They are like this:
“I forgive you,” said the daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lance to the 21-year-old man who allegedly murdered her mother in church and appeared at an emotionally charged video court appearance in Charleston on Friday afternoon, two days after a horrific mass shooting here…
…“You took something very precious from me, but I forgive you,” Lance’s daughter said through tears. “It hurts me. You hurt a lot of people, but may God forgive you.”
This is what it means to be Christian – to take up the cross and follow Jesus. This is difficult. None of us know ahead of time if we can really do it (and, at all events, it is Jesus who really does it for us – we just consent to His action). And if the man repents of his sin and asks for forgiveness then as far as Christians are concerned, that is a done deal. Sure, he still has to pay the price of the world for his crimes – which might end up being the surrendering of his life – but no Christian will have a word of condemnation to say about him. He’d be just another brother in Christ, in spite of his crimes.
So, for you secularists out there who denigrate Christians who sin and then ask forgiveness – we’re serious about this. It is for real. We’re not just using our “invisible sky god” to get off the hook. This is how Christians are and always will be.
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The folks in this congregation are truly special people. I can’t begin to imagine the grief they’re experiencing. It would be a struggle for me to forgive someone who had just shot my mother.
There’s a Twitter comment in the side bar next to your post that I think reflects the sentiments of a lot of Christians: “can’t we all just identify as getting along?”
I too am impressed by the congregation and their response to this unspeakable act, and personally I could not forgive anyone who did this to one of my loved ones. In fact, I am the type that would take justice into my own hands. As a society, we have to show resolve towards a zero tolerance of this type of crime by quickly executing the guilty perpetrators. They do not get their 15 minutes of fame, they do not get a long drawn out trial, and they certainly don’t get to sit in prison with exercise and TV rights for the next 20 years. They should be marched straight from the courtroom to the execution chamber.
That is an understandable sentiment, Cluster – I take a bit of a different view, once expressed by Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings:
Punish him, indeed. But mercy – always mercy.
I interpret Faith a little differently. I believe evil needs to be recognized, defeated and should receive no mercy. Mercy can come from a place of strength or weakness, and extending mercy to evil is weakness. Just my opinion.
Re: the Pope. I think the Pope became a politician the other day when he spoke about global warming. He spoke very directly about how developed countries are causing great harm to the planet and the poor and went so far as to offer the same leftist prescription to resolve the problem, completely ignoring the fact that the poor countries of India and China are the worst carbon offenders, and the fact that recent studies show no correlation between CO2 output and rising temperatures. He also ignores the fact that the solutions offered by the left will result in rising energy and food costs, both of which will greatly harm the poor more than anyone else. I thought it was a sad reflection on the Church.
I interpret Faith a little differently.
Cluster, I think you and I have a very similar view of faith. Speaking for myself, I found that once I abandoned organized religion, it was much easier to recognize the faults of organized religion as well as practice my faith in my own way. My faith is actually stronger than when I used to attend church regularly, but it’s pure and simple faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, not in what some religious organization says I should believe — or not believe.
My wife and I both grew up in the Methodist Church, and a good example of what I’m talking about was the Methodist Church’s initial sponsorship of what was basically a communist workers rally in Washington, D.C. in October, 2010. Under severe pressure they did eventually withdraw their sponsorship (see last paragraph of Wiki article), but the damage to the Church’s credibility had been done IMO. The funny thing was, as you probably remember, my wife and I attended Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally in August, 2010. It was the single most spiritually uplifting event we have ever attended. We were actually thinking about going back to our old church until we saw the list of sponsors for the One Nation rally. Had the Methodist Church sponsored or participated in the Restoring Honor rally, we would probably be attending church today.
I think organized religion often times misses the intimacy of Faith. Like you, my Faith is personal and my most cherished times of reflection are during my morning exercise. I have a friend in town who is the Pastor of a large congregation and he often chides me for not attending, but it is a young congregation and his services resemble more of a high school glee club than a conversation of Faith and I have a hard time doing that.
but it is a young congregation and his services resemble more of a high school glee club than a conversation of Faith and I have a hard time doing that.
We could see that that was where our church was headed when we left back in the 80’s. One of my biggest problems, however, was that I interacted with a number of church members outside of church, and not just our church, but active members of other churches who put on a good face of going to church on Sundays to somehow mitigate the jerks they were the other 6 days of the week. I was a member of the local Chamber of Commerce Small Business Council as well as several other civic endeavors, and interacted with lots of civic “leaders”. I played golf with guys who were active members of local churches but who, after a few beers on the golf course, openly admitted, nay, bragged about screwing their neighbor’s wife or cheating their business partner or their best customer. As I’m sure you’ve gathered over the decade we’ve both posted here, that’s just simply not who I am. It became increasingly more difficult not to be judgmental, and it was like having a giant weight lifted off my shoulders when I finally disassociated myself from such hypocrisy. Don’t get me wrong — I’m far from perfect. In fact, I’m probably my own worst critic, and prayer is a daily activity for me, usually consisting of asking for both forgiveness and guidance. Much more satisfying spiritually than reciting a collective prayer of confession with 500 other people.
As it turns out, I went to Reconciliation yesterday, and Mass – don’t know how I got thru things before I returned to the Church in 2005. I’m quite a bit different from the way I used to be…and it is a process. I don’t get to feel peace and joy at all times, but when I do it is quite splendid…and when peace and joy are absent, I try to remember to thank God for that, as well, as it instructs me that I still have far to go. One thing that does astonish me is that the more time and effort I surrender to God, the more time I have for everything else.
It is difficult these days for the organized religions and the temptation to try and go along with the world is strong. Perhaps I have just been lucky in my pastors – all of them have been a challenge.
