Calvin Synod Herald, 2001 (102. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2001-09-01 / 9-10. szám
CALVIN SYNOD HERALD 3 “AMERICA SAW EVIL” - September 11, 2001 New York World Trade Towers Destroyed The World Trade Tower disaster in New York, on September 11th, the plane hijacking in Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon crash at the same time were not isolated events, but all part of a long festering plot by Muslim extremists. They took the lives of over 6,000 human beings, each one a child of the heavenly Father. And now the President has said that easily identifiable culprits behind fixed borders do not exist as before, but from that terrible moment - America is at war! The Old Wars Wars don’t start overnight, but are the final result of building pressures, like quivering faults in the earth’s crust that suddenly break loose as catastrophic earthquakes. It took years of mistreatment and greed by England’s kings before colonials in America not only stood up, but fired the “shot heard round the world.” Soon after Frenchmen stormed the Bastile, and later Hungary erupted in revolution, having smelled the fresh air of freedom. The great oceans permitted the fledgling nation of the United States to develop in maturity, strength and character, but they would not be wide enough at the last. When the central European peoples strained at the bit to cast off the bridle of the Habsburg dynasty, it only took a Serbian’s bullet to launch the continent into World War I. Americans watched from the sidelines in their peaceful isolation. However, the sinking of the Lusitania took so many American lives that the anguish was intolerable, and Europe soon heard, “The Yanks are coming.” When the Japanese war machine crushed Manchuria and swept rapaciously into China, America was too wrapped up in its Great Depression to be concerned. Mussolini launched Italy on the road to empire in Africa, and Hitler overran Austria and Czechoslovakia for “lebensraum” Jiving room), splitting Poland with his pal Stalin. Even when France was crushed and Great Britain very life at stake, America hid behind its oceans. But a sneak attack at Pearl Harbor on a “day of infamy” finally was too much for Uncle Sam, and the nation joined the struggle against world domination by the Axis alliance of terror. Muslims at War Muslim terrorists have carried on a long series of attacks around the world, with increasing venom and vehemence, for decades. They often battle against other moderate Muslims, and in numerous places have taken over governments, such as Talibans in Afghanistan. Wherever possible, they introduce Islam’s “sharia” as law, prohibiting the free exercise of any other religion and cruelly oppressive of their own people, notably women and girls as well as the educated. For years, Christians have been the subjects of their attacks, and the tempo has been speeded up with the ready availability of more powerful weapons and ease of communication and travel. Today, literally tens of thousands of Christians have been killed or maimed, forced to become Muslims, or flee their homeland. It is not only Afghanistan but also Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nigeria, Sudan, and perhaps sixty others,. Pastors are killed, churches and schools are vandalized or burned, women are assaulted, children enslaved and men’s arms hacked off, with bloody cruelty. America’s oceans were not wide enough this time! Fanatical Muslims bent on suicide in the “jihad” (holy war) have done the unthinkable and unimaginable in another maniacal act of infamy, marking even civilians as their enemy. Although the seeds were sown long ago, visible to all that it was coming, these acts of terror have overcome the people’s reluctance, and today America is at war! The New War Victory in the “new war” calls for a new kind of strategy, and wars are not won without well-planned battles. Many people, thinking in old ways, want to drop bombs indiscriminately on Afghanistan, killing the innocent with the fiend. Still, head and heart moved by the Holy Spirit says that is intolerable. In fact, President Bush ordered the shipment of food to the impoverished and the refugees in Afghanistan to feed the hungry - and called them our friends. Now that’s really different! A useful clue and insight comes from the fall of the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain. No one expected it! No armies forcing the crossing gates, no preliminary artillery barrages, no machine guns, tanks, dive bombers. Suddenly, with hardly any lives lost, the barriers were gone! Athletes and businessmen, reporters and party leaders, all saw for themselves a better way in the free lands. Behind the Iron Curtain the Holy Spirit was at work in individuals, and freedom could no longer be denied. The unthinkable happened! Onward Christian Soldiers For centuries Christians sent out their missionaries to virtually the ends of the earth, and the church of Jesus Christ is found almost everywhere. Who could not but share such a glorious liberating Gospel? Was it not the Master’s command? They not only opened mission churches, but with schools and clinics raised the standards of living, the human dignity and the personal aspirations of God’s children, young and old. In the last century the churches have largely backed off, hiding behind the great institutions and cultures we have built, or engaged in fighting with each other. We have allowed barbarism to continue, as long as it was in other lands and societies, and it was “not in my back yard.” But, as Bishop
