Rosie and the Goodness of Man

Caveat – I am not a political commentator, nor do I watch much TV, but lately a lot of noise has been generated around Rosie O’Donnell statements – so much so that the newspapers I read have been carrying it. So please bear with me as I simply post some of my thoughts:

Well, I guess Rosie was right – Here is a quote from ‘The View’ when Rosie was arguing with one of the other hosts on the show:

Rosie O’Donnell: "Faith or fear, that's your choice. You can walk through life believing in the goodness of the world, or walk through life afraid of anyone who thinks different than you and trying to convert them to your way of thinking. And I think that this country–"

Elisabeth Hasselbeck: "Well, I'm a person of faith, so I, but I also believe–"

O’Donnell: "Well, then, get away from the fear. Don't fear the terrorists. They’re mothers and fathers."


I wonder if this ‘father’ felt any remorse as he detonated his explosives-laden truck near a school filled with children?

Truck Bomber Kills Schoolgirls in Kirkuk

Suicide Attack on Police Station in Northern Iraq Leaves 15 Dead, Scores Wounded
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 3, 2007; Page A14

BAGHDAD, April 2 -- A suicide truck bomber rammed into a police station compound near an elementary school in the northern city of Kirkuk on Monday, killing 15 people, including schoolgirls, and wounding scores of others, witnesses and police reported.
At the main hospital in the city, the courtyard was filled with injured children in bloodstained blue uniforms, a Washington Post special correspondent reported from the scene. Many had their heads and arms wrapped in bandages. Some clutched bloodstained books. A baby girl lay dead in the emergency room from shrapnel that had torn through her body. Doctors and nurses broke into tears because they couldn't save her. Naz Omar Shafiq, a fifth-grader, said she was attending her last class when the explosion rocked the Raheem Awa school, nestled in a majority Kurdish neighborhood, shattering glass and filling classrooms with smoke…

What of these ‘parents’? Do you think they are mourning their actions?

Insurgents using children to foil security

By Kim Gamel
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 22, 2007

BAGHDAD -- Police said yesterday that children were used in a weekend car bombing in which the driver gained permission to park in a busy shopping area after he pointed out that he was leaving his children in the back seat.

The account appeared to confirm one given Tuesday by a U.S. general speaking to reporters in Washington.

The children were used in a Sunday bombing in northern Baghdad, and U.S. officials labeled it a brutal new tactic put to use by insurgents to battle a five-week-old security crackdown in the capital.

The attack targeted people cooking food at open-air grills in the street as part of a Shi'ite Muslim holiday commemorating the anniversary of the prophet Muhammad's death.
Key details were missing from local police accounts, such as the ages and sexes of the children, whether they were among the victims, and what happened to their bodies.

A senior official in the Shaab neighborhood police department said an investigation was opened after the owner of a shop in the market district said he and other residents initially told a man he could not park his car on the street but relented after seeing the children in the back seat.

The U.S. military has warned that insurgents are finding new ways to bypass stepped-up security to kill as many people as possible and spread panic. A series of bombings using toxic chlorine since Jan. 28 also raised concerns.

Insurgent tactics have evolved since the war started four years ago, and youths often have been among their victims. But the use of children as decoys would signal a new level of ruthlessness in the fight for control of the capital.

Iraqi children have been drawn into the fight in the past, however.

In the deadliest cases, a suicide car bomber sped up to American soldiers distributing candy to children in July 2005 and detonated his explosives, killing about 27 people, including a dozen children and a U.S. soldier.

That occurred about nine months after 35 Iraqi children were killed in a string of bombs that exploded as American troops were handing out candy at a government-sponsored celebration to inaugurate a sewage plant in west Baghdad.

Rosie’s words are telling – ‘You can walk through life believing in the goodness of the world’ – Well that is where Rosie and I diverge (one of MANY places, I might add); I DO NOT believe in the goodness of the world, and it is the very brutality of the world which makes Paul’s words ring so true in Romans –

Here is a small snippet describing the world in which we find ourselves – Romans 1:29-31 -- They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

However, the truth is not that the US is the Savior of these people; it is only through Christ that any can be saved. We are all ruthless, self-centered and brutal if left to our own devices; it is only through the finished work of Christ on the cross that we find deliverance from the power of sin.

Yes, my sin may not be driving a truck full of explosives into a building, it may be that I am a self-centered, self-absorbed person in open rebellion against God, or I might be a over-paid, under-talented ‘name’ on TV who is speaking of things I have no clue about. But, neither me, nor Rosie O’Donnell are good people, and the only difference between us is that Christ has redeemed me. I am no better than her, and do not profess to be.

As Paul says in another letter – 1st Corinthians 6:9-11 -- Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Notice clearly that it is NOT the work of Ray that saves him; it is the monergistic work of God that brings me into the kingdom of God!

So, to Rosie and others I would say – I do not walk in fear – I walk in confidence in the Savior who bought me. I do not walk in the faith that the world is good – that is Pollyannaish, and requires one to ignore the reality of the world around them. Rosie O’Donnell is wrong on many fronts, but it is precisely here, where she believes in the goodness of man, that she shows her lack of cognitive thought…

Like so many modern-day prophets of the media, Rosie says 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace.’