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CHAPTER 6
TERRORISM AND TRUTH
News 357
TIMES ON LINE, September 14, 2005,
ABC News Radio September 15, 2005
The MILLENIAL COMMISSION -
UN Type
The UN Millenial Commission meeting in New York in
September 2005 has received a very due rebuke from George Bush in terms of
removal of corruption, restoration of proper action and deed to relate to the
objectives of dealing with such things as world poverty, helping secure human
rights and human dignity, providing hope of liberty. Citing the actual make-up of
the Human Rights Commission of this non-august body, the President indicated
that this was a particularly unhappy example of UN hypocrisy. Its members
include countries such as Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe. "When this great
institution's member states choose notorious abusers of human rights to sit on
the UN Human Rights Commission, they discredit a noble effort and undermine the
credibility of the whole organisation."
"If," he proceeded, "member countries want the United
Nations to be respected and effective, they should begin by making sure it
is worthy for respect."
However they have not, according to a ABC News Radio BBC
report, September 15, 2005, even been able to agree on a definition of
terrorism. The UK's Blair has indicated that there must be a movement
internationally to find the basis of it all and to deal with it. With the work
of Britain's Blunkett on record, in which he slandered extreme evangelicals in
that land in terms adjacent to those for terrorism, it is apparent that the
misuse of the concept of "extremism" and "fanaticism" is not merely an abstract
possibility, but a current danger. This was outlined in News
323. Mr Blunkett in his official role as Home
Secretary in 2004, was reported as making the following pronouncement.
"We need to be able to take on
these extremists and say, I'm afraid our society, pluralism and openness, the
ability to accept differences without being subsumed, is crucial to our
survival, it's what distinguishes all of us, from every faith, from those who
would take our lives because they reject our faith, and it applies equally
from far right evangelical Christians, to extremists in the Islamic faith."
(Reported July 2004 and taken from
Ecumenical Insanity,
under the heading "Defining the Culture Wars". )
Since an "evangelical", if the term
is to retain any vestige of its essential meaning, is someone who stresses the
significance of the evangel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ as set forth in the
Bible, and that Gospel stresses the necessity of NOT engaging in any form of
violence in order to protect Christians from the evil attentions of the State
apparatus, as shown in John 18:36 with Matthew 26:52-54, and moreover, the
imaginary spectacle of people with biblical portfolios and faith setting about the destruction of
law and order by violence would be even for this hypocritical world, a
fascinating innovation, the British official's words were clearly an intimidatory assault on people
who DARED, like DANIEL, to be DIFFERENT.
Christians always HAVE been
different, and for that reason, were the frequent recipients of the honour of
being set before lions in stadia, for the better pleasure of onlookers, as they
fought and were torn to pieces by the wrathful beasts in the arena, as vicarious
participants on the one hand, and the lions on the other. The Roman Empire of
course fell. It deserved it, and was humiliated justly. They were different too
when the Romanist body, wrongly called the Roman Catholic Church (how CAN you be
'catholic' when ordered from the non-catholic and highly particular centre of
'Rome'! - in fact Protestants who hold to the Bible alone have the privilege of
being catholic, since they do not centre themselves in location, but in the
Christ who is beyond all pride, race, pomp, and teacher, and alone is to be
called Master - Matthew 23:8-10) ... when this body, of such ecclesiastical
pretension, attended to them.
In what way did it do this ? For
data, consult Inquisition, in
Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Ch. 14. It was in the painful centuries of
rampant hypocrisy, fitting too well with that of the current UN, that this page
of evil was written by the Romanist body, which instead of being 'crucified with
Christ' like Paul (Galatians 2:20), tortured and stole funds from countless
thousands of Christians, leaving children destitute and sacking the riches of
their parents. It was in this evil, never to be forgotten any more than the
Jewish holocaust of the 20th century, that were to be found some of the
enormities of history: for a sort of pre-Hitler attack not only on Judaism in the
form of harassed and tormented Jews, but on Christianity in the form of orthodox
biblical Christians, was launched.
