Final Word from Monday, December 27, 2010
Who is this Lord that giveth and taketh away, of whom you spoke on Thursday, asked several readers? If there is a Lord, one of the readers argued, He is not a good Lord; otherwise, He would not lead us so astray. The answer to the initial question, unfortunately, seems to be that many of those on earth purporting to do God's work are not God-fearing at all. The world is instead run by Christians who are not Christian, Jews who are not Jewish, Muslims who are not Muslim, and atheists with a theism of money and power. They are heretical in their actions, if not in their words. Instead of practicing the religions or doctrines that they profess, they are sacrificing their own people. Some of them do it with full knowledge of what their actions mean for our civilization; others are too shallow to understand what is happening. It is the latter, paradoxically, on whom we must pin our hopes of repentance.[Czech Republic Christianity Judaism Islam Islamism]
Glossary of difficult words
repentance - a feeling or expression of sincere regret or remorse about one's wrongdoing or sin;
the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away - a common paraphrasing of Job 1:21;
astray - away from the correct path or direction; into error or morally questionable behavior;
to purport - to appear or claim to be or do something, esp. falsely; to profess;
God-fearing - earnestly religious;
theism - belief in the existence of a god or gods;
heretical - believing in or practicing religious heresy (belief of opinion contrary to orthodox religious doctrine);
to profess - to claim openly but often falsely that one has (a quality or feeling);
shallow - not exhibiting, requiring or capable of serious thought;
to pin one's hope (or faith) on - to put one's hope or trust in someone or something.