So a few dozen people are summarily ‘executed’ by terrorists — big deal. Of what real significance are the casualties in the greater scheme of things? And after all, despite all the eulogising, they can’t ALL have been perfect partners, kids, uncles, aunts etc. Why shouldn’t they (or any of us) have met our Maker on 7/7?
Got your attention now? Strange how the words ‘evil’ and ‘sin’ only entyer the human vocabulary in the aftermath of such atrocities. We make certain sins ‘scapegoat’ crimes, on which we heap all of our condemnation, little realising how hypocritical we actually are as a society. AL-Qaeda simply manifest to the extreme the ‘to thine own self be true’ policy endemic to the human race. We’re all terrorists of a sort — killing millions of the unborn each year for a start (18 week ‘foetuses’ reported to survive premature birth — abortion permitted up to 24 weeks). Why so holier than thou when the world is so on the skids? The Romans committed similar atrocities in their day, but all that Jesus said that unless we all repent, we’ll all perish. Could it even be that Al-Qaeda is the incarnation of that ‘wrath of God revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness’ spken of in Scripture?
I don't think God sees it that way ...
I agree that we are remarkably selective about what we label atrocities. Terrorists bomb our streets because our policies visit terror on their streets. They bring home to us what our actions in faraway places mean and achieve. They tell us we cannot pretend innocence through ignorance.
But an atrocity or loss is deeply tragic. If we believe that each person in the world is worth more to God than the life of God’s Son (which is what I assume the crucifixion tells us), then we can never say “So what?” If we do, we make a mockery of God’s grief at the death of one of his beloved children. It matters!
Of course it matters!
I agree absolutely that we can never simply say ‘so what’ when atrocities like 7/7 happen. My original post was designed simply to point out that if the world approached the sin and evil manifested in that atrocity in the same way as it views the daily sin and evil it pursues without qualm, then folks would indeed say ‘so what?’.