Selective "pro-life"

I am always amazed at the selective embracing of life for those who claim to be "right to life"...
as I am often amazed at our inconsistencies... yes, I have my own...

Claiming to be "right to life", many also are in favor of CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, the invasion and occupation of foreign countries (with guns and bombs, of course), the covert, "surgical removal" of people who trouble us in other countries, and for the right to kill an intruder in one's home... some more radical folks are in favor of bombing abortion clinics and murdering doctors who perform abortions... many or most, while supporting legislation that will take away any assistance that might give children WHO ARE LIVING NOW a greater quality of life!

I am just saying that we must recognize the blatant inconsistencies we put out there.  The question becomes "whose right to life?" or more accurately... "who gets to choose and under what circumstances?"

Rather than ERR ON THE SIDE OF GRACE, we jump in with both feet and then rationalize, justify and legislate our prejudices with regard to life... the RIGHT TO A QUALITY OF LIFE I address on many other blogs... but the question of whose lives we value and whose we do not is the issue.

Troy Davis is to be executed on Wednesday in Georgia, which just happens to be the same evening my wife and I will celebrate our marriage on a beach in Key West with friends.  (No, we did not plan it that way.)  I will be thinking about that, to be sure.  We try to deter people from killing people by killing people.  We try to teach society that killing people is wrong by killing people, just to show them.

A Republican presidential hopeful from Texas was interviewed over his origination and support of a law to have girls vaccinated against the STD that leads to cervical cancer, an effort that was tied to money he received from those who put out the serum.  He denied that that was his reason for making it a law in his state and said that it was instead because "in Texas we value life".  Texas has one of the strictest capital punishment statutes in the country.  They execute more people than most any other state.  Yet, their murder rate is also still one of the highest in the country.  I think they are a good case study in how capital punishment is NOT a deterrent to violent crimes.  Violent people do violent acts is what it proves.
"In Texas, we value life."  Whose?

We will take another person's life, but only if...
    "it was him/her or me"
    "it was an accident"
    "it was temporary insanity"
    "it was in the throws of passion"
    "he/she had it comin'"
    "I was just following orders"
    "he/she was in the wrong place at the wrong time"
    "it is the law of the land"

If society or segments of society agree upon and take revenge, does it stop being revenge?
    is it not still a vengeful act?
When a group of us decide that we have the right to take a life, does that make it "right"?
    which group that does that is right then, and which is wrong?
It is all so "civilized" and legal... we are a very sophisticated mob doing this violence.
    like wearing a tux to a lynching... like serving tea and cookies outside the gas chamber...
    like setting off fireworks when the electric chair gets turned on...
    yes, these are ridiculous images... but we are not so far removed from the crowd gathered
        at the tree or the gallows ... from selling peanuts as the christians are eaten by lions...
        we can dress it up all we want, but it is still barbaric, uncivilized and wrong

I follow a Lord who was wrongly accused, pushed through a mock trial, tortured, mocked and
    executed... I wear his "electric chair"/"syringe"/"gallows" around my neck... He identified with those
    who go through such things... I KNOW that we who perpetrate them are not following Him...
It is wrong, according to the values I have grown to embrace because I follow Him...

More hatred does not end hatred.  It fuels it.  Only LOVE ends hatred.
"An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind."  Gandhi, oh yes, and Jesus (Matthew 5:38-42)
"Vengeance is MINE, I will repay", says The Lord.  (Deuteronomy 32:35-36; Romans 12:14-21)

Pastor Jamie
P.S. I will be blogging again after September 25... there are a lot of these musings in this blog that you have not read yet, so this is your chance to catch up  :-)