According to reports out of Iraq, ISIS is beheading children, raping and then killing their mothers, and hanging or crucifying their fathers. Entire Christian and non-Muslim communities are being decimated.
Over a million Christians have been slaughtered in the name of Islam in Africa alone. The Church has had a decade to condemn this and do more than pray. But, up until last week, it has been silent. Entire Christian communities have been decimated by Islam in the Middle East and parts of Asia; hundreds of women have been raped with glee by young men feeling entitled because the women are “infidels.”
In response to the silence of America’s religious community, Dr. Rabbi Aryeh Spero, in an article published at the American Thinker, issued a much needed tongue-lashing.
Prayer is good, but it is not enough. Words of support while welcome, are not enough. Our religious obligation is to fight. We fight to defend life because life is precious. We must fight because self-defense is a mandate from God.
Those pacifists who are willing to die, willing to be butchered so as not to kill their butchers, are free to choose death but no one is allowed to demand or even suggest that someone else allow themselves to be killed. A war to defend and stop those planning your demise is a moral war; a just war; the answer to wanton, barbaric slaughter. It is a religious obligation to eradicate the fire of Evil.
Religion cannot simply be about the next world, it has to care about the living world. It cannot be just about lofty spiritual concepts, but a flesh and blood willingness to defend and fight for one’s right to live. It can’t only be about salvation and the Kingdom to Come, but the defense of the living in God’s Kingdom here on earth.
For those bleeding heart liberal Christians, Dr. Spero is absolutely justified in his assessment of the current situation. We have an ethical and moral obligation to defend not only ourselves but those suffering at the hands of Islam. Like the gun control crowd who surround themselves with armed guards, you’re just as much of a hypocrite when you decry capital punishment but support the right to murder an innocent unborn baby or proclaim your ‘Christian virtues’ while spouting anti-semitism.
As David proclaimed in Psalm 144, “Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight.” Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that “to everything there is a season, a time to every purpose under heaven . . .A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace (v.8).
Jesus was not a pacifist nor did He teach peace at any price. I defy you to find any passage in the New Testament (not taken out of context) where Jesus demanded that all armies disband or lay down their weapons. His disciples were armed with swords. In Luke 22:36 we read. . .”he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.” And in Revelation 19 we read of the return of Christ with his armies to smite the nations and rule with a rod of iron and “he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”
We do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world filled with violent wicked people, a reality that we must contend with until Christ returns to bring true peace.