THE PERENNIAL OMISSION - WORLD
SPECIES
If you ignore history, you may
indeed repeat it; and the fact that some, in private or public, unduly dwell on
the evils, and need to be more constructive, does not obliterate the parallel
fact that many fail to heed the warning signals of the past, by forgetting its
enormities, and so become vulnerable to their repetition. No lover of the human
race could possibly consent to forget such things, until Christ come and rule is
guaranteed to be godly (cf. I Thessalonians 3:13, Acts 1:7ff.). To do so is to
invite that mind-set which in vast hypocrisy, tormented what was a light, while in
darkness, it claimed for itself as it gobbled up its victims and much of their
wealth, the very name of 'light'!
How readily this world agrees when mighty power evacuates all wisdom and
restraint, assailing godliness in this or that age or format, through tyrants,
whether in black robes or with swastikas, whether black or white, whether in
Zimbabwe or in Rhodesia, depending on the time of day ... It is time to face
such issues, not ostrich-like, in a sort of avine-bestial combination with the
asinine, to obscure vision by its solemn burial in the grit of the sand. It is
not enough for some Pope to say 'sorry' for 'Christians' who 'in pursuit of the
truth', did such things.
The
biblical truth is that such action is a malignant assault on the work of Jesus
Christ and His directives! It is a cardinal rebellion in blood, torture and
recrimination against His orders, as near to 'truth' and Christianity, which
declares that Christ IS the truth, as would be an operating table equipped with
slaughter yard remnants. It is contrary with a vast contrariety in spirit, word
and deed.
In
fact, the whole point of this multiple murder involving massive numbers and
resembling in its multi- pronged attack over time, the work of bin Laden,
is nothing less, the pith of this horrendous miscreancy against brotherly love
is nothing other, than anti-Christian in its pomp, claims and actions.
There is no vestige of Christianity or faith or thus truth, in that which
abhors what Christ taught, and does so in the interests of a papal domination
and self-exaltation forbidden to the faith, while murdering masses and stealing
untold wealth, frequently leaving orphaned or derelict children destitute!
Such statements therefore about things done by Christians in pursuit of the
truth, have small or no reference to the thing done. If CHRIST does not define
Christianity, what is the point of using the name at all, and why not start a
religion with inquisitions, along with the Communists, or onslaught with the
militant Moslem militias, and be done with it!*1A
When you steal, it is also normal to
seek to restore the matrix of your theft; and if you make a welter of
stealing for decades, there is little
point in talking of your Christian aims in doing so, or your pursuit of the
truth, in such masquerades! That is virtually
hypocrisy incarnate. Such 'sorrow', then, does not cover the issue or the point
at all. There has been all but incredible presumption, voiding the fulness of
Christ with the emptiness of theft both of life and of wealth*1B.
We have seen enough to watch closely the Blunkett type of junket, now in danger of extension into the UN, and being
given more talk which could lead to similar developments elsewhere, and to
ponder ideological words that could rapidly drew into the same realm, from the Prime
Minister of the same government which HAD Blunkett in power in its very midst.
Thus the UN's reported inability to
define TERRORISM is not surprising. If you define this terrorism as what is seeking by physical
violence to intimidate and overthrow those who differ from you, at a national or
quasi-national or even world level, then the term might be
deployed to attack someone who is seeking to prevent an invasion! After all, in
such an event, it may be said that
efforts might be made to use physical means to frighten them off! Then the
defenders of their land would anomalously called 'terrorists'!
The point however is
this, as from Christ's lips: Are you trying to IMPOSE an ideology and indeed, a
religion, or some equivalent concept, condition, or way of life, by FORCE. MY
kingdom, said the Lord, is not of this world; otherwise My servant would fight!
After all, in this world's ways, people might well fight to protect their King!
