resisting genocide

  

Resisting Genocide

©2016 dr wills

The above image appears in connection with a very important article published  by The Clarion Project, titled, "Christian Self-Defense Forces Emerge in Iraq & Syria" (link).  

Ordinarily, I try to avoid dealing with subjects of this nature; but not because that I am unconcerned or that I believe it is taboo for Christians to engage in such discussions.  On the contrary, I believe the question of every person's, as well as of every community's, safety and security, is of the utmost importance.  But a clear indication of America's own perilous moral (and political) condition, is the fact, that even private speech now appears to be scrupulously monitored for any reference to opinions or even to words which may be deemed objectionable by those who are empowered and tasked to be "thought police" for the existing authoritarian system in America.

As recently as a decade ago, probably most Americans (still) believed that American government and society, on the whole, was distinctively "moral"~at least, when compared with most other nations in the world.  America's "fall from grace" has occurred so precipitously over the past generation or so (since the mid- to late-1960s), that only now many who are old enough to have personally experienced what American society was like previous to that time, are "waking up" to the reality of what America has become.  Human psychology is such that most people are willing to live, for a while at least, in denial, rather than to acknowledge tragic or threatening circumstances for what those are in fact.  Marital relationships, for example, almost never come to the point of divorce, overnight.  Typically, one of the partners~who does not want divorce~will cling to the hope of reconciliation, notwithstanding numerous clues (or even evidences) to the contrary.  Love is not really "blind," as that is sometimes claimed; but love does "cover the multitude of sins," as the Scripture says.  Yet, there comes a point at which even die-hard Hopefuls must turn their back and walk away from the intransigent Covenant-breaker(s).

Accordingly, many Americans~who have long clung to hope for America, not wanting to believe the multifarious "clues" (not to mention a host of in-your-face evidences) which suggest that American government and society may not actually still be what it once was~those Americans (most of whom are aged 50 or older) are finally facing up to the reality.  America in 2016 is not only radically different from what America was prior to 1965.  But America in 2016, in many significant ways, is substantially opposed to the very ideals and principles upon which this nation once stood as a beacon of hope amongst the nations.

Only those who are willfully ignorant may suppose that "America-2016" stands for ideals such as the following:

• personal liberty, including freedom of speech and of religion;
• personal, moral responsibility;
• limited government (including accountability on the part of all government agents);
• reverence for human life;
• respect for "the laws of nature and of nature's God" (also called the "Common Law");
• traditional marriage (and family);

I could easily add to the above list numerous similarly important ideals and precepts, all of which are indispensable to civil society~but which are no longer embraced by a majority of Americans themselves.  I object to the notion that America's leaders are the main cause of America's problems; those leaders are not so much the cause of America's troubles, as they are rather the result of America's judgment, and that from God.

Growing threat to Christians in America
Persecution appears as a spectrum of oppressive and repressive attitudes, speech and/or conduct, on the part of some individual or group towards another individual or group.  Persecution thus comes in many forms, the most extreme of which is torture and murder.  In America, throughout the past forty years or so, persecution of Christians has steadily increased until that, today, it is practically 'open season' for those who would demonstrate their contempt of Christians.  It is painfully obvious to reasonable observers, that every level of civil government in America~from local school boards, to the pinnacle of federal government, is now staffed with many whose own beliefs and/or opinions are inimical not only to Christianity but to Christian persons.  Examples are far too numerous, and too readily found, to warrant any such effort, herein, to illustrate the severity and the kinds of persecution which many Christians suffer, in contemporary America.

In order as important social institutions were secularized~especially, those most directly involved in guiding human development and influencing modes of thought (namely, the Christian churches! and the public schools), there occurred throughout the past generation a corresponding sea-change in the culture of American society.  Lately, that now thoroughly secularized culture appears to have reached a tipping-point, whereat many non-Christians are emboldened to give public expression to their godless beliefs, desires and attitudes.  That culture is intimidating, to say the least, to most professing Christians; which, intimidation, serves to repress countercultural expressions of Christianity.  The gross absence of Christian teaching and testimony, in turn, gives way to the self-radicalization of an already secular culture.  Secular humanism is now America's predominate religion.

Francis A. Schaeffer, one of the seminal Christian thinkers and scholars of the twentieth-century, in his "A Christian Manifesto," wrote:

"The humanists push for 'freedom,' but having no Christian consensus to contain it, that 'freedom' leads to chaos or to slavery under the state (or under an elite).  Humanism, with its lack of any final base for values or law, always leads to chaos.... Having produced the sickness, humanism gives more of the same kind of medicine for a cure.  With its mistaken concept of final reality, it has no intrinsic reason to be interested in the individual, the human being." (Francis A. Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto. Crossway Books, Westchester, Ill. 1982. pp 29-30)

Importantly, once that any system has crossed the threshold of the "tipping point," not only the rate of change, beyond that point, is markedly accelerated; moreover, circumstances thereafter tend to accelerate in the same direction as suggested by those circumstances which precipitated the crisis.  Persecution of Christians years ago reached the point at which one's vocation might be jeopardized by reason of one's Christian identity.  God only knows how quickly we may come to more extreme forms of persecution of Christians in America, now that a tipping-point has been breeched.

