We killed Osama Bin Laden. By we, I mean Americans. $27 million dollars in reward money are set to be collected. . . unless our Seal team has something in their contract that would prevent it.
Best argument against taking Bin Laden alive: How many Americans would have been snatched around the world and beheadings begun, demanding his release?
Most disturbing image for me personally: Americans turning out into the streets to cheer, very much like our Arab brothers and sisters in the Middle East when something blows up over here.
Did we actually change things? Yes. Osama Bin Laden was the boogeyman, the defiant one against the military might and intelligence capabilities of the most powerful nation in the world. His was the face that frightened us at night.
How much did the Pakistanis know? Well, he needed dialysis a number of times a week. Was that available at the villa or did he travel to a clinic?
Why'd we bury him so quickly, and at sea? Was it to perpetrate a fraud? I don't believe so. No country wanted the body. Apparently it was offered to Saudi Arabia. And we showed the decency of proper respect and the carrying out of Islamic religious requirements, even if he didn't.
So what next? How should the church react? How should Christians react?
Sunday, I am preaching on Isaiah 2, beating our swords into plowshares. Thus is the Kingdom of God where peoples do not rise up against peoples. It is the dream that we, as people of Jesus Christ, are seeking to build. Our prayer should be always that although we equip our young men and women to fight and kill in the military, that they never have to be called upon to do so.
And when they must, we must in turn support them, but also repent that we have had to break God's command "Thou shalt not kill", even though justified, even though necessary, even though it is the best thing in these circumstances, and pray for the day when the Kingdom comes and we see God's will done as laid out in the first verses of Isaiah 2.
We needed to kill Osama Bin Laden. We have to repent and ask forgiveness for what we needed to do, praying that we will not need to again.
1 comment:
I have thought about this also. Like you, I was disturbed by the gloating, glee, etc. by some on the announcement of OBL's killing. I did a Maundy Thursday sermon on the "new commandment" - that we must love one another as God has loved us. I said that there are times when we must kill those who we must also love (just war), but that even when we must kill our enemies, we must still love them.
So while I think it is legitimate to celebrate OBL's killing in the sense that a wicked man who plotted the deaths of thousands was stopped and given justice, we must also remember that OBL was a human being - a twisted, perverted human being, but a human being who God loved. And so we must also grieve that we had to kill this man in order to stop him, but also grieve at the tragedy of what this says about OBL's rebellion against God.
Thus I think that the more appropriate response is not glee and celebration, but rather relief, satisfaction, and a whole lot of grief and sadness.
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