I started doing research for this post at midnight, after lying in bed thinking about it for over an hour after my husband and I had a lengthy discussion about recent goings on. Needless to say, I’ve thought about this a lot before writing it. Only God knows why I am up at this hour writing it, but I felt compelled to write about my thoughts. Am I doing it out of passion? Out of hatred? Who knows? There’s often a thin line between the two, and I think hatred of others is nothing other than a sin and a colossal waste of time, so I’m going with passion. Here goes…
The shooting in Orlando was an attack of Americans, on American soil done by an anti-American. This individual was a self-proclaimed ISIS supporter whose classmates say he cheered on 9.11 after America was attacked and made a statement indicating that he thought it was what America deserved. (How more was not done about this at the time is beyond me, but that’s a separate discussion. It pains me to think that there’s a chance this could have been prevented. Incidentally, his father was reportedly very unhappy that he was called to come pick up his son after these statements were made and was said to have slapped his son across the face upon seeing him.)
Do not misunderstand: I’m not saying that the shooter was unaware of the nature of the club he was attacking. It’s naive to assume that this was random. I’m also not saying that this individual was not carrying out his interpretation of Sharia law based on Quran 7:80-84, which includes a sentiment about homosexuality being the cardinal sin, punishable by death. (P.S. I’m so grateful that sins are not ranked in Christianity!) I’m also not minimizing what happened to a group of LGBTQ individuals or saying that the LGBTQ community should be marginalized anymore than the heterosexual community should be marginalized–or ANY community, for that matter.
Why? Because I am a Christian who believes that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. Since we are all humans who put our pants on one leg at a time, no one of is better or worse than the other, more or less important than the other, given higher or lower value by God than another. I’m taking the time to emphasize what I am NOT saying here because I know there are some who like to stir the pot and make inflammatory statements because they like to fight, need attention, etc., again losing sight of my main point. What I AM saying is this:
ISIS has attacked all manner of American, irrespective of their various ideologies. Now, in what I think is partly an effort to appear open-minded/politically correct/self-actualized/psychologically evolved, I fear we may be losing sight of the larger issue here, which is plainly anti-Americanism.
Divisiveness among God’s people is a tactic of the enemy, in this case the larger enemy known as Satan. My sentiment is that we have to put our political and religious views aside on some level and keep our eyes focused on an enemy all Americans should share: ISIS.
Agree or disagree, feel free to comment. Be mindful that this is the professional page of a Christian psychologist, so if your comments are spewing hatred on ANY side of this discussion, keep them to yourself.
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