And there will be bloodshed.
Back in the 5th century CE, Augustine of Hippo
("Saint" Augustine) bestowed on us the two most damaging concepts to
the human psyche: Original Sin and justified war. One feeds upon the other: in
thinking that man is inherently prone to evil, people can justify his
annihilation. Now, that may extreme, but the motive for violence in Western
"Civilization" is based upon the concept that we are all sinners and
that people who have not been sufficiently "saved" are not really
worthy of the wonderful gift of life God has bestowed upon them and at the very
least, are deserving of discrimination. They are not to be tolerated. They are,
in fact, impediments and are therefore, expendable.
Last week, we learned that The Good News Club of Child
Evangelism Fellowship will be instructing over 100,000 children in the genocide
of non-believers :
This fall, more than 100,000 American public school children, ranging in age from four to 12, are scheduled to receive instruction in the lessons of Saul and the Amalekites in the comfort of their own public school classrooms. The instruction, which features in the second week of a weekly "Bible study" course, will come from the Good News Club, an after-school program sponsored by a group called the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF).
The story of the Amalekites has been used to justify genocide throughout the ages.
This instruction goes beyond Jesus Camp. And yet it may be just another indication of the strife to come.
Good vs "Evil"
With the ramping up of the social conservatives' rhetoric,
the word "evil" is used more than ever. The culture war (to them)
has become more "good" vs "evil" than "us"
vs "them. In the public sector, for example, unions have now become
"evil" and any attempt to eradicate collective bargaining is
justifiably moral. Of course, in the national debate, the rhetoric is softened
a bit: when questioned about his positions on unions, Republican Presidential
candidate, Mitt
Romney said "We have got to put the kids first and put these
teachers unions behind."
At the National Rifle Association's last conference,
rocker Ted Nugent created a stir when he said that not only was President Obama
"vile" and "evil" but that voters should "ride into
that battlefield and chop [Democrat's] heads off in November."
Add to this mix the numerous scares of non-existent
"sharia law" and the recent spate of pulpit sermons calling for the
genocide of gays: the rhetoric of "evil" has become in
itself so powerfully sinister that to think bloodshed will not occur within the
next year is almost wishful thinking. And as noted in the last Monday Sermon,
it is becoming increasingly evident that there are people who actually want other
people to ... die.
And no matter how powerful the "evil" rhetoric
is, no matter how errant, no matter how hurtful, some think of it as
"justified" in the culture war. They are the truly righteous ones, of
course, with the morality and stability of the country at heart. Anyone who
contradicts that ideology is, by definition ...evil.
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