Should we rejoice that bin Laden is dead?
Huffpost: ‘Do Not Rejoice When Your Enemies Fall’ Herald Sun Osama bin Laden’s death is no time to party But see also… Good Can Triumph Over Evil And Do Your Soul Some Good
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[Aaron Blumer] More of the “personal enemy” vs. “enemy of my people”/”enemy of humanity” confusion. I’m seeing it everywhere…They evidently missed the fact that Bin Laden was living in a million dollar plus mansion for the last six years or so.
http://www.baptiststandard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&i…
It amazes me how many read “love your enemy” and leap to a “be nice to your nation’s enemy” or “be nice to criminals” and feel no obligation at all to explain how they derived their interpretation.
This one even suggests we should be challenged by bin Laden’s example to embrace austere living in dedication to our cause. Amazing. I suppose we should emulate Hitler’s single minded sense of mission?
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/mayweb-only/osama-donotgloat.h… Christianity Today
[Aaron Blumer]… This one even suggests we should be challenged by bin Laden’s example to embrace austere living in dedication to our cause. Amazing. I suppose we should emulate Hitler’s single minded sense of mission?
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/mayweb-only/osama-donotgloat.h… Christianity Today
When Scripture offers us examples of good character, ambition and single-minded dedication, we are given things like ants, spiders, and bees. NOT Mormons or famous athletes or Hollywood actors. Or for-cryin-in-a-bucket terrorists. http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys.php] http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-sick007.gif
In other words, I’d rather be a bug than look at OBL as a role model!
And let’s not forget the manly way he his behind his (youngest) wife for protection.
Actually, it seems like http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/the-slippery-story-… those first reports might not be right after all…
Either way, I’m still relieved that we found him and took him out.
[The Atlantic]
By end of day, that narrative — much like the narrative of Jessica Lynch’s heroism in 2003 — was being picked apart. Reported Politico:
“A different guy’s wife was killed,” a different official familiar with the briefing for TV reporters said Monday night. Bin Laden’s wife was “injured but not killed,” the official said.Whether bin Laden was armed when he was shot also was initially unclear:
Another official familiar with the operation said it did not appear that any woman was used as a human shield, but that the woman killed and the one injured were hurt in the crossfire. The official said he believed Brennan had mixed up the episode involving bin Laden’s wife with another encounter elsewhere in the compound.
“Two women were shot here. It sounds like their fates were mixed up,” said the U.S. official. “This is hours old and the full facts are still being ascertained as those involved are debriefed.”
…during a background, off-camera briefing for television reporters later Monday, a senior White House official said bin Laden was not armed when he was killed, apparently by the U.S. raid team.
Another White House official familiar with the TV briefing confirmed the change to POLITICO, adding, “I’m not aware of him having a weapon.”
Either way, I’m still relieved that we found him and took him out.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
I can’t bring myself to rejoice that anybody’s in Hell, even him (though I do rejoice that God’s righteousness is revealed through His holy wrath).
But the case some are making against rejoicing relies heavily on moral equivalence premises… that is, variations of “We are no better than he, therefore… “
But that sort of reasoning is way off. None of us would do anything like what he did and the US as a nation is not doing the same thing when it rejoices in ObL’s death that Muslims in various places did when they rejoiced after the Towers fell. The acts are not morally equivalent.
Another example of moral equivalence fog…
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=143…
But the case some are making against rejoicing relies heavily on moral equivalence premises… that is, variations of “We are no better than he, therefore… “
But that sort of reasoning is way off. None of us would do anything like what he did and the US as a nation is not doing the same thing when it rejoices in ObL’s death that Muslims in various places did when they rejoiced after the Towers fell. The acts are not morally equivalent.
Another example of moral equivalence fog…
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=143…
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Sure, there aren’t exact parallels — the U.S. isn’t a NT version of Israel — but these songs sure sound pretty close to “rejoicing” over the death of the enemy:
Judges 5 — Song of Deborah & Barak.
And get a load of this stanza:
24 “Most blessed of women be Jael,
the wife of Heber the Kenite,
of tent-dwelling women most blessed.
25 He asked water and she gave him milk;
she brought him curds in a noble’s bowl.
26 She sent her hand to the tent peg
and her right hand to the workmen’s mallet;
she struck Sisera;
she crushed his head;
she shattered and pierced his temple.
27 Between her feet
he sank, he fell, he lay still;
between her feet
he sank, he fell;
where he sank,
there he fell—dead.
28 “Out of the window she peered,
the mother of Sisera wailed through the lattice:
‘Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why tarry the hoofbeats of his chariots?’
29 Her wisest princesses answer,
indeed, she answers herself,
30 ‘Have they not found and divided the spoil?—
A womb or two for every man;
spoil of dyed materials for Sisera,
spoil of dyed materials embroidered,
two pieces of dyed work embroidered for the neck as spoil?’
31 “So may all your enemies perish, O Lord!
But your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might.”
Exodus 15:1-19 — The Song of Moses
And the song concludes with this report:
20 And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. 21 And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
Judges 5 — Song of Deborah & Barak.
And get a load of this stanza:
24 “Most blessed of women be Jael,
the wife of Heber the Kenite,
of tent-dwelling women most blessed.
25 He asked water and she gave him milk;
she brought him curds in a noble’s bowl.
26 She sent her hand to the tent peg
and her right hand to the workmen’s mallet;
she struck Sisera;
she crushed his head;
she shattered and pierced his temple.
27 Between her feet
he sank, he fell, he lay still;
between her feet
he sank, he fell;
where he sank,
there he fell—dead.
28 “Out of the window she peered,
the mother of Sisera wailed through the lattice:
‘Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why tarry the hoofbeats of his chariots?’
29 Her wisest princesses answer,
indeed, she answers herself,
30 ‘Have they not found and divided the spoil?—
A womb or two for every man;
spoil of dyed materials for Sisera,
spoil of dyed materials embroidered,
two pieces of dyed work embroidered for the neck as spoil?’
31 “So may all your enemies perish, O Lord!
But your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might.”
Exodus 15:1-19 — The Song of Moses
And the song concludes with this report:
20 And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. 21 And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.
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