I just ask that you watch at least the first 7 to 10 minutes, but I think the full time of the video is most impactful. Also, if you do only have time for the first ten minutes, you must also skip to 31 minutes in and watch the clips of the evangelism video created by an African church.
I will give a few of my reactions as best I can, while at the same time trying to not effect how you view this video. So I would suggest first watching it, to get your own views, and then read my personal thoughts below.
- I do not care what you believe, this raises problems for your belief structure.
If you're religious (Christian especially since Jesus' name is being evoked in this video), well... I'm sure you can justify this is some off-hand way or just say that we cannot understand the ways of the spiritual, but I will NOT accept those accounts. If you take that route, you must have more meat to your argument than "the will of god is unknowable" because this horrendous experience deserves way more consideration than that.
If you're secular, we have only ourselves to blame and this call to action is urgent. We cannot keep on mutilating our society like we do. Superstitions and myths have dominated our race for far too long. (I'm not saying Christian doctrine is useless but the Old Testament certainly discusses ostracizing wayward children and stoning delinquents, punishments not unlike some of the appalling occurrences shown in this video.) But more importantly, action is required if we have only humanity to blame. We cannot fallback on saying things will work out in the end. We have to take a stand and bring about this change ourselves.
- This reminds me of the witch trials of Salem as well as the Dark Age period where the church had ultimate authority and could account for any aberrant behavior as evil and demon-like.
- I'm simply disgusted.
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See my thoughts in your BSU e-mail account. I would have posted them here, but I wasn't sure if they would fit. I also didn't want anyone else to feel like they had to read a word of them even a glance.
ReplyDeleteYou're implying that all Christians believe those atrocities are the will of God simply because the offenders themselves (and those they've brainwashed) are claiming that. Remember in the first few minutes of the clip, the English guy even said that all Christians would be outraged. I'm outraged. But I also don't see any connection between spiritual authority and these African offenders of value and justice.
ReplyDeleteReal authority is given to lead, correct, and encourage for the purpose of making whole people and to glorify God. That witch stuff is an abuse of authority to gain money and power. I believe there is a spiritual world we can't see that does affect our lives, but the Bible is clear that the struggles of that world are realized not in holding people captive and charging them money, but in truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, the word of God, and prayer. It reminds me of Salem and it reminds me of Rome a thousand years ago and Jerusalem 2000 years ago. It's all bs that must be struck down and not seen as truth.
Was that "off-hand"?
Since you have yourself to blame and action is required, I'm hoping to see a post in which you explore what you're going to do, besides sitting around almost but not quite speechless.
Shawn,
ReplyDeleteI may have skipped a (rather large) step in my argument. I guess one of my personal beliefs are that if a god is all-powerful, which has ultimate authority, then all things which occur are things which happen under the authority of that god. This would be the case because that god would be able to use its authority to do certain things. Now this is a contentious point, so I should have said it may not the case, but certainly I should have at least mentioned it.
Another point I failed to mention was that I don't see this as legitimate people gaining authority from a god. Rather, like you, I see it as human beings seeking power. So I would say the difficulty would be in a god allowing the torture of children to happen, especially in the name of that god.
Again, this post was extremely unthought-out and rash.
Chris, thanks for clarifying. I believe God can and does intervene in lives, but I won't say everything that happens in the world is on his authority or something he's happy about.
ReplyDeleteGreat Blog. :) I watched the video, that is totally sick. dude. that witch doctor needs to be eliminated. that is so sad.
ReplyDelete