Day 17 (again, a day late) is the title parable The Orthodox Heretic. In this story a man enters a town seeking asylum. He is running from his home where the authorities want to arrest him for criticizing the state and the church. The caretaker of the church takes him in and offers him protection. Upon learning this, the leaders of the town search the scriptures and decide that the man should be handed over to the authorities. They should respect their leaders and not place their town in danger. The caretaker refuses, saying that the scriptures demand he care for this man. Then the leaders pray for God to speak aloud to all of them and convince the caretaker to do the expedient thing. Finally God speaks and tells the caretaker to turn over the man. He again refuses, saying that in order to remain faithful to God, he must disobey.
Peter again talks about the tradition of arguing with God. More importantly, he gives a foundation for ethics as followers of Jesus. He says, "It is in the face of the suffering child or the flesh of a tortured man that the ethical demand of God is written."
Yesterday I was listening to a video of Marc Thiessen defending "enhanced interrogation." Elsewhere he has appeared on "Christian" television shows doing the same and justifies it as an act that reflects his Christian faith. He has missed the picture altogether.
As an aside, I am struck by the difficulty I'm having keeping this little discipline of blogging on this book each day...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment