12.26.08 US SHOULD BE IN IRAQ!!!? world magazine position?

dear mr. belz,

i am a brother in Christ who enjoys your magazine very much but have been, in a growing way, upset by your position, reflected by a number of your writers, that the US should be in iraq. i share below my initial reaction noted when i read your 'profession of mush'. (by the way i have long thot that many in the church have put far too much confidence in president bush as opposed to putting all our trust in God and no trust in anyone else! ...so i was heartened by your article in that regard.)

fighting terrorism by doing what we are doing in iraq?! you've got to be kidding! look at the old testament battle scenes and their context. beyond the time of a God-ordered occupation of palestine by israel displacing the 7 nations living there then, david, a unique, God-granted picture of his Seed who will one day conquer this world literally 'in battle', is the only thoroughgoing exception to the fact that, for the most part, the kings of israel when in war with other nations were defending their own land. (do we have a better idea sashaying militarily far beyond our borders?) when you consider God's dealings with israel, a sinful nation like us and every other nation on this earth for that matter, He led them primarily to look to Him not military might for their deliverence from a hostile enemy. remember david's vivid 'what do i do, Lord' prayers when fighting the philistines, the command for the singers to sing praises to Him in the stead of the army to fight on another occasion, etc.?

we are justly hated around the world for we are doing what we would justly hate if someone violated our national, territorial sovereignty in the name of some lofty sounding idea. (who are we, the motherlode of an ongoing 40 year worldwide bloodbath now having claimed the lives of 1.5 billion innocent human beings, the world wide purveyors through our 'entertainment' and personal example of moral filth of every description...i ask, who are we that anyone should look up to us and want to emulate anything coming from us?)

democracy! what a joke!! first of all we ourselves are right at the door of totalitarianism. second, a democratic system of government is right next to anarchy on the continuum of governmental types, very far from a governmental type that reflects God. it is hardly to be lauded, let alone spread to others. if we survive as a nation we will be God-moved back to the right along the continuum to a republic, the rule of law reflective of the God of the Bible's law rather than the rule of man who is devoid of God's law by birth.

the uptick of worldwide persecution of our brothers and sisters in Christ is the direct result of our prideful buccaneering in iraq, etc, etc ad nauseum. where have we been to genuinely help people groups who have been mercilessly slaughtered by those stronger than them in the balkans, etc, etc. down to this very moment? instead of being diametrically opposed to the creedo 'might makes right' we have become the epitome, the example in real life of this creedo before the watching world. we do not know how to blush and actually wonder how anyone could refer to us as 'the great satan'! we are!! satan is all about destruction and lies and so are we.

we are the greatest sinners as a nation in the history of the world to this point. hitler's germany, stalin's russia, mao's china, cambodia's pol pot will rise up, surely and justly, in the judgment before the great white throne and condemn us. on the abortion issue alone we should have been leveled without a living being left long ago...except for the unbelievable mercy of God...He is staying His hand from that final act for His Name's sake alone.

Bush has not only obliquely brought on worldwide persecution of the church but has made himself the template for the dictatorship to come here. we as the church should be involved in everything and be a voice everywhere but unless that is matched with repentance (read that word -radical change of lifestyle) from our ongoing greed (wanting and determining WE WILL HAVE more than simple nourishment and covering) and multitude of other shameless sins, we and our words will be trodden under foot of men.