We hold these Truths to be self-evident...
If your Thanksgiving plans include thanking God, for Christians and those holding policy leaders accountable to their Christian values, please consider the families in Iran and what Jesus commanded as the basis for our interactions.
Previously, I’ve documented the two principle fears some Americans espouse with Iran and threaten war to prove beyond doubt they are without basis in fact:
· Iran’s nuclear energy program is in compliance with international treaty, fully inspected with all evidence showing energy-use only, and all US intelligence agencies in agreement of zero evident threat of nuclear weapon production. The US is out of compliance by refusing to help Iran achieve nuclear energy and accept inspections to ensure safety.
· Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s statements toward Israel have been contrived by US political “leaders” from both parties and the corporate media as a threat when the text and context of the speech clearly and verifiably show only interest in an Israeli government that respects the rights of Palestinians. This means Americans are being lied to from their political leadership and media, just as we were lied to about Iraq. Please let that sink in.
Please verify these two facts to your satisfaction. I’ve also documented that the US overthrew Iran’s democracy from 1953 until 1979; denied by the US government until 2000, but now conservative and unchallenged history. The US aided Iraq’s invasion of Iran from 1980 to 1988, supplying chemical and biological weapons to kill Iranians defending their nation, and US military attacked and destroyed Iranian oil platforms and a commercial airliner. I've also written the facts in a story as if the US were in Iran's position.
But this article will focus on another angle of approaching Iran: with our hearts and souls. Let’s consider facts of what it means to be Christian, and how that applies to US relations with Iran. Some people cringe when the term “facts” and “faith” are brought together; determine for yourself the strength of my observations.
Most US political leaders claim to be Christian; indeed many claim it as the foundation of their lives, as President Obama does:
“I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life. But most importantly, I believe in the example that Jesus set by feeding the hungry and healing the sick and always prioritizing the least of these over the powerful…Accepting Jesus Christ in my life has been a powerful guide for my conduct and my values and my ideals.”
Jesus clearly explains Christians’ first priority: love. Jesus commanded (an authoritative requirement, not an optional practice), to love God with all one’s heart, soul and mind:
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22:36-40
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” John 15:12
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34
Is everyone our neighbor? Apparently:
“You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:43)
Jesus’ teachings are quite clear. Let’s see if we can apply them to how we as a nation, the US should relate to Iran. If we do the ONE THING Jesus tells us to do, we are commanded to (synonyms: demanded, required by law, ordered, prohibited to do anything else, responsible for):
- Love God with our heart (feelings) and mind (thoughts) to trust his management. When we trust in God with our souls, we have nothing to fear for there is no power over God. We can therefore, relinquish all fear of Iran and everything else.
- Love Iranians as much as we love Jesus. This is with our heart (bonding with them), our minds (helping them, including with safe and inspected nuclear energy), and our souls (putting our faith and love in God and our neighbor above any fear).
- After we’ve done the above two actions, and only after, if it turns out anyone acts as an enemy in violence, we are still required to love them. With an understanding of human fallibility, we intelligently design policy to manage risk and remove violent individuals from further harming society. But we treat everyone with inalienable rights from God and presume innocence.
Let’s contrast war with Jesus’ teachings.
- Attacking Iran out of fear of what they might someday do violates love and trust in God. To love God is to surrender fear to God’s will. Attacking Iran is a statement that God cannot be trusted, we hate God’s management, and we arrogantly usurp God’s role to bring death and destruction.
- Attacking Iran utterly fails our responsibility to love Iranians as we would love Jesus himself. Would we bomb Jesus because we fear him??? We would help him, not destroy his nation’s infrastructure, energy plants, and predictably murder at least a million civilians.
- Loving Iranians with all our mind creates intelligent interactions with contingencies for threat. Attacking without regard to a loving basis of interaction with escalating responses is an insult to Jesus’ command. An attack on Iran is mindless, soulless, heartless hate; the polar opposite of Christian requirement for action.
Christians who claim faith should do all they can to act in good faith for love. Christians should also be mindful of consequences of their actions:
"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'” Matthew 25:34-45
Just as almost all Christians see their religion in the context of love, almost all Muslims see their religion as one of peace. Muslim scholars try to make this clear, as does President Bush and President Obama.
Our political “leaders” need to be held accountable under the US Constitution and US law. Men and women in our military, government, and law enforcement should take all legal acts in their authority to arrest and stop unlawful acts, which include orders to further illegal wars, current and/or planned. We should also hold people morally accountable to what they claim as their faith. If people say they are Christian, we can and should demand their actions be of love. If people say they respect Islam, they must do so.
