Reflecting on my experience thus far at Duke Divinity, I realize just how much I am shaped by the theological undercurrents here. Case in point: Osama Bin Laden. Where once I would have ran to the streets with the hundreds of Duke Undergraduates who were celebrating the death of an enemy (and looking for an excuse to drink), instead I sat back for a minute to think. Key words and phrases ran through my mind. "Death," "Celebration," "Enemy," "Justice" ... and then ... "Love your enemy... pray for them."
I continued to listen to the news casts. I heard the reporters claim a decisive "victory for freedom" due to the "death of the most hated man in America." I posted a link on my Facebook wall during the celebrations the night President Obama told the nation, as one of my best friends so delicately stated, "we broke into a dude's condo and killed him, his wife and his two sons." It said, "It makes me sick to my stomach that we are celebrating the death of a human being" Within two hours I had 75 posts. Most of them angry. The worst of which claimed that if I were to go over and talk to muslims in another country, "Those towel heads would cut your f****** head off."
We have misplaced our allegiances. It is a scary thing. America is not a Christian nation. Preserving the American way of life is not noble. It is a sin. The narrative of the Christian faith is life, death and resurrection, not preservation. We are to count ourselves as dead, something attested to in our baptism. We are raised into a new way of life that has allegiances to Christ alone. Thus, there is no place for fear and no need to preserve our way of life.
Christ's teachings very clearly state we are to love our enemies, pray for them and to treat them as members of our own family. Osama bin Laden is no exception. The greater the sin, the more grace is made available. By and large, we as a Christian community have failed... failed to critically think through our own issues of personal hatred and nationalism, failed to love our enemies, failed to stand up to those who would perpetuate a Christianity of hatred over one of love. There is much more I would like to say on this issue. Maybe one day I will. For now, I will ask one thing of my readers... pray for the remaining family members of Osama bin Laden. They lost a father, a mother and two brothers. And so have you. This is not cause for celebration, this is not "justice," it is a tragic loss of four human beings, deeply loved by our Lord Jesus Christ.