There might be still ,pre trouble in
using that definition of terrorism as the measuring concept. What if you are
trying with the use of UN forces, for example, to stop Zimbabwe becoming the
21st century version of racism in reverse ? Would that not meet the definition,
so that this could not be done without the label of 'terrorist', when in fact
the effort is to remove the thing ?
Now in the matter of Christ, it is
simple because pure. You do not use violence to deal with violence at the
intimidatory or deadly level, for His sake. His kingdom is not of this world
(John 18:36). If then you do, that is wrong. But here the question for this
world's rulers is broader. They WANT to be able to use force to deal with what
does not serve their concepts of survival and comfort: so which is terrorism,
and which is not when you try to DISCIPLINE this or that by force, at the
international and ideological level ?
Is it terrorism for Israel to seek
to deter the millions and myriads of Islamic devotees who love to see the blood
of Jews shed, as is often muttered ? Some would say yes, and that Israel should
lie down, in millions, to facilitate their extermination. This, it might
be urged by some, would not be
terrorism, if an international body sought it, since the Arabs are rather
special, and have oil, and kill people very often, who do not give them what
they want, which is yet more land in the Islamic sector, already having nearly
all in the region, than is their present enormity of vast possession.
Alas, this is far from mere
caricature. It is rather filling in the missing propositions so often heard.
This world increasingly rarely,
comes to any concept of justice in matters of its security, prosperity and
convenience. It would, of course, be possible to define terrorism as
any endeavour to invade, subdue and force the lands or minds of people who do not
use physical violence to invade the lands or minds of those who wish so to act
against them:
as any such action which would exploit force to secure gain.
In the case of Israel,
they were initially to be obliterated in the 1948 war, while the world stood
with a hypocritical piety, by the sidelines and awaited the outcome of vast
numbers of people from many nations assailing the survivors of Auschwitz and
their brethren, with expectations of gain, and the overthrow of the conferment
of Palestine on the Jews, following World War I, by taking what was left of it,
and any of it that the UN might have been willing to give to it. Amazingly, on
reflection, it was the Arab people, not the Jewish, who rejected the tiny
fragment offered to Israel, as a plan, with the rest to themselves, much already
being with Jordan! So what is all this about ? They did not want Israel to have
a tiny bit, so they DID want to break all law and remove all that any
international body had ever given.
To retort to this onslaught was NOT
an act of terrorism, if the latter be defined as above. The Jews were not
seeking to subdue the minds or lands of those who sought to exterminate them.
They had been granted ALL of Palestine, and were to receive NONE of it, and even
the UN had granted SOME of it, so that the extermination effort was illegal, was
terrorism indeed. It wanted them OUT, and themselves who pursued it, IN, in the Islamic
submission sense, which after all, is one of the features of various parts of
the Koran*1; and if their motives were not
this alone, they were not divorced from religious zeal and expectation.
It may be apt here, to cite a
section of treatment made earlier on this topic, from Lord of Life
Ch. 3, with some slight adaptation to our present
purpose.
THE DESIRED DEFINITION
IF Hitler, or any nation,
past or present or future, any Party, any 'church' or religious organisation or
society, in fact ANYTHING puts effectual priority for the pursuit of some
principle of his mind or desire of his heart, into the power out of a gun, or
out of money, or out of physical violence, the murder and robbery of Rome
practised on the Jews being merely one example, but a primary one and one
calling forth the specific curse of God (Genesis 12:3, 15:14, 28:4,13ff.,
Numbers 24:9, Genesis 27:29) : there is prostitution of life for other things.
All such things, whether from Communist or Nazi, Arab or oriental, are upside
down.
The top is on the bottom,
the bottom on the top.
It is so in particular,
regarding the persecution of the Jews, in that it is not for man to oppress what
God has disciplined (Jeremiah 50:17-20); and it is so in general, for it is not
for man to rob and murder for his pretensions of power, racial or
ecclesiastical, political or philosophical. THIS kingdom, the kingdom of heaven,
is for the poor in spirit and the pure in heart, for the merciful and for the
meek. Murder and torture is not meek; and expropriation is not poor in spirit.
