus' "cleansing of the temple" as an example of righteous anger. Below are other instances where Jesus expressed anger in word or deed.
Addressing the Pharisees
Matthew 23
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! ... Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
Healing the Man with the Withered Hand
Mark 3
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. And they watched him, to see whether he would heal him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, "Come here." And he said to them, "Is it lawful on the sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out, and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Rebuking Peter
Mark 3
...he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men." And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.
Predicting the Passion
Mark 8
On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard it. And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons; and he would not allow any one to carry anything through the temple. And he taught, and said to them, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers." And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and sought a way to destroy him; for they feared him, because all the multitude was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came they went out of the city. As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, "Master, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered."
Cursing the Fig Tree and Cleansing the Temple
Mark 11
On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard it. And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons; and he would not allow any one to carry anything through the temple. And he taught, and said to them, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers." And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and sought a way to destroy him; for they feared him, because all the multitude was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came they went out of the city. As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, "Master, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered."
Blessing the Children
Mark 10
And they were bringing children to him, that he might touch them; and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it he was indignant, and said to them, "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.
Curing a Demoniac
Mark 1
And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God." But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
Amen.
We agree,,
God assigns the state the responsibility of punishing evil doing:
Romans 13:1-4
1 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. 4 For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
God reserves vengeance to Himself, and instructs us to subrogate our claims for justice to Him. This teaching, quoting from the old testament books of Deuteronomy and Proverbs, is in the same letter that designates the ruling authorities as responsible for punishing evil doers; in fact it appears immediately before the above teaching in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome:
Romans 12:9-21
17 Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. 18 If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. 19 Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,”[a] says the Lord. 20 Therefore
“ If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
If he is thirsty, give him a drink;
For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”[b]
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Footnotes:
a. Romans 12:19 Deuteronomy 32:35
b. Romans 12:20 Proverbs 25:21, 22
Conclusion:
Christians are not to take personal vengeance, and are to obey and support ruling authorities in carrying out their divinely assigned task of punishing evil-doers. The designated punishment for rape and murder is death.
I've seen the statistics. They are horrifying.
There is always a chance that a father will abuse his own daughter. But it is barely measurable compared to the chance of her being abused by mom's new boyfriend/husband.
I am a big believer in righteous anger and indignation. I know what the pastor was trying to convey, but one could possibly take this a step further to say that Jesus overreacted to the moneychangers in the Temple, something which I think many non-Christians may really believe.
We are talking about the rape and murder of a nine-year-old child here and I am giving Satan no glory by being angry about that.
Momma probably simplified for it you and said, "Two wrongs don't make a right".
Again, this men deserve to lose their lives and meet their maker in short order. Again, this needs to be done not out of hate, or malice, or even vengence but to serve justice. The rest is up to God, and I will not second guess him.
ANYTIME i suspect child abuse (usually sexual abuse) in a family, I call the authorities (i’m a required reporter anyway). so far, I have been right 100% of the time. I’m glad i have the “radar” for it. I’ve only done it 4 or 5 times, but for THAT child — it really could mean life or death.
We may never know what happened to Rowan — whether someone called suspecting something, but that MOTHER knew more than what she will ever admit to. That’s just the truth, no matter what anyone says. She seems “with it” enough to know whether something in her own home isn’t right. Sickening...as a mother seeing her....when she could have and should have DONE SOMETHING...
He's practicing Christianity.
Maybe if he keeps practicing, he'll get good at it.
Jesus said we should love our enemies. He did also say that we ought not to generally "judge others," that we should not be judged.
But he never recommended that we do away with appropriate punishment for crimes.
In fact, he said that if anyone should "offend" one of the children who believed in him, it would be better for that person if he had a weight put around his neck and were thrown in the ocean.
That's for "offending." I'd say what these bastards did went well beyond offending.
If you ask me what I think an appropriate punishment would be, I think being slowly dragged down the highway behind a pickup truck at about 1 or 2 miles per hour, for 5 or 10 hours -- until dead -- ought do it.
Unfortunately, I think our leftist judges might regard that as "cruel and unusual punishment."
But if we lived in a culture without such sensibilities, yeah, I would probably sit on a committee to arrange such a punishment. Heck, I might even drive.
There's not necessarily anything "unchristian" about anger. When Jesus physically and violently overthrew the tables of the money changers in the Temple, and took a whip to them and drove them out, I'd dare say the Lord was a bit p****d off.
no truer words have ever been spoken. Amen to every word you wrote. As an “only parent” to four siblings I adopted, I have always said that if God ever brought someone into MY life, it would be a LONG time before my children would ever know about it — much less MEET the guy. And I would be very cautious and watchful and attentive to everything about him before I would expose him to my children. Actually, I would probably wait until we were ready to get married before I’d bring him into the picture. And that would be a LONG time down the road from “dating”.
It was on the news here about the hotline calls.
She would arrive at school around 6:30am. When asked why, she said that she wanted to get out of the house before her step-father got up.
She would also show up at church very early on Sunday for the same reason.
I've also been having problems the last several days entering keywords. Seems to be glitching most often on people's names, although how the software could know that is perplexing. I also tried to enter "rowan ford" on previous threads; "stacey peterson" on threads about the Bolingbrook cop's missing wife; the ex-AT&T guy's name (which escapes me at the moment) who claims the NSA is copying the entire internet; and "frank rich" to some dreck, oops, article he authored. But it's not exclusively proper names, I could not add "tipgate" to threads about Hillary's waitress. Yet other keywords are accepted with no problem. I just upgraded my Firefox and thought it might have something to do with that. You're the first other person I've seen mention having keyword problems. (And by the way, it won't let me add "rowan ford" to this thread, either.)
Perhaps the proprieters can enlighten us? Jim? John?
Ooops, should have read further before posting....
OTOH, there may be some little old lady who never harmed anyone in her life and was a good and decient person but who did not accept Jesus, she goes straight to Hell. Child killing bastards say a 10 second prayer, get forgiven and go to Heaven, yet little old lady burns in Hell.
I say that if these two bastards are guilty, kill them on the spot. Do not give them a chance to repent of their sins.
Anyone who takes the life of an Innocent little girl in such an evil way needs to die. Not tomorrow, but NOW! Do not give them a chance to repent! I want them to BURN IN HELL!
This makes me ill.
I am sick to my stomach.
Yes. If you read what I posted you will see I never said any differently.
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