Far-right terrorism comes to New Zealand

A perfectly just, omniscient and sovereign God commanded the children of Israel to utterly destroy certain peoples 3000 or more years ago, knowing that to not do so would lead the Israelites to spiritual whoredom. That spiritual descent did occur centuries later, bring God's judgment of the Babylonian captivity and destruction of Jerusalem. Nowhere does the plain sense of Old Testament history indicate that we should do the same today.

Christ's condemnation of the Jewish leaders 2000 years ago, especially in the seven woes of Matt. 23, were due to those leaders' having been hypocritical and thoroughly corrupt, doing the devil's work while purporting to do God's. He never intimated that believers should commit violence against such corrupters, though we should be ready to rebuke their actions.

The fact that misguided professing Christians have misused these passages to sinfully engage in horrible acts does not amount to God's endorsement of such behavior. Does God's allowing the son of plural-wife Bathsheba to be in the line leading to Jesus' incarnation mean that God endorses plural marriage? The fact of the Bible's honesty in recounting such sinful practice shows only that a gracious God can use us even though we sin, but certainly not an endorsement of that sin.

I'll admit to never having read the Quran, but have read quotes of certain verses that command that infidels be killed. I've never seen these verses refuted by Muslims, though often the response is to quote verses commanding kindness to (presumably unbelieving) strangers - verses totally in contradiction to those others. God can use us even though we sin; Allah seems to be commanding today's Islam to commit sin.

IMO, conflating Old Testament history, and our perfect Savior's rebuke of hypocritical leaders, with the standing commands of violence in the Quran is very sad. And very wrong.

 

Not sure. But pretty soon it will be about rich Democrats wanting cheap labor.

 

No, we deal with those born in a particular country through the justice system. The problem with immigrants who commit these crimes is they need not have been allowed into the country.

We have this same problem with those who have come into America illegally and the Democrats do not want to do what needs to be done to keep them out. Our prisons are full of these illegals and the crimes they committed should not have happened as they should not be here, the people who suffer are the innocent American born citizens who are assaulted, raped, and murdered by them on a daily basis.

 

You have problems within the GOP also. The US Chamber of Commerce, the Businessman's Roundtable, and the National Association of Manufacturers all want cheap labor for business and they don't care if the labor is legal or not. Nor do certain members of the GOP care what happens to unemployed, homeless American workers. They know that very soon the illegals will realize that no one can live on the low wages that the GOP wants to pay but if the rich can seize control of the state then they can see that there will be no redress of grievances.

 

Yep

 

What are you talking about now?

Petition Seeks Legal Protection For Street Preachers

 

1. As recorded in the OT, God commanded genocide at particular times and places, and He cannot sin. I see nothing in scripture even close to commanding such practices today, so our doing so would be sinful. However, based on Quran quotes I've seen, that book does command genocide for today.
2. The Bible is the most powerful book in the world, and as with anything powerful, it can be used for good or for evil. As such, there are many verses that could be misconstrued, whether thru poor understanding or with malice aforethought. So the simplistic answer is "yes." The Quran's verse(s) about killing the infidel is/are prescriptive; though many/most in Islam would never act on those verses, they clearly direct a practice for the current time. The accounts of the God's OT commands to Israel are descriptive only, neither commands nor suggestions that such actions are for today.
Unfortunately, humankind is sin-corrupted. For that reason I keep in mind 1 Cor. 10:12: "Wherefore, let him who thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." This verse tells me that I'm fully capable of the kind of misunderstanding that would use scripture for evil purposes. To deny that would be presumption, and would open the door to the devil.