The judgments of God are not
for man to oppress man. If He turns an event to judgment, it is one thing; if
man turns things to subjugation of the human spirit with murder and robbery, it
is another (SMR pp.
1175ff.).
The vileness
of violence in order to INDUCE man to be what he is not,
a flittery-fluttery
piece of floating rubbish, apt for constraint,
and in order to have him pretend to
‘believe’ what force does not make true,
is almost past all comprehension.
It is
as deep as sin itself, allied to its truly bottomless pit; for it has no
foundation.
Let us
generalise a little further as we look for a definition of terrorism.
IF Hitler,
or any nation, past or present or future, any Party, any 'church' or religious
organisation or society, in fact ANYTHING puts effectual priority for the
pursuit of some principle of his mind or spiritual desire of his heart, into the
power out of a gun, or into the vexatious manipulation of money to the point, or
into the use of physical violence whether directed indiscriminately against
children or other emblems of weakness or more broadly, rather than simply declaring war
because of threat to its security: there is prostitution of life for other
things. All such things, whether from Communist or Nazi, Arab or oriental, are
upside down.
Such things
are terrorism in this, that
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there is an endeavour to use force, irrelevant to
the integrity of the issues concerned,
to suborn, suppress, impress, mutate the
lives, minds, convictions or expressions of those who have a view or manner of
life other than that of the terrorists.
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Force does not create truth, and its
abuse to secure ideas, ideologies
and in addition, land for their exercise, is
to terrorise.
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Moreover, the use of such means
as if they were enlightened
because they are religious,
is to rationalise, not reason.
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The ignoring of such
aims when they are present,
is to improvise deceit, to be devious, not to be irenic.
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On this
definition, it is not terrorism as such, to invade a country to grab their land,
if that is the intent: that is war, a land-grab war, but war.
If it is carried
out with attacks on the weak and the vulnerable, then it is a hideous
land-grab war, perhaps a misanthropic war of guilty passion, but a war
nonetheless.
If however the
land-grab had as an ultimate or even major intention, the desire to FORCE on
them your simply preferred ideology, religion or culture, then it would qualify
as terrorism for THAT reason. In some cases, such is the inveterate hypocrisy
and deceit, it might not be possible to know, except that God would know.
However in most cases one nowadays seems to meet, there is or is not this
terrible, soul-thirsty desire to crush someone else's religion, culture,
ideology BY PHYSICAL force. Its concern is not to let the truth exhibit itself,
but to make the arm of might show itself.
It
has been focussed in the Cold War where Communism sought to take over nations or
parts of its own nation with such a zeal, by the use of force on dissidents
within the take-over target, not hesitating to make mind-bending exercises with
drugs and so on: and this is a major example of terrorism, as was the use of
force to take over whole countries. Indeed, an entire segment of Europe was
involved in that terrorism of yesterday.
Now
many within Islam envisage precisely the same: and the STATED aims of bin-Laden
make of his movement, a prime example of terrorism, a debasement of the human
race by force. The stated desire to have Israel without help, so that another
ideology, morality and religion might enter, that of Islam, makes this an
explicit case as well.
The definition
brings to life the ESSENTIAL feature of seeking to TERRORISE people into
submission to a way of life, a state of mind, a quality of spirit, a disposition
for living wholly contrary to their desire, BY FORCE. If woman and children, as
in the Palestinian case, are also targetted, then this simply makes of it
a gruesomely unprincipled terrorist war:
here against Israel. The media which so often try to make of Israel,
in seeking to defend itself against such final removal of the small residue of
the land internationally promised to it, against extinction, thus appear to
qualify quite clearly as terrorist accessories. Again, those who broadcast
terrorist demands, it is difficult to differentiate from the same
role, for without doubt, they assist them.