Some will then ask: What, or when, was that tipping-point?  I believe a compelling argument can be made (though I will not expound upon that, here) that the re-election of President Obama signaled the tipping point of American secular culture.  The old adage, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me," heaps mounds of shame upon the American populace which has not withstood against numerous overt attempts on the part of the current U.S. administration, to undermine Christian culture not only in America but throughout the entire world.  The policies and practices of the current U.S. administration~which welcomes a fabulously disproportionate number of Muslim immigrants, compared to a tiny number of Christian refugees, is prima facie evidence of the anti-Christian bias not merely of this administration but, indeed, of American society generally.

The extraordinary influx of immigrants to America is seeding towns and cities across this nation with multitudes, many of whose political and religious objectives are explicitly aimed at subverting and destroying American Christian society.  Does anyone really believe there are not very substantial risks imposed by this administration's actions related to immigration?

Relevant experiences of certain Christian societies, in history
In my studies of Church history, I have seen a pattern which repeatedly emerged throughout the centuries since Christ.  The Waldenses, or the Vaudois, for example, who were persecuted almost to the point of extinction, survived only because they rose up, from time to time (albeit reluctantly), to protect themselves by armed defense, against relentless persecution.  Today (as reported in the linked article, at the head of this essay), that pattern evidently is being repeated, again, by certain Christians in Iraq and in Syria.  It were superfluous to explain their reasons for wanting to defend themselves, given the atrocities which multitudes of Christians have lately suffered in that part of the world. 

Yet there is a tragic aspect associated with that pattern just described.  Because that Christian communities are by their nature as well as by their creed averse to violence of any kind, especially, to mortal conflict: thus, it has typically been the case that such communities needlessly endured a great deal of persecution before they finally did rise up to forcibly defend themselves.  Many such communities, in fact, never did make any substantial attempt at self-defense, and they perished as the result.  But what is it about any so-called Christian creed, which fosters extraordinary passivity amongst professing Christians?  Is pacifism actually a Biblical doctrine?

The teachings of Christ and of Scripture
I cannot possibly present in this limited context a systematic theology related to self-defense.  Nevertheless, I will confidently assert~based upon my more than four decades of devout Bible study, that pacifism is not a Biblical doctrine.  The risk of persecution, for Christians in America, is therefore compounded by reason of the aforementioned secularization of so many Christian churches in America.  By "secularization" I mean just that; which is to say, that the Bible foretold that the Second Coming of Christ would be preceded by widespread apostasy from the teachings of Scripture, and that by many professing Christians.  That Apostasy, which began more than a century ago, is now pervasive amongst all so-called Western societies.

Pacifism is not the doctrine of Christ: who is called, in Scripture, "the captain of the LORD's host" (Joshua 5:14-15); and, who said, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay" (Romans 12:19).  But pacifism is the doctrine of that spirit of antichrist (1 John 2:18), which seeks by all means (especially, by lying deception) to destroy every vestige of Christ from the earth.  And how better to do that, than to deceive good men and women to believe it is God's will for them to submit without resistance to wholesale slaughter, of themselves and of their children?

In the New Testament, the Greek word ajre÷th (pronounced ar-et´-ay), translated "virtue" (2 Peter 1:5; et al), properly means manliness or valor; it is the opposite of "effeminate," which is strongly condemned in Scripture (1 Corinthians 6:9).  Likewise courage is not only praised but it is commanded (Joshua 1:7; Psalm 31:24; et al); whereas, cowardice is condemned (Revelation 21:8).  Finally, Christ, on the very night of his impending trial and subsequent crucifixion, instructed his own disciples, thus:

"When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing.  Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." (Luke 22:35-36)

The Bible declares it is a God-given duty of civil rulers (government) to serve as "a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil" (Romans 13:3,4).  Those who persecute innocent persons, "do evil".  Does anyone suppose that God~who is willing to exact revenge upon evil doers, nevertheless, is unwilling that innocent persons should be protected against (would-be) evil doers?  What can Christians then be expected to do, in the event that their own government refuses to protect them against persecution? or, in the case that their own government may even be complicit in such evil deeds?  Is God not willing for Christians to resist genocidal attacks against themselves, whensoever civil government may shirk its God-given mandate to protect the people?

The Christian Babylon Brigade in Iraq
I will conclude by including an excerpt from The Clarion Project's published article, above mentioned:

"The Christians of Iraq and Syria have had a breathtaking commitment to passivity since being victimized by what we all now finally agree qualifies as a genocide. 

"Now, the Christians are increasingly organizing to defend themselves—and the West should stand by them instead of outsourcing our moral responsibility to the Iraqis and their Iranian partners and various groups with questionable track records. 

"A poll in December 2014 found that only one-third of Iraqis say they are concerned about the persecution of Christians in their country. About 67 percent said they are not concerned at all or only 'somewhat' concerned."  (emphasis added)

Strange.  The percentage (1/3) of all Iraqis, who "say they are concerned about the persecution of Christians in their country," is probably higher, I believe, than what a similar poll would reveal about the percentage of all Americans, who care about the persecution of Christians in America~or anywhere else in the world.