We support Israel–and I should have said so sooner. Sometimes trying not to make waves only makes bigger ones.
I feel like some ninny in 1775 who didn’t hear Paul Revere because he was fatzing around with his stamp collection.
Today the world is in the midst of its worst wave of antisemitism since World War II. Hamas terrorists broke out of Gaza on Oct. 7 and started slaughtering Israeli civilians. Their blood-lust moved them to assassinate babies. Every atrocity you can imagine, they committed. And now the whole Woke world is screaming at Israel for not just putting up with it! For not consenting to be exterminated.
I was not covering that story. My reasons for not doing so seem indefensible now. A) It was breaking news and would have to be updated every day or even every few hours; and B) every news agency was already covering it, so who would need me for that? And then C) I didn’t want to make waves among my readers.
Everything that has gone wrong here is my fault.
I’m not here to play woulda-shoulda-coulda. The business at hand is to try to undo the damage. I hate to delete posts, but I think there are a few, over the past two or three days, that I probably ought to get rid of. I seek the readers’ advice here.
I have prayed over this, racked my brain, and sought advice from a wiser and more experienced source, who generously gave it.
The theological question is, does everyone who does not accept Jesus Christ as Savior get pitched into Hell for all eternity? My source, who is a theologian (name withheld because I don’t want him drawn into this mess I’ve made), says this has been a controversy within the Church for centuries. Which is to say, no one has the answer nailed down–and yes, I mean persons who have assiduously studied Paul’s epistle to the Romans and still come up with widely varying ideas of what it means.
My source says the point of the epistle is the opening up of God’s promise to all mankind, not just the Jews. God is not “done” with anybody! The Christian sense is “not by race, but by grace”–God’s sovereign grace, by which he restores life to a valley of dry bones. Dependent on that grace, and certainly not able to save ourselves by our own works, we are all in the same boat, Jew and Gentile alike.
Anyhow, now I have damaged what I had hoped would grow into a kind of house church in cyberspace–aka my blog. I delayed when I should have spoken out–I sought the path of least resistance and went stumbling into a hornets’ nest. Some of you have been deeply offended by certain reader comments that I allowed to be displayed. Some of you have been hurt. My lack of judgment, and my lack of leadership, caused that.
I am sorry. I hope I’ve learned a lesson here. Sometimes there is no easy way. Church controversies that have been going round and round since Paul’s day are not likely to be settled by any of us here. And making self-righteous pronouncements and letting the chips fall where they may… just might set off an avalanche.
There is no excuse for heartlessness. As God is merciful to us, so should we be to each other.
Meanwhile the Jewish people are fighting for survival; they need and deserve our support. Their enemies are implacable, merciless, and not to be appeased.
May God smite them.