Such a
definition of terrorism, as given above, might not impress those of the Moslems who desire to achieve world
rule, or a rule in that direction with more and more submitting to them in their
concepts, ideas and procedures, as is expressly the desire in the bin Laden case
(cf. Lord of Life Ch. 8, *1 ).
This however would not be to criticise the
definition, but those who thus reject it.
If, likewise, it
did not please the UN because of the case that it might want to use money, might
or similar weapons to FORCE nations or peoples or any nation to agree to its
concept of world brotherhood, so that for this reason it rejected such a definition: that too would be to criticise the UN, not the definition, which shows the meaning of integrity
versus force.
In fact, the UN
does use such a concept of world brotherhood, which in the Child Right
Convention Article 9, is considered (see Mystery of
Iniquity). What is in the best interests of the child, we learn, is to be
what is to accomplished in its bringing up, and where this is not done,
intervention to the detriment of parental upbringing may be brought into action.
Let us cite from the work just hyperlinked. By intervention, what is meant is
the removal of the child from the parents.
Now as to those "best interests", we
have from this grand and cheerfully instructive international body, more advice.
The child, and of course, is it not obvious ? ... shall " be brought up
in the spirit of the ideals proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations,
and in particular in the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom,
equality and solidarity."
Solidarity ? With what ? Why, but of
course... with the United Nations, with that one earth, which the forces
which do not care to introduce God, prefer to have instead. Thus we shall
see later, in the Declaration on the Elimination of ... Discrimination
Based on Religion..., there is a necessity that the child be reared in
"universal brotherhood", within the confines of concepts of world peace. Contrary views
to these, we learn, are simply "inadmissible".
The
latter reference is to article 5 of the Declaration on the Elimination ...
noted:
Article 5
of this UN Declaration, in paras 3 and 5, advises us that " the CHILD SHALL
BE PROTECTED FROM ANY FORM OF DISCRIMINATION ON THE GROUND OF RELIGION
OR BELIEF. HE (sic) SHALL BE BROUGHT UP IN A SPIRIT OF... UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD,
RESPECT FOR FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF OF OTHERS, AND IN FULL CONSCIOUSNESS
THAT HIS (sic) ENERGY AND TALENTS SHOULD BE DEVOTED TO THE SERVICE OF HIS
FELLOWMAN."
Thus humanism is to be used to force itself on
religious parents whose concepts are other, and the alienation of the child from
their parental presence may be 'necessary'.
Since on this definition, the State is to act, and the State has force, then
force would be used in a way irrelevant to the integrity of the issues, which
would be as defined, terrorism; and to the child and parent concerned, that is
precisely how it might appear. Ogres in State power come and grab by force the
child and seek to use such alienation and modes of education to inculcate,
mutate and secure an ideological change, while aborting by force the ideological
desires of the parents of the child, for that child!.
The fact that the UN has this anti-christian
concept of universal brotherhood, which it holds as an index (contrast John 3, where to be
born into God's spiritual family is a pre-condition for membership the kingdom
of heaven, and John 8, where some of "are your father, the devil"): this alone,
in its movements into the throne-rooms of States, comes into focus in terrorism
in principle. To the extent that such horrors should be actually carried out
under UN auspices, or in
agreement with its perceptions, preconceived notions and loose and vague talk,
it would be actual terrorism.
We must accustom ourselves to the concept that in
this present world in its aggravated condition of hypocrisy, pretence and
pretension, drawing ever closer to direct war on God, such a thing as terrorism
in the name of humanity becomes quite thinkable; it is unthinkable only if you
value the truth, in which case, however, it is not so much incapable of being
thought, as unsusceptible to light, a denizen of hypocritical darkness, tyrants
posing as deliverers. Then again, is this so novel ? Did not Communism for
decades talk of the Democratic Republic of this or that, and mean that it had
foisted upon it, the workers of a foreign theory, and the rule of an unelected
minority, who by some mystic process hidden from reason, knew what was best!
