A challenge to Christians
Can the metaphor for Christians be clearer? ICE killed Good. Yet word came to me that someone in a recent Methodist Sunday school class maintained ICE did the right thing killing the young Minneapolis mother. The justification? Old Testament Judean kings slaughtered their enemies. Had I been there, I would have retorted, “Is this what we’ve become? Scratching through the Old Testament to find ways we can justify un-Christian acts? If we live by Old Testament laws, aren’t we Jews rather than Christians? And are we now ruled by kings?”
In a letter describing the civil rights era, Harper Lee opined, “Many Christians were challenged for the first time to be Christians. What was heartbreaking was to discover that people you loved — friends, relatives, neighbors — whom you assumed were civilized, harbored the most vicious feelings.”
Yes, uncivilized and heartbreaking and un-Christian. So I challenge those of you who say you are Christian and support the vicious deeds of this administration.
Reexamine your beliefs. Christianity is how we should act, based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. Evaluate whether your actions square with the precepts of the one by whose name you call yourselves. Do it now, before all that is good in our country dies.