- Dear Esteemed Sirs:
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- For many years now, Christians everywhere in the world
have looked to you for guidance and counsel, and to light their path to
the Cross and Blood of Jesus Christ, the Forgiver, Redeemer and Savior.
In this regard, your every word is special and important, for they become
the opinions and attitude-builders of many millions of Christians. Your
prominence and position as leaders of vast numbers of Christians the world
over, carry a great weight and are a most terrible responsibility delegated
to you by God himself. It is therefore with great care and attention that
you should speak publicly, always ensuring that your pronouncements are
validated by the pure word of scripture, and reflect the humility and love
of Jesus Christ.
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- This is why I am dismayed and disturbed by the recent
rash of statements made by you and your peers, and why I am not encouraged
by the fact that no Christian anyway has taken you to task for uttering
those statements. Please do not misunderstand. I am quite aware of my lack
of qualification and I am certainly not one to criticize such esteemed
gentlemen as you. However, I feel that in this case, at least, you have
failed to represent the real interest of Christianity, or for that matter,
to truly represent Christ. In this regard, therefore, it is my duty to
speak out.
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- Already there has been much embarrassment as one of you
has already had to apologize for stating that "Mohammed was a terrorist",
and I do not doubt that decent Muslims will be demanding similar apologies
for other statements. The evidence of the effect of such a hate-filled
statement was the rioting it occasioned in India. This is also the evidence
that persons such as you must be careful in public speech. You well know
how Christians respond when Jesus is portrayed in an unfavorable light
in books, movies and plays. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is
he." (Pr. 23:7) I am troubled that such prominent leaders of the Christian
Churches in the World should be now revealing a serious "heart"
problem, and that their words, motivating to so many innocent people, point
to a heart contaminated with hatred, not Christian love.
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- It saddens me to think that you harbor such thoughts
of hatred against Muslims as is revealed in such statements as "what
the Muslims want to do to the Jews is worse than the Holocaust", attributed
to Mr. Robertson; "We ought to tell every other Muslim living in this
nation that if you say one word, you're gone", attributed to Mr. Swaggart,
and also his characterization of Mohammed as a "sex-deviant".
Why are you so intent on stoking the fires of war in the Mid-East? What
is the Christian role in all this? What side should the Christian take
in this conflict? It seems very clear that you have chosen a side. I wonder
if you have consulted the Bible, and specifically the words of your savior,
Jesus Christ, to find out what he thinks?
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- It might be well to bear in mind the fact that the Arabs
are the seed of Abraham, the father and progenitor of their brothers, the
Jews. He was forced by his wife to abandon Hagar and the child he fathered
in her. Of course, we have a massive system in place now to ensure that
abandoned mothers and children do not become a burden to the State and
that the fathers take care of them. However, back then, this system did
not exist and Hagar and her son, left to die in the desert, survived only
by the mercy of an intervening God. As such, regardless of their current
religious orientation, for those who claim to believe the Bible is the
word of God, respect for the children of Abraham is a duty. This may be
a weak point, but we must not forget that these Arabs are also originally
tied to the Bible as the seed of Abraham. If what you have expressed can
even be remotely described as Christian respect, then you have certainly
missed the point of Christianity, and your followers also.
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- Jesus was very clear on these things. His teachings are
precise and unambiguous. He stung his listeners by telling them to "love
your enemies. Do good to them that curse you" (Luke. 6:37) "Love
your enemies. Bless them that curse you" (Matt. 5:44) Now if your
enemy keeps on cursing you, even after you have blessed him, you might
want to look at what you are doing wrong to earn his cursing. Jesus also
said, "turn the other cheek." Are such teachings now out of fashion
among professing Christians? Many seem too willing to kill for their religion.
But who is ready to die for it as Christ was? He also said, "Love
thy neighbor as thyself". This important statement is mentioned in
Matthew, Mark and Luke, and repeated again in different ways in such books
as Acts, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Hebrews and James, obviously a very
important concern. Once, a clever lawyer sought to trap Jesus by asking
him, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus' reply was to recount the story
of the Good Samaritan.
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- The point, however, is that we are all neighbors on this
planet. The Samaritan did not care that the man he was nursing back to
life was someone who hated him and someone who might have left him for
dead, had the roles been reversed. The Christian's duty is to show the
love of Jesus to all men without discriminating. The Christian's love must
be like the cloud-raining on everyone, good and bad, like the Sun-shining
on everyone, good and bad, unconditional, just like our Savior's. Otherwise
it makes a mockery of the statement "love the sinner, not the sin".
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- The most important point that I want to make, however,
is this, that you have obviously not consulted the Words of Jesus, in order
to understand the Christian's duty at this most difficult and dangerous
time. It is a time of woe and great tribulation. That much is evident.
It is a time of great deception, and of wars and rumors of wars. In all
this, Jesus has very kindly instructed his followers how to react and deal
with such a situation. His instructions are found in the Sermon on the
Mount. Please read it carefully and instruct your followers to study it
day and night. There, you will find Jesus describing the nature of the
true Christian. He says, "Blessed are they who 1) are seeking God;
2) who mourn; 3) who are humble; 4) who hunger and thirst after righteousness;
5) who are merciful; 6) who are pure in heart (sinless); 7) who are peacemakers;
8) who have suffered persecution. There are also specific blessings from
God attached to each quality.
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- We will have no difficulty today identifying the true
Jesus follower because, not only is he seeking God and hungering and thirsting
after righteousness with a pure, sinless heart, you will also find him
mourning, sorrowing for the great sins that are being committed on the
planet, humbly going about his business because he knows that God says
that "to this man will I look who is humble, of a contrite heart and
trembles at my word" (Isa. 66:2). You will know him because he is
full of compassion for all, even the less fortunate animals, what to speak
of other human beings. And you will know him because, in spite of all persecutions,
he endeavors to stand on the side of peace, promoting peace, making peace
by becoming himself peaceful in the grace of God and representing that
quality to all. Please tell me how this description in Matthew 5, describes
you, your words or your congregation which has not taken you to task for
uttering them.
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- The Lord has placed you in your high positions as leaders
of the Christian flock, at least, he has allowed you to occupy those positions.
Why should we not expect to see in you the epitome of the qualities spoken
of by Jesus and elaborated on by Paul in the book of Galatians? Where is
the love that Paul demands of the true follower? Should it not be evidenced
in you? And if you do not have it, how can you give it to your flock? And
why should they follow you if you do not dispense the pure message of Jesus
and the love of Christ?
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- Sirs, I humbly request that you withdraw your statements,
apologize to those attacked by them, and also to the nation and your congregations
for using your God-assigned office to misrepresent the pure message of
Jesus. Kindly study these simple teachings of Jesus in Matthew 5, and Paul's
discourse on the "Fruits of the Spirit" in Galatians, and instruct
your followers worldwide to meditate on these things daily. How else can
you and they learn to embody the teachings of Jesus, and represent them
to the world thus earning his blessings? He has given the instructions
for hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Why not follow them?
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- In Love,
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- Malcolm Owensby
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