Dancing with...um...on the Dictators

Qaddafi. I have known that name nearly as long as I can remember. I don’t think I knew how to spell it until the events of the last couple of months. I suppose it was familiar to me because of growing up a few thousand miles from his regime, but perhaps it was because we were more likely to hear BBC growing up than Rush Limbaugh and American news sources haven’t always focused too keenly on Africa and its “(less than) benevolent” dictators.

Thanks to Steve Jobs (another recent major news item), I am able to read the news most mornings from sources like NPR, Fox News and The New York Times-I like my news varied. This can be a bit depressing since I can only do this on the internet as soon as I get to school, but it helps me feel a little more connected with the world around me. I suppose I have the best of both worlds here, connected in town and nearly cut off at the farm; like a little oasis from all the problems in the world.

I was given the gift of freedom. I have never (even in Africa) lived under oppression and fear. These are buzzwords that I hear from talking heads, but have no experience of myself. I say this to preface the remarks to follow should anyone wish to castigate me for speaking out of turn.

My heart has been troubled. This started actually when Osama bin Laden was executed by our armed forces (not by Obama personally as you would nearly gather from the gushing in the media). I have never seen such unbridled hatred and vengeance spewed out through social media from those that call themselves Christ followers. Twitter accounts and Facebook statuses became the western equivalent of dancing in the streets with an AK-47 in an impish display of glee. I never thought I would see so many Christ followers actually delighted when someone was, quite literally, shot to hell.

I think we feel removed from Qaddafi. Those old enough to remember know him as Reagan’s “mad dog from the Middle East.” He paraded around in harlequin robes of grandeur and made seemingly unremitting speeches at the United Nations. I haven’t studied the matter personally, but according to the media it would seem he was something of a devil cloaked in human flesh, and that being true, then he deserved justice.

There is a sense of “justice” that rises up in all of us when we see a bully begging for mercy at those he abused. We enjoy the switch of power, the sudden twist, the falling towards a denouement where all is returned to order once again and chaos is destroyed. In a sermon entitled, “God of Love, God of Judgment,” Michael Ramsden looks at the life of Jonah and his misinterpretation of justice for vengeance. Pointing to popular media (movies) he shows how popular vengeance is as a substitute for God’s justice.

I expect this sort of attitude in popular media and in Twitter trends. The vengeful spirit is a hallmark of fallen man (i.e. Cain who thought he was wronged in his offering). To see unregenerate man taking photos and laughing while holding the bloodied corpse of a violent man is not only ironic, it is expected. But this morning I read in Proverbs 17:5b:

“…he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.” (ESV)

But shouldn’t we as followers of Christ be different? In my reading of the Gospels I cannot see that Christ would advocate such behavior. Yes, it says that God will laugh at their calamity, but He is perfect in justice and vengeance; we are fallen and do not have the right to play God in that respect. Look at the beautiful stories of redemption that we love and see if you see the trend that I saw on Twitter and Facebook statuses. Look at Corrie Ten Boom and the soldier who made her endure untold humiliation and suffering and then asking her for forgiveness. What if she had reacted like those freedom fighters?

I am not condemning the U.S. intelligence decision to take out a threat to national security. I do not condemn the longing for freedom in the hearts of the Libyan people who disposed a man who had made their life stagnate in misery while he glided throughout the world in opulence. What I do condemn is my reaction of joy at the news. I applaud justice, but I will not, I cannot dance in the streets.


*Image from CBSNews.com