I also argue that our most practical policy response to end current criminal and immoral acts is Truth and Reconciliation.
The below 36-second video is Pope John Paul II affirming the requirement of Christians loving our neighbors.
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Comments
Thank you for representing Jesus's words as originally intended!
"2.Love Iranians as much as we love Jesus"..
for some reason that line struck me as funny. But I bet it may be difficult for some who are fed the fearmongering propaganda about Iran. good article, and, have a great Thanksgiving.
;-)
Thank you for this article. It sometimes seems that the Media and our politicians show no interest in facts. We have left the commandments of God. They speak good words. But in action they feed their own belly. Very good article.
Jim, Martin, DS:
Thank you. Enjoy your families and Thanksgiving as well.
I just talked to Jesus and he said sorry but Irans leadership had to go so the people of Iran can be free.
Kurt:
1. In light of a serious topic of life and death, perhaps your very soul, you lie.
2. You contemptuously disregard the history of the US overthrowing Iran’s democracy from 1953-1979 and installing the kind of dictator so their people could not be free.
3. You contemptuously disregard the history of the US supplying Iraq with chemical and biological weapons for their illegal invasion against Iran from 1980-1988; the US military destroyed Iranian oil platforms and shot down a civilian airliner in Iranian airspace.
4. You disregard the current US lies of NPT and “wiping Israel off the map.”
5. So, are you proposing the US volunteer for voter registration in Iran???
6. If there’s an after-life review, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.
How about that vote today? Everyone on this planet is a lying fool but you? I am not from the US or Israel and I study in international affairs that being said you copy and paste a lot dont you? Take whatever articles best suit your ideas and copy and paste them to what you write, not original. My colleagues and I came across your articles and read them all and have to say we had or should I say still are laughing, see now you have someone that is very well educated writing on here so please feel free to ask me, show me your evidence and I will copy and paste my evidence that only proves my point. Its not about Iran your Governments lying that bothers me its your cult like writing style and the people that agree with you and write hate on here, I will copy and paste myself to turn them around. One more thing do you live in the US? If you do I say visit Iran make some changes, lead by example like I do.
Kurt:
I'm reading the IAEA report that is the basis for the vote. I'll have a reply for your charming colleagues and you; bet on it.
We will be waiting. Keep the copy and paste to a min we already know what it says and means, so save your time and do not try to twist it because when I say we know what it means It means exactly that.
Continued: And no, “very well educated” Kurt, evidence need not have sides when the evidence is objective and independently verifiable. A treaty has meaning, it is meant to be as clear as the rules of a sport or of driving a car. If the evidence is clear, then we understand if a nation is or is not in compliance. A speech has meaning from context and content where some interpretations are ridiculous.
You call citation of evidence “cut and paste.” You pretend evidence you do not address is “laughable.” You pretend that evidence cannot be comprehensive. You use ad hominem to slur my writing style, and anyone in agreement as writing “hate.” Yeah, Kurt, perhaps you’re “very well educated” in propaganda, but not at all in professional standards of academic and professional scrutiny of evidentiary claims.
Kurt:
I’ll write an article on the spin and vote on the IAEA report. However, this article you choose to comment on is on the spiritual aspect of how Christians should respond to Iran, not the technical and legal aspects of NPT.
In the meantime, here’s the article with the evidence that Iran is in compliance with NPT and the US is not, and Iran never threatened to “wipe Israel off the map”: US lies about Iran's nuclear program and "threat" to Israel, escalates aggression for war. If you’d like to comment further until the new article is up, move your comments there. More…
My comments are about some of the past things you have written, I just put my comment up on here due to its new. Iran is NOT in compliance with the IAEA, dead end ring a bell. They still have not answered the major questions about there nuclear program, do you think they would enrich uranium at there declared sites? NO. As I read your articles people rebuke and you tell them to read what you copy and pasted, do you know whats going on? I really do not think you have the full grasp of the real situation here. I will wait for your spin make it good.
Kurt:
Go make your case at the article I provided or wait for the new one on IAEA's report and vote. I insist comments remain on topic. This topic is how Christians should apply Jesus' one commandment to Iran as a context of love. I will delete any further of your comments at this article I find off-topic.
Im sorry but though this piece clearly shows how christians should apply the Law of God your analysis does not begin to deal with the practicalities of the issue. The Law of God was given to show our wretched sinfulness. not to make us good. Read Romans and Galatians. NO ONE loves like this, and we would be hyopocrites to try. The thing is not to will to do this (try loving a home invader who murdered your parents , raped your wife etc). the thing is to seek the personal relationship with God which our evil indicates we lack, to be convicted of this and lead to repent by the Holy Spirit. you have taken scripture out of context. mans inhumanity to man is not the primary issue, for it is symptomatic of something deeper, our alientaion from God whereby even our righteousness is filthy rags to be repented of. Of course this truth wil be rejected outright by most, even in the church, hence there will be no solution until christ return
You quote Matthew 25:34 ff. Of course it is quite right, but it is out of context. These are not the ways to get a love we never had, they are the expected outflow of a love we have encountered and been changed by having been born again by the Spirit of Christ. Making a law out of this passage is rebuked by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 13: "If I give my substance to the poor etc but have no love it is worthless". If the author seeks to advocate christian morality separate from christian biblical doctrine he is wasting his time, for if Jesus were not God he was merely some naive dreamer who had no grasp of reality. But if he would hold to christian doctrine the central core is not the wellbeing of men, though that is an outflow of the core, the core is personal relationship with God through Christ and only through christ. Of course warmongering christians show they lack this, for which they will be judged by God most terribly
"If people say they are Christian, we can and should demand their actions be of love."
Now this is moving towards manifest hypocrisy. Firstly making such a demands will never be listened to. I should know. i have, as a christian, demanded it of christians for many years, and got treated with contempt by them. And secondly, if we demand of others such a thing God will say to you, or me "OK what about YOU??" The verse at the end of John's Gospel puts it clearly "what is he [ie a fellow disciple in context of the passage] to you? YOU follow me.
finally, you would hold relgious hypocrites accountable? by what means? inquisitions?
your statement about law being authoritative not optional totally misunderstands the nature of the LAW of God.
there is ONLY ONE result of the law of GOd, and that is damnation. God set it up that way. For by works of LAw (ie deeds done as authoritative requirements not options) no flesh, ie people, will be justified, ie saved. St Paul to the Roman
Steve M:
I appreciate your thinking, introspection, and communication. From my view, I feel one expression of my service is to point out obvious hypocrisy by our political leaders claiming to be Christian while denying good-faith effort for love. The laws are enough for our relationship with Iran; I’m just trying to provide an additional perspective to view US “leadership” as morally, as well as legally, Orwellian.
Well, yes, the leadership is certainly Orwellian. I would go further and say it is antichrist, (small "a" patent of plurals, in the sense described in III John) and that their invocation of the Holy name of God is blasphemy, their doctrinal justifications thereof as being heresy.
I just doubt what can be done about it, and fear that the tragedy will play itself out.
Unless we repent we wil perish. This also applies to a church that is apostate in practise even while it mouths sound doctrines it has voided of truth.
But strait is the gate and narrow the way, and few there are who find it. I think that national repentance is the only solution but will not hold my breath waiting for it, for the greater the sin the less likely a people or group comitting it are to acknowledge it
Steve:
It might be our only role is to help polarize choice. We'll see :)
As far as I am concerned claims to christianity by candidates for office are simply a necessary political cosmetic.
And being cosmetic they are no in real relationship to the gospel of Christ itself. Obama calls himself a christian and sends drones to murder pakistani women and children? He loves Jesus and permits torture? He holds that the word of God is real but breaks his own electoral promises? He refuses to end a war based on breach of the 9th commandment (you shall not bear false witness, ie tell lies)yet believes in God's law?
The name of God is blasphemed because of him. He might think he can get away with it, but if he really knew his Bible he would know that he will have to stand before God, and he should tremble
I make no claims to be a theologian. I do know Jesus well enough to know he would never approve of lying, murder, theft and mass deception. Love thy enemy does include stopping a murder to protect the innocent and save them from future damnation. Love is sometimes tough. He never commanded us to ignore a clear and present danger. In his wisdom for living he encouraged us to avoid the criminal element of our society.
What is going on with Iran is simply the lying game. They are demonizing that country like crazy to justify yet another immoral and illegal war. I think the true beneficiaries are Murder Inc. the military industrial complex, multi internationals, bankers make loans at large interest rates and our sheriff in the region Israel, oil and the petro dollar. It has zero to do with those poor Iranians being a threat to us.
When will we ever wake up and call them out; and hold them accountable.
God's law is love and the gospel is our plea.
Simple - Love Always prot
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