Hope this helped all those poor people with some needed perspective. Eric Allie, the greatest political cartoonist of the 21st Century. His stuff is SPOT ON.
Posted on 01/04/2007 9:41:58 AM PST by Alex Murphy
Brian McLaren, chief guru of the "emerging church" movement, feels "dirty" over the execution of Saddam Hussein.
A pastor and best-selling author who appeals to "post-modern" evangelicals, McLaren now chairs Jim Wallis' Religious Left Sojourners group. He also is one of Jim Wallis' "Red Letter" Christians, who respond to conservative religionists by insisting that the "red letter" words of Jesus in the Bible actually support causes of the Left.
In his latest column for Sojourners, McLaren claimed he is not opining about capital punishment. Instead, he is simply sharing "in personal terms" with "those who support executions" how he reacted to Saddam's hanging.
"The best word to describe my feeling: dirty," McLaren wrote, no doubt with a sigh. But the post-modern pastor seems more perturbed by the U.S. presence in Iraq than by Saddam's execution, per se.
"I felt the same way when the 'Shock and Awe' campaign was launched on Baghdad," McLaren explained. "I thought of all the little children cowering in closets and under beds, feeling (I imagine) that the whole world was coming to an end. I imagined them tearfully asking their moms and dads why this was happening and who was doing this to them, and them answering, 'The United States.'"
McLaren reported that he felt "embarrassed, ashamed, and polluted to be party to frightening innocent people, much less killing them as collateral damage." Seemingly, the theologian was unable fully to distinguish morally between the U.S. led overthrow of Saddam and the terror that Saddam inflicted on his own people.
"I thought of how similar 'shock and awe' are to 'terror,' and because I don't want to terrorize anybody, those bombs didn't speak for me," McLaren wrote. "And yet, against my will they did, and I felt dirty."
As with most modern pacifist absolutists of the Religious Left, McLaren seems to believe, like his colleague Wallis, that all "violence" is essentially morally equal, and therefore equally meriting condemnation. Hence, though they are usually reluctant to say it directly, there is essentially little moral difference for them between the war-making government of the United States and the now deposed regime of Saddam Hussein.
In this spirit of equity, McLaren specified his disapproval of Saddam, of course. The dictator was "in no way innocent," the theologian acknowledged, and "deserved to be held accountable for his disregard for human rights, for human life."
McLaren seems not to have written many columns about how "dirty" he felt in response to Saddam's wars, his mass murders, his rape-rooms, his torture chambers, and his mutilation of the children of political opponents. No doubt, McLaren, like Wallis, disapproved of all that nastiness. But Saddam's brutalities, like the brutalities of all anti-U.S. dictatorships everywhere, never ignite the Religious Left's passionate indignation, no matter how vast or how bloody the crimes.
"Perhaps I'm too morally thin-skinned, but taking the human life of a person in the name of human life brings no sense of justice or satisfaction to me," McLaren wrote of Saddam's end. "Rather, it brings the opposite."
While there are principled opponents of capital punishment, McLaren's editorial is really targetted at America's supposed hegemonic arrogance than at serious expression of grief over Saddam's death. The pastor failed to note that Saddam was tried by an Iraqi court, under Iraqi law, and hanged by Iraqi executioners. Presumably, McLaren would have wanted the U.S. to intervene on Saddam's behalf, in a non-hegemonic way.
"Some might use Bible verses to justify 'eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life,'" McLaren noted sarcastically, charicaturing religious supporters of capital punishment as theological simpletons who support the imposition of Mosaic punishments. Modern pacifists on the Religious Left typically have a theological and historical memory that rarely reaches back before the Kennedy administration.
But in fact, the vast bulk of Christian tradition, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox, has taught that legitimate states have a providential authority to employ capital punishment in some circumstances, just as they have a providential authority to wage war in some circumstances.
McLaren concluded that true people of conscience should feel a "redemptive dirtiness" over Saddam's execution, even if they support capital punishment. In other words, the proper response to Saddam's hanging is guilt.
Guilt, of course, is one of the main emotions of the Religious Left, which chronically feels very guilty over the depradations, real and imagined, of Christianity, of the Church, of Western culture, and of the United States in particular. It does not seem to matter that, in this case, Saddam was executed by his own people, few of whom are Christian or feel particularly tied to Western culture. America is still to blame.
In fact, do not expect McLaren or others on the Religous Left to launch a crusade against capital punishment within Islamic cultures, which often enforce capital punishment vigorously, and against a considerably wider array of personages than just mass murderers. Under Islamic law, of course, execution is often mandated for rapists, adulturers, homosexuals, and apostates from Islam.
Will McLaren ever write a column for Sojourners over how "dirty" he feels when fellow Christians are judicially murdered by Islamists, usually arousing only silence and apathy from Western governments and churches?
Most Christians will not, and should not, feel "dirty" over Saddam's execution. Instead, if they are mindful of their own moral traditions, they will feel mostly sadness that in our fallen world tyrants like Saddam are permitted to rule. Saddam's death need not elicit guilt or pleasure. Perhaps the best reaction is simply reflection, and relief that Saddam's crimes, at least, are finally ended, and will now be judged by an even more ultimate Authority.
Hope this helped all those poor people with some needed perspective. Eric Allie, the greatest political cartoonist of the 21st Century. His stuff is SPOT ON.
If one's feeling dirty, one needs to take a shower.
McLaren should take a shower.
Does a "Left Christian" refer to someone who doesn't preach the truth from the bible? Someone who wants to pick and choose the parts he is only comfortable with and then leave the rest of it alone? Please will someone clarify this???
I am a Christian who only leans one way, that is UP towards Jesus.
"I felt the same way when the 'Shock and Awe' campaign was launched onBaghdadDresden," McLaren explained. "I thought of all the little children cowering in closets and under beds, feeling (I imagine) that the whole world was coming to an end. I imagined them tearfully asking their moms and dads why this was happening and who was doing this to them, and them answering, 'The United States.'"
Someone who puts Marx above "god".
They need to understand that there is no charity in forced taxation for social programs.
Does he feel dirty over 50 million aborted children in America?
This is just like yesterday's weblog entry at Christianity Today which read : "Christian Leaders mostly condemn Hussein Execution." Of course, only liberal Christian leaders were cited. CT is only the shell of the magazine it once was.
A "left Christian" would indicate liberal interpretation of the Bible, other than traditional.
Another wolf in sheep's clothing.
McLaren is dirty from the false heretical doctrine of liberation theology. He needs a bath.
I prayed for Saddam as any man who values his life can be saved. But the punishment was just and fit the crimes he was convicted of. Even a tyrant like Saddam can be saved but it does not necessarily prevent him from the effects of the atrocities he committed.
Don't misunderstand. I take no issue with his death. I support capital punishment.
Me. I did
-If he had confessed Christ, how many of you would have felt cheated that he was redeemed by the same grace that you enjoy?
No. On the other hand, I feel no great loss that he didn't. He made his choices
-Isn't it possible to support capital punishment, and the execution of Hussein as being necessary without glorying in his death?
Of course, still what the heck. This is all the catharsis that millions of people will ever get. Remember vengeance is the Lord's, but the state is God's agent. (Romans 12:19; 13:2-4)
Did you know this? I didn't!
No, but then again... are we surprised?
It figures. Maybe we should be mourning the death of Hilter, Pol Pot, Stalin and soon-to-be dead Castro. Yup, I feel badly for all these mass murderers.
Or go to Confession.
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