The Samaritan Extinction

From one-eyedbob.blogspot.com on Wednesday, November 18, 2015

The war in Syria rages.  Out of that war IS emerges as a large, organized terrorist operation.  They believe that anyone who is not with them must die so they have no reluctance taking human non-Sunni lives.  They just did so in Paris.

But the Paris attacks, as awful and horrendous and inhumane as they were, demonstrates clearly why so many are leaving their homes in Syria and Iraq and elsewhere close by and are fleeing wherever they can go to be safe.

27 Governors in the US have now announced that their states will not allow any Syrian refugees to flee to them.  More than half our states.  I am so deeply sad that my state is one of the 27.  Of the 27 governors, only one is a Democrat.

It is my hunch that these governors campaigned on family values, Christianity in particular.  None of these governors claimed to be atheists or Muslim.   And I wonder if those most fundamental of Christians have in fact read the New Testament and understood the big picture.

If states are fools, do we not have a county or a city who will stand and say let them come unto us and we will give them peace?  We will not sort by religion.  We will not sort by ethnicity.  If we follow the notion of only allowing people succor who are “good”, who will ever qualify for admission? 

There are candidates for the Presidency who would rather bomb IS knowing they will kill innocent people.  There are candidates who would send American troops to the region, or at least Iraq.  Have we learned nothing from Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan?  Are we not yet beyond an eye for an eye and international bullying?  No air strike will return the dead in Paris.  Will we ever be able to turn the other cheek and respond rationally?

My Christian heritage taught me it is the Samaritan who is blessed.  The enemy who responds to another human who is suffering and in need is the model to emulate. 

Have we no more Samaritans?  Are they now extinct?  Do we have a new interpretation of the New Testament that requires service to self and safety first and no obligation to our fellow humans?

I find that cowardly and blasphemous.