I drifted away from my Catholic faith, as so many young people do, but when I decided to go back I found the Church had changed. Instead of the beauty of the Latin Mass and the feeling of having been in a separate spiritual place, I found a Protestant feel to the Mass, lacking the dignity and grandeur of the centuries of tradition that had made my religion feel so special to me. Not to insult Protestant services, but the Church always stood apart from them, in its specialness of having the old language and the old rituals—it was like a direct link to the age of Christ, and it mattered a lot to me.
But what bothers me the most is what I think of as a New Age touchy-feely new “tradition” of turning to others at the end of Mass and shaking hands and saying “peace be with you”. It strikes me as phony and just odd, somehow. When I do attend Mass I find myself dreading this effort to impose a sense of community, if that is what this is all about. I find it off-putting and actively dislike it. It feels like an invasion of my privacy and an intrusion into what used to be reflective afterglow of the Mass.
The Church “reformed” in many ways, moving hard to the Left as it did. It became a haven for predatory homosexuals, who went on from the seminary to prey upon young men. It started sticking its nose into politics, with somewhat hysterical nuns protesting for various Leftist causes and even promoting birth control and abortion, with priests and nuns actively supporting vicious dictators. It not only tolerates but seems to support vile priests such as the rabidly racist hatemonger Pflegler. And now its head has decided his position entitles him to try to slap the imprimatur of the papacy onto a bunch of Leftist platitudes and claptrap, which I see as a violation of any trust placed in him.
So I, too, have found myself engaging in a private conversation with God, as I don’t find my old church to feel very inspiring. I have attended some Protestant services, but the old ingrained ways die hard, and I can’t take communion in a Protestant church. I also get tired of being hustled—I have been on used-car lots with less pressure than I have gotten from a couple of churches.
I have to say that I am F****ING tired of progressives and their penchant to use every damn issue under the sun to hate on white conservatives and divide this country. Look at this headline from the NYT:
White Terrorism Is as Old as America
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/magazine/white-terrorism-is-as-old-as-america.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
“White” terrorism ??? Really ? The black on white crime rate dwarfs that of the white on black crime rate, yet we all know this headline has nothing to do with actual crime. It is the progressive agenda to further stir emotions of hate and it’s becoming criminal. Let’s look at a story from not too long ago from Knoxville, TN that NEVER received any national attention and I will leave you to guess why.
Christopher Newsom was gagged with a sock in his mouth, his ankles were bound with his own belt, his hands were tied behind his back, his face was covered with a bandana and his head covered with a sweatshirt that his five assailants had tied around his neck with shoestrings. He was then violently raped with an object and beaten…..But not even that was enough. The attackers then poured gasoline on his body and set him on fire. The woman, Channon Christian, was forced into a back room of the house where she was hog-tied with a strips of fabric from a bedding set. She was brutally raped “in every possible way imaginable” for several hours as the assailants beat her viciously with several objects, including a broken chair leg. “Channon Christian’s last minutes on earth were spent slowly suffocating in a garbage can after she had been savagely beaten and raped for hours
Sound like terrorism? Christian and Channon were white. The perpetrators? Four black men and one black woman, all with prior convictions. Maybe the idiot with Stonekettle Station would like to ponder on this story for a while.
I disagree with Noonan on just about everything, but yes – this is prime example of being a Christian. Maybe it’s because i’m not religious, or maybe it’s just human nature, but I personally could not bring myself to forgive Mr. Roof for his heinous actions, if I were in the shoes of the victims. I’d also want to bring up one remark Amazona said earlier:
“It became a haven for predatory homosexuals, who went on from the seminary to prey upon young men.” –
Being a gay man and being a child molester are not one in the same. A gay man (or woman) is merely attracted to the same sex. A child molester has an unhealthy attraction to underage children. Again, the two are not mutually exclusive.
Jonathan, you are objecting to my comment that ““It became a haven for predatory homosexuals, who went on from the seminary to prey upon young men.” with a response that actually has nothing to do with what I said.
You reply: “Being a gay man and being a child molester are not one in the same.” And this is not only correct, it is unrelated to what I said. Please note that I did not refer to “gay men” but to PREDATORY homosexuals”. My own statement narrowed my comment to a specific subcategory of homosexual men. And then my comment went on to NOT refer to “child molester” but to YOUNG MEN.
One of the straw men put forth in attacks on the Church via attacks on predatory priests has been to refer to them as “pedophiles” when in fact very few of the predatory acts have been against children—-that is, they have not qualified as “pedophilia”. Rather they have been a range of offenses ranging from seduction to overt assaults on YOUNG MEN—-males past the age of puberty. It is a confusing and vulnerable age, with hormones surging, and an age quite susceptible to emotional manipulation—-but it is not CHILD abuse.
You go on to say: “A gay man (or woman) is merely attracted to the same sex. A child molester has an unhealthy attraction to underage children. Again, the two are not mutually exclusive.”
We can clean this up a little to make it more accurate. Your first sentence is correct. Your second, “A child molester has an unhealthy attraction to underage children…” understates the problem, as a child molester does not just have an unhealthy attraction to underage children he has a SEXUAL attraction to underage children—-and acts upon it. Someone who has sexual urges based upon sexual attraction to children but who does not act upon them has a problem, but he is not a child molester.
So go back, if you are interested, into the history of sexual predation by priests. If you do, you will seldom if ever find “pedophilia” but you will for the most part find that range of abuses I mentioned, from seduction to overt assault, upon post-pubescent boys. And I argue that this was made possible by the liberalization of the Church as it lurched to the Left, with one result of making the priesthood not only more attractive but more accessible to predatory homosexuals.