Thursday, November 11, 2004

The Struggle

I just read today's morning prayer in Magnificat magazine, which is a monthly publication serving as a daily missal for Catholic lay people. This morning we have Ephesians 6:12:
Our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens.

A while back, the friend that I mentioned in the previous post, the one who spearheaded the protest in front of City Hall, pointed out something very profound. This friend works in academia, a place where anyone who is conservative is overtly persecuted (and he's taken plenty of knocks). The insight he had is this: Christians know that the real battleground is on a spiritual level, and takes place in each human heart. There are players in this battle that transcend the mere human level. The big players are God, St. Michael the Archangel, and the Communion of Saints, battling Satan and his demons. We know that the battle is already won, and that the Good Guys win. Our job is to cultivate the virtues in ourselves and do the little things that God asks of us in our lives, primarily loving God and neighbor. So for us, there's nothing ultimate about these political battles.

However, for atheistic, secular humanist leftists, these political battles are ultimate. Because there is no spiritual level above the human, the verse from Ephesians gets turned upside down. It becomes:

Our struggle is not with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens, but with flesh and blood.

They perceive injustice and have no hope that the Good Guys win. They have no recourse to prayer. The only solution is violence against flesh and blood. 100 million dead in the 20th century!

Opinion Journal's Best of the Web had this little item yesterday:

Meanwhile, over on BillMaher.com, the eponymous Web site of the HBO talk-show host, a reader called "moulty" has posted a message to the discussion board under the title "Shooting Republicans, ethical? Discuss" (quoting verbatim):

At this point in time, would it be morally defensible to apply a "final solution" to republicans?

Let's face it, when Grover Norquist is doing the media rounds...when his agenda of eliminating all taxes on billionaires and letting the poor pay all taxes and carry the debt burdon, and let them scounge around in the garbage for food...builds character.....when THIS type of criminal extreme right wing "thought" is entering the mainstream...it's time for extreme action.

GW Bush and the American right wing Taliban are endangering the entire planet. If the rest of the world had a say, Bush and Cheney would be in jail.

Is it now morally excusable to organize midnight raids on republican groups in the red states and "terminate" them with extreme prejudice?

Watching Bush's acceptance speech on wednesday, with the Cheney's on stage as well....who would not have liked to see a bomb go off under the stage and wipe out the whole despicable slimy lot of them? And hopefully the shrapnel would have gone to the second deck and blown Mary Matalin's head off as well.

Be honest. Who would not like to see Karen Hughes run over by an 18 wheel truck? Who wouldn't like to see her carcass scattered all over highway 99?

Good thing liberals are so tolerant, open-minded and inclusive, or there's no telling what they might say or do.

The verse after Ephesians 6:12 says:

Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, hold your ground.

Part of the armor of God is praying for your enemies. Folks who think like our lefty friend quoted above need our prayers!

1 comment:

Pastorius said...

Good Post. I will try to keep that in mind. That actually might be the door to my being able to have compassion for the Bush = Hitler crowd.