The vicious virus that would vitiate truth does not
declare itself! What criminal would ?
That
is one reason why defining terrorism has great advantage, and securing an
awareness of its blustering presumption. It is for this reason good to have done
it.
Yes, uncovering its nature, daring to define it:
this would harass considerably the use of
irrelevant force to secure ideological change, as well as to overcome those who
disagree and grab their lands, as in the Jewish case has very often been the
case.
THIS TERRESTRIAL GLOBE AND
THE TERRORISM OF
UNIVERSAL CONTROLS BY MEANINGLESS MANACLES OR
MORAL MIDGETS:
(Daniel 2:21, 4:17),
EVACUEES FROM GOD, TOSSED IN THE UNDEFINED SEA
In fact, if we effectually sought to exterminate terrorism,
these particular things would all cease, and the world would be a far more livable place.
Then the vacuous ideological do-gooders, based on nothing, and religious zealots, appealing
to force, with their neighbours, ideologues who desire land as well, all would
be
condemned; and more importantly at least in the lives of the potential victims,
they would be caused to stop their vacuous intrusions or lusty depredations.
In all this, there is no loss of freedom of
speech, which is so necessary in a world where fixation of ideas comes rather
like arthritis for many as they grow old. A certain fixity comes to be
associated with the gait, a certain limitation. Arthritic ideologies however
have no such excuse, as physical age!
Alas, such is this world that where freedom of speech is removed by force, then of course, errors in doctrine
can become as pandemic as in China, where even Falun Gong people can be
imprisoned, people of spirit removed from sight and put into cells of terror,
where humiliations unspeakable are wrought, and reform by labour, which is force used to
mutate ideology, proceeds. There, on this definition, in this exhibition of its
essence, also, there is terrorism; and is a land with such a governing
philosophy and practice then suitable for "most favoured nation" practices in trade!
Is it, O USA ?
Nor is that nation alone, just because it uses
phrases of this kind!
The movement as seen in the report on Blunkett is
quite explicit, and the zeal of PM Blair to seek some vigorous dealing with the
whole phenomenon in view, in the light, or rather darkness of the attack from
his own government, on evangelicals, is quite explicit. Whatever Blair does,
movements in the PAST WITHIN his government have spoken very clearly and loudly.
It is one direction into which undoubtedly the world will move, as it seeks what
Revelation 13, 17 forecast: namely, submission to a particular
social-political-financial world rule with its own rules, convictions and
conventions.
It will come.
Indeed, it is a fulfilment of prophecy, in its
foothills already, that such speech should be used in such a country as Britain
at all! To speak in this intimidatory and depreciatory manner of the religion
which is supposedly its own, however extreme may be commitment to its irenic
ways, it is a as vast a change in Britain as that from peace to war.
The increasing international desire to regulate
this world by the UN, by ideas, by ideologies, however ludicrous may be the
meetings of inapposite opposites as they try to commute their extremes into what
is palatable, and as in the case of the definition of 'terrorism', these not unexpectedly fail.
Combining light and darkness, or even various grays with it, it is not easy;
even if vacuous and meretricious phraseology to obscure the issues, be employed.
This UN activation too, it is in the precise direction of flow of the unified
world, confusing truth with fiction, unctuously and charmingly, and then
violently and vilely, imposing its thought patterns contrary to God, in the
interests of a mystic humanism, where man seeks to take over the creation of God
for his own use (cf. Revelation 19:19).
In
the meantime, bearing in mind that shortly thereafter as shown in the same book
of the Bible, realise another feature of this coming universal misrule.
It will GO.
This it will do with total ignominy; and hence it
is the more needful to be clear about the movements in this increasingly
diabolically vulnerable world.
