The following blog post is a letter written by a believer who posted it on facebook. Out of respect for him, I will withhold his name. Suffice to say, he has helped me reconcile what has been a seemingly troublesome contradiction concerning my faith. I am indebted to him.
The reason is they are asking this type of question because they are under the assumption that America is a Christian nation, governed by the Sermon on the Mount as its constitution, and that the US Government are filled with Christians who are breaking the rules of "not loving your enemy." The other reason I think they do this is because they want to be relevant somehow to the event of Bin Laden's death.
The assumption is that all men are "In the image of God" and therefore, should be given the assumption of such an image. Therefore, the image of God should not be killed, at least by a Christian. Yet no one is asking a Christian to do such a thing. But even if that was the case, here is a man who is killing/murdering others who are in the image of God, so where is their justice in this? Does the murderer, who is still living, get more rights to the image of God then the ones who were murdered? That seems to be the implication of this argument.
I think one of the reasons for this is because Christians have made the word "Justice" into a four letter word that Christians should never say nor do. So the idea of allowing Justice to be executed would be counter to the argument of all men being in the image of God, and therefore, only God should execute such justice. So the cycle continues, a Christians should never execute justice against an evil person, because, that evil person is a person in the image of God. It is a vicious cycle of nonsense. The question that arises from this: How can Christians make the right decision on justice today, if they are making such nonsensical logical statement, and still be trusted by Christ to judge the angels and the world at His return?
At this point, I would trust Obama to make the right choice than I would a Christian, who holds the view that only God should execute vengeance. But the problem is, no one is executing vengeance, but Justice. If Christians are willing to defer Justice to God all the time, how can God trust them to execute Justice during the reign of Christ? At least Obama did the right thing and executed the order to bring Usama Bin Laden to justice. I assume they wanted to bring him in person and try him, but he put up a fight and had to be killed. As President of the United States Obama did the right thing, he ordered Seal Team 6 to bring in Usama Bin Laden.
The question that Christians need to be asking is: “how does justice works within the world and how Christians should respond to such justice?” By this example Christians are asking the wrong questions and they are making themselves irrelevant to the situation. The way the questions are being asked, they are inserting themselves into the situation where they are not supposed to be. Vengeance belongs to God, but no one is asking you to commit Vigilante justice on Bin Laden. The President of the United States is not asking the local Baptist Church to send out the choir to kill Bin Laden. The Pastor is not the President of the United States to determine such actions against Bin Laden. America’s government is not based on the Sermon on the Mount and Ten Commandments, where we are commanded to love God and our neighbor as our-self. So stop judging the situation, it is not your responsibility to condemn the actions of the U.S. Military who were ordered by the President of the United States to go after and bring Bin Laden to Justice. President Obama was doing what was required of him, Seal Team 6 were carrying out their orders given to them by the President of the United States. God ordained that Governments do exactly what the US Government did to Bin Laden. The killing of Bin Laden was a just act in the eyes of God.
The question of “Does God delight in the death of Bin Laden” posed by John Piper. “Should we love our enemies by the Resurgence” (Mars Hill Church, Pastor Mark Driscoll) are irrelevant to the situation. They are just muddying up the waters; making a simple act into a more complicated situation by dragging in questions that have nothing to do with the situation. Stop trying to be relevant to the situation until you gain a proper understanding of what it means to execute Justice.
