This week’s attack on a Parisian satirical magazine should make us all irate. What makes someone pick up a weapon and forge forward to kill? What makes someone so full of anger and evil that death is the only option?
I am not sure, but the video of the attackers leaving and allegedly shouting their love to Muhammad is preposterous.
Murder is the coward’s way. It is easy. It doesn’t require intelligence, but simply a weapon. And murder in the name of faith is ridiculously stupid. Whether Christian conquerors, Nazis or the Islamic State — killing to prove your belief system is superior might be the most poorly thought out strategy ever.
How did that train of thought go?
“Hey! They are making fun of us! They are calling us barbarians. They are drawing cartoons about how violent and backward we are! I KNOW. WE SHOULD KILL THEM TO PROVE OUR POINT.”
The only thing this violence has created is more hate, anger, evil and quite possibly more war. (And, of course, fan the flames of the exact source they were trying to extinguish. The magazine’s cartoons are more prominent today than ever. Well done.)
While men in black stormed the offices of this magazine with their weapons, shooting and killing with abandon — an actual storm is ravaging Syria, leaving millions of mostly Islamic refugees in peril. The news wires are full of photos of dead children — those who have frozen to death in the latest weather while hiding in icy refugee tents with their parents.
Healing the sick. Feeding the hungry. Housing the homeless. Loving the orphans and the widows and those who feel cast aside. Letting others you disagree with speak and trying to understand, rather than silence — this is how we should express our faith. This is how we should evangelize.
Love is how we show our character — regardless of who or what you worship.
~K