Jesus commands us to love our enemies. Our fallen nature is repulsed by such an idea. Fear not, St Columba Uniting Church in Australia has come up with something much easier: love someone else’s enemies.
St Columba Uniting Church is flying an ISIS flag with a quote from Matthew 5:44 on it:
It’s very easy for comfortable Western Christians to parade their piety by expressing forgiveness for a remote enemy that has done them no direct harm. It is a little harder for the parents in Iraq or Syria whose children have been murdered. The clergy who erected the flag have not suffered at the hands of ISIS; they have nothing to lose by forgiving ISIS. Moreover, by sycophantically sucking up to non-Christian religions, the denomination could win the coveted Order of the Politically Correct award.
St Columba ‘s exhortation might have been marginally more convincing had it been placed on the corporate logo of an organisation that the church probably does genuinely hate: a carbon spewing oil company, for example.
I wonder if they would have got away something similar involving a swastika during World War 2?
It is certainly in poor taste – but it says nothing about expressing forgiveness to ISIS. It only reminds us that we should pray for them, as we should. We should pray for our persceuted sisters and brothers in the Middle East, and we should pray that the Lord turns the hearts of the people of ISIS back to Him. I think you have made a straw man here, David.
Hi Kate.
I confess I have deep problems forgiving those who are enemies of God -as ISIS is proud to proclaim.
As a pretty unsophisticated believer, it seems to me that we either shun them, or smite them.
We are under no obligation to forgive those who do not seek forgiveness; “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” refers to how we forgive our debtors when they come to us cf Mt 18:23ff. There is also no contradiction in praying for ISIS’ salvation and just earthly punishment for their atrocities.
‘Church Flies ISIS Flag’:
The Politically Correct security system against knives, hatchets and meat-cleavers:
as wielded on a regular basis in Christian houses of worship by the “extremist” branch of the “peaceful religion”;
most currently, today in a Synagogue in Jerusalem, murdering four Rabbis among them!
Do you hear the outrage of the “moderate Muslims” or the radically chic “parlor Palestinians?” Perhaps I’m losing my hearing…
Only the crepitation of candy wrappers amid loud laughing huzzahs of approval.
No moral equivalence: even, or especially, because the POTUS, joined at the hip to the National Cathedral, says so. None.
…or perhaps it’s the sound of the mehter band playing “Hail to the Imam-in-Chief…”