Terrorism is indeed well defined in terms of the
use of force irrelevant to the issues of mind, morals or spirit, involved, as
well as in land grabs coincidental with the same; and it is this which
distinguishes it from simple war, which has no such specialised and delimited
connotation.
Terrorism however is not constituted in resistance to such endeavours to impose, though this may itself be war. It is the thrust to impose
which is the issue. Where the security of the nation is indeed threatened and
response is made, this is war, not terrorism; it is resistance to terrorism
where the invasive or terrorising efforts made against the nation threaten the
nation's security, or seek to change its liberties into enforced compulsions.
Terrorism is the thrust to misuse power to prostitute reality. It is not the
case where power is used to prevent it! It is not crime to be a police-man
engaged in dealing with a thug.
Again, it may be war, but it is not terrorism where
force is used to enable freedom. Yet it needs to be born in mind that there CAN BE no eventual or
ultimate liberty where Christ does not rule, and while His appeals are not
FORCE, but invitations, there is the essential ingredient also that it is in the mode of love, not terrrorism,
that the question of entry arises
in such a case. One is not stormed by physical violence in the kingdom of
heaven, to secure one's membership in it. Spiritual thuggery may so indulge
itself; it is antipathetic to Christ in His demeanour, stated principles and
clear cut demands, which Peter felt so sharply (Matthew 26:52-56).
Thus as various nations
retreat from Christ more and more in morals and law, it is obvious that various
pressures of force arise in a necessarily unstable evacuation of truth*2,
people seeking to IMPOSE the UN's Moses-without-God model of moral requisition,
or Islamic views, or the limitless impudences of numbers to enforce anything at
all. There can indeed be terrorism in this, that force is used to make people
witless by merely repetitive propaganda, or to be requisitioned by assaults on
the functions of liberty, through miseducation ENFORCED in many public schools.
To the extent that there is no option, and no escape, this is terrorism also.
Where money provides the only known means of escape, then it can become partial
terrorism on those without it.
It IS good to avoid terrorism, for it IS a
prostitution effort against the human spirit, a debasement of mind, a demeaning
of reality, an abuse of truth and a field for lust unworthy of man, an assault
on his Creator who gave him such spiritual powers, and in this sort of assault,
a work of darkness bringing in an ultimate defilement of the human race.
Christ and His Gospel do NOT use force for such
means, and do not recommend its use to secure its objectives. It is the ultimate
NON-TERRORISM. Christ appealed to His works (of grace, healing, kindness and
power for good to help) as well as to His words (John 14:1-10), and did not
attempt to FORCE the rich young ruler, for example to follow Him; the ruler
simply moving away sorrowing. There is no word that Christ followed him. Quite
to the contrary, he had decided NOT to follow Christ, but to rest and rely on
his money, lands, power, authority, prestige or whatever other aspect or
synthesis of aspects appealed to him. He sorrowed about it: he was free to
reject Christ, to secure His lands and to sorrow. This he did, seeing the
inestimable value of what he forsook, but counting the estimable value of what
he retained. That was his equation, and it produced grief in his heart!
Christ is the non-terrorist to perfection, and
those who misuse His name to implement strategies of force to change lives that
do not desire it, qualify as ultimate travesties of truth. Communism, Islam and
Romanism have all qualified frequently indeed as ultimate contraries; but they
are not alone; merely aggregates whose attitudes being too much involved with
this world, make travesty of their dynamics, when, as has often been done, they
invade truth with unclean hands, on which much blood adheres.
There is NONE in spirit or truth who is the just
ruler of this world but He who said, "I have come that you
might have life, and have it more abundantly"; and died to enable it
(John 5:24, 3:16): and there is no master in force, or power, or precept except
the triune God who made us (Matthew 23:8-10), in accord, quite demonstrably,
with whose word this world runs. The term 'pope' or 'master' or 'father',
prohibited, becomes at times close in impact to that of a terrorist
technique; but it is the truth which matters.
