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Easy to take the high ground
if you think God’s on your side
By Derek Lord
Published: 17/09/2010
WATCHING the TV coverage of the Pope’s visit to Scotland, I was struck by the words of wisdom uttered by a leading Sikh who had gone to Holyrood to greet the Pontiff. He said that the only hope for the world was that it becomes inter-religious and added that without peace between the various religions there can be no peace at all.
It’s a message that seems to have been lost on Dr Norman Hamilton, the moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, who announced that he had turned down the opportunity to meet the Pope face to face after the ecumenical service to be held at Westminster on Friday.
He said he couldn’t bring himself to shake hands with the leader of the Catholic Church because of certain "issues" facing that organisation at this point in time and argued that photographs of the handshake might suggest that he is disregarding the said issues.
Of course, his refusal to cosy up to the Pope was not enough to placate the more extreme Presbyterians of Ian Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church.
One of their clergymen came on the air to berate Dr Hamilton for daring to attend the ecumenical service in the first place, saying that he was flying in the face of everything the Reformation stood for.
So much for the Sikh gentleman’s hope that we can achieve peace between the different religions when a few thousand Ulster Scots Presbyterians can’t seem to get along together.
Meanwhile, in Moslem communities across the globe, mobs are still working themselves into a lather at Terry Jones, the redneck pastor who planned to burn copies of the Koran until God told him it wasn’t a smart move.
It seems that his change of mind hasn’t got through to some parts. Since then, at least four people have been shot dead and several others seriously wounded by police who were trying to protect a Christian school in India. Others have died in similar protests in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban is using the whole crazy incident to whip up anti-American feelings and persuade the Afghans to overthrow the American-backed government.
I bet President Obama wishes he could have put a media embargo on Jones’s plans, but, in the Land of the Free, every nutcase has the right to do whatever he wants to do, provided it doesn’t break any specific laws, and the media have the right to broadcast it, regardless of how much damage that might do.
Thanks to the miracle that is the internet, some like-minded bigots have burned a few Korans of their own and posted the images on the worldwide web just to keep the pot boiling.
The loopy pastor has a congregation of fewer than 50 fellow-zealots and yet he has been partly responsible for the deaths of people many thousands of miles away from his home town. I say partly responsible because the leaders of those riots should have taken a deep breath and reflected on the fact that there are extremist headbangers in every society on the planet, but they couldn’t pass up the excuse to have another crack at the Great Satan.
The trouble is that Terry Jones isn’t on his own. There are hundreds of thousands of American Christian fundamentalists who believe just as fervently that they are God’s chosen people and they have considerable political clout.
The Evangelical Alliance, a highly organised collection of some of the wealthiest Christians in America, had the ear of both George Bushes.
Perhaps that’s why George jun found it so easy to get Congress to endorse his "crusade" in the wake of the 9/11 massacre and to persuade the American people that Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks, even although the perpetrators were mostly from Saudi Arabia.
And Tony Blair wasn’t going to pass on the chance to join Bush’s crusade and strike a blow for Christianity. Every British leader who wishes to gain their place in the history books needs a war – Churchill had World War II; Margaret Thatcher had the Falklands conflict, and Tony now had Iraq, although if he had had a crystal ball it might just have wiped the smile off his face.
Both Bush and Blair had conveniently forgotten that Saddam had once been their trusted ally. The very state of Iraq was a British invention, its territory shaped by agreement between Britain, France and Russia in the 1930s and its leaders chosen in Whitehall.
Just as the partition of Ireland brought about a situation in which a small minority of the people of Ireland could subjugate a section of the majority population, so the Sunni Moslems could hold sway over the Shia Moslems, who outnumbered the Sunnis.
On top of that, the Kurds were thrown into the mix. So long as Saddam kept the lid on that lot, he could do pretty much as he pleased, but then he invaded Kuwait and launched missiles into Israel.
The first Scud missile that landed on Israeli territory sealed his fate. It was only a matter of time before the supporters of Israel in the American administration found an excuse to destroy the man who had violated their promised land and the attack on the twin towers was all the excuse they needed. So now we had America’s Christians and Jews with a common cause, all backed up by the American oil industry. Saddam never stood a chance.
The next big worry is Iran. Tony Blair sees it as a dangerous state ruled by Moslem fanatics and the Israelis share this view, although Mr Blair must know that, in 1953, the first democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, was overthrown by an American coup, at the request of the British, after he nationalised our oil company.
Mr Blair still seems to believe he was doing God’s will when he committed Britain to two wars in His name.
All I can say is God save us from folk who think they are doing His will.
source: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1921708?UserKey=
if you think God’s on your side
By Derek Lord
Published: 17/09/2010
WATCHING the TV coverage of the Pope’s visit to Scotland, I was struck by the words of wisdom uttered by a leading Sikh who had gone to Holyrood to greet the Pontiff. He said that the only hope for the world was that it becomes inter-religious and added that without peace between the various religions there can be no peace at all.
It’s a message that seems to have been lost on Dr Norman Hamilton, the moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, who announced that he had turned down the opportunity to meet the Pope face to face after the ecumenical service to be held at Westminster on Friday.
He said he couldn’t bring himself to shake hands with the leader of the Catholic Church because of certain "issues" facing that organisation at this point in time and argued that photographs of the handshake might suggest that he is disregarding the said issues.
Of course, his refusal to cosy up to the Pope was not enough to placate the more extreme Presbyterians of Ian Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church.
One of their clergymen came on the air to berate Dr Hamilton for daring to attend the ecumenical service in the first place, saying that he was flying in the face of everything the Reformation stood for.
So much for the Sikh gentleman’s hope that we can achieve peace between the different religions when a few thousand Ulster Scots Presbyterians can’t seem to get along together.
Meanwhile, in Moslem communities across the globe, mobs are still working themselves into a lather at Terry Jones, the redneck pastor who planned to burn copies of the Koran until God told him it wasn’t a smart move.
It seems that his change of mind hasn’t got through to some parts. Since then, at least four people have been shot dead and several others seriously wounded by police who were trying to protect a Christian school in India. Others have died in similar protests in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban is using the whole crazy incident to whip up anti-American feelings and persuade the Afghans to overthrow the American-backed government.
I bet President Obama wishes he could have put a media embargo on Jones’s plans, but, in the Land of the Free, every nutcase has the right to do whatever he wants to do, provided it doesn’t break any specific laws, and the media have the right to broadcast it, regardless of how much damage that might do.
Thanks to the miracle that is the internet, some like-minded bigots have burned a few Korans of their own and posted the images on the worldwide web just to keep the pot boiling.
The loopy pastor has a congregation of fewer than 50 fellow-zealots and yet he has been partly responsible for the deaths of people many thousands of miles away from his home town. I say partly responsible because the leaders of those riots should have taken a deep breath and reflected on the fact that there are extremist headbangers in every society on the planet, but they couldn’t pass up the excuse to have another crack at the Great Satan.
The trouble is that Terry Jones isn’t on his own. There are hundreds of thousands of American Christian fundamentalists who believe just as fervently that they are God’s chosen people and they have considerable political clout.
The Evangelical Alliance, a highly organised collection of some of the wealthiest Christians in America, had the ear of both George Bushes.
Perhaps that’s why George jun found it so easy to get Congress to endorse his "crusade" in the wake of the 9/11 massacre and to persuade the American people that Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks, even although the perpetrators were mostly from Saudi Arabia.
And Tony Blair wasn’t going to pass on the chance to join Bush’s crusade and strike a blow for Christianity. Every British leader who wishes to gain their place in the history books needs a war – Churchill had World War II; Margaret Thatcher had the Falklands conflict, and Tony now had Iraq, although if he had had a crystal ball it might just have wiped the smile off his face.
Both Bush and Blair had conveniently forgotten that Saddam had once been their trusted ally. The very state of Iraq was a British invention, its territory shaped by agreement between Britain, France and Russia in the 1930s and its leaders chosen in Whitehall.
Just as the partition of Ireland brought about a situation in which a small minority of the people of Ireland could subjugate a section of the majority population, so the Sunni Moslems could hold sway over the Shia Moslems, who outnumbered the Sunnis.
On top of that, the Kurds were thrown into the mix. So long as Saddam kept the lid on that lot, he could do pretty much as he pleased, but then he invaded Kuwait and launched missiles into Israel.
The first Scud missile that landed on Israeli territory sealed his fate. It was only a matter of time before the supporters of Israel in the American administration found an excuse to destroy the man who had violated their promised land and the attack on the twin towers was all the excuse they needed. So now we had America’s Christians and Jews with a common cause, all backed up by the American oil industry. Saddam never stood a chance.
The next big worry is Iran. Tony Blair sees it as a dangerous state ruled by Moslem fanatics and the Israelis share this view, although Mr Blair must know that, in 1953, the first democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, was overthrown by an American coup, at the request of the British, after he nationalised our oil company.
Mr Blair still seems to believe he was doing God’s will when he committed Britain to two wars in His name.
All I can say is God save us from folk who think they are doing His will.
source: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1921708?UserKey=