What pretends such power, whether papal or Islamic
or other, needs merely to show its omnipotence as God, its omniscience for
the same reason, its eternity and its unchanging nature (cf. Sparkling
Life ... Ch. 4 ) and hence unchanging word. There
is in fact ONE who has done this. It is the God of the Bible. It is Himself.
There are no more (cf. Isaiah 44-46).
He does not prostitute spirit, but sends His own to
those who freely receive Him (Romans 8:1-9); nor does He use force to change
minds, but appeals, invites and demonstrates reality (Proverbs 1, Matthew 23:37,
Luke 19:42ff.).
If there is to be a final judgment, and of course this race is
not exempt from the truth so that there will be assuredly be one: then it is not this which FORCES the spirit, but
rather does it
give to it its due, and that from the One who made it. That which is born of the
spirit, said Jesus the Christ, is spirit, and what is born of the flesh is flesh
(John 3). Spiritual birth is not a product of a gun, or grenade hurled at
mothers, or children for that matter. It is a product of God as is the initial
creation by which one is born at all! (cf. TMR
Ch. 1, SMR Ch. 2).
It is force to suppress, impress into service to an
alien mode, by its arm of strength, not accomplishing things of spirit by spirit
but by irrelevant physical onrush. It is this, together with judgment for
ignoring truth, which reaches its deserved gloom.
On the other side, it is always
delightful, that even in the case of a terrorist like Saul, that by the power
and free grace of the sovereign God, he may become an apostle who BEARS
terrorism's hateful marks on his own body, as a victim of it, rather than
branding others! (Acts 9, II Corinthians 4:9ff., 6, 11:22ff.,Galatians 6:1).
As to Paul, the Christian now converted, how
different from terrorism is his way now! Let us hear his testimony from II
Corinthians 11.
"Are they Hebrews? So am I.
Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham?
So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? - I speak as a fool - I am
more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more
frequently, in deaths often.
"From
the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one.
"Three
times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked;
a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in
perils of waters,
in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen,
in perils of the Gentiles,
in perils in the city,
in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils
among false brethren;
in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings
often,
in cold and nakedness - besides the other things, what comes upon me daily:
my deep concern for all the churches.
"Who
is weak, and I am not weak?
Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation?
"If
I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity.
"The
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am
not lying."
Thus are stretched before us the
desiccation of the eternal, infernal desert, dry from the freshness of truth and
reality, urbane in its distant dreams and mirage, pools of non-water,
limpidities for dry dreams, the fiery site of abandoned folly; and yet again,
the mountains of eternity, the realm of hope, the place of entire transformation
that surges past the first birth as youth past infancy, with the delicacies of
inter-personal communion with the God who made the heart, invented the mind and
performed that work as far beyond the fingers of man, as the outermost star
beyond the little toe of an infant: the creation of human freedom. They are
paths, that of error and that of truth. They have destinies apportioned
accordingly.
Free fall ? that is all. Free
flight ? that is scarcely right. Free entry, this is the select privilege for
man, entry to the deliverance from duress, so that terrorism comes in its true
colours, as just one of the many implements of the devil, by which he seeks to
intimidate, alienate, agitate, and stampede man into the dry zone where nothing
lives, and death is but a name.
NOTES
*1A
See
The Frantic Millenium
Ch. 6
*1B
See for due verification, SMR
pp. 912ff.,
950ff.,
1032ff..
*1
See -
Red Alert ... Ch.
10,
*4
Divine
Agenda ... Ch.
6
Regal
Rays of Revelation 1, 16
Gracious
Goodness Ch.
4,
Lord of Life Ch. 3,
Of
the Earth, Earthy or Celestial in Christ Ch.
3,
The Grating Grandeur ... Ch.
9
Also note
More Marvels ... Ch. 4, including
this location.
On real estate and realism:
see It Bubbles ... Ch.
11, Regal
Rays of Revelation Ch. Rays 1
*2
See Ch. 5,
*2 above.