Posted on 12/30/2001 5:37:42 PM PST by Harp
Let's put an exclamation point on this, please. The poll is closer than I would have thought.
When an American sixth grade teacher burned an American flag in the classroom and blamed the 9/11 attacks on America, ABC Radio News was silent.
If we are going to discuss religious freedom in the Middle East, how about American media discussing incidents in Egypt or Saudi Arabia?
I wonder if these Jews would be as charitable to a Christian principal that burned the Torah.
Maybe the teacher is traumatized. There's a Messianic Jewish woman (Jewish believer in Jesus) who hated Christianity because when she was a young woman, the Nazis grabbed her baby boy and threw him out the window to his death. She said they had belt buckles that said "In God We Trust" and she said if that is their God, she wants nothing to do with Christianity ever. They sent her to a concentration camp and above the doorway was a sign, "This is your punishment for killing Jesus". Sid Roth (sidroth.org) wrote about her story in his book Time is Running Short, but there are other similar cases.
I can't imagine someone Stateside who burned a copy of the Koran or Torah ever sticking around. He wouldn't last the day.
There's no reason Christians should except anything less than the firing of this guy -- unless we feel our religion is suddenly less worthy than others.
This guy didn't just spit on the Good Book or say it was trash, he went out of his way to make a display of burning it.
The only double standard I see here is the treatment of Christianity versus the treatment of other religions. As has been mentioned, no one would stand quiet if a Christian teacher burned a Torah. We would be sickened by that and asking if the guy was closet KKK. He'd also be out of a job.
"Pray for those who persecute you."
Sid Roth, a Jewish believer in Jesus, witnessing in Russia:
Our second stop was Saint Petersburg, Russia. Located in Northwest Russia on the Baltic Sea, Saint Petersburg is a beautiful city of some 4 million people. Spending three days in Saint Petersburg, thousands were saved and dozens of healings took place. As in the other countries, we were followed every where we went but in Russia it was the most obvious and overt. Saint Petersburg is one of the most anti-Semitic regions in the world and Jews are openly hated and persecuted here. We also encountered the greatest resistance here from the Orthodox (Hasidic) Jews who opposed the "Truth" of Messiah Yeshua and the news of His Salvation. Prior to the second scheduled outreach in Saint Petersburg, a group of Hasidic (Orthodox) Jews publicly protested in front of the rented theatre where the word was being preached. They passed out anti-Yeshua flyers, video taped all Jews entering the building, and were chanting Kabala curses over us and the event. The protesters (including the local Hasidic Rabbi) told the attendees that they had been caught on film and would not be allowed to immigrate from Russia to Israel (Aliya). The protestors said the video would be shown to Israeli immigration officials and those attending the outreach would be denied Israel Visa's because they would be labeled as Christians and believers in Yeshua. This was a tactic that was reminisce of the KGB! When we pulled up to the theatre in our taxi Sid said to start taking photographs of the protesters. I began taking pictures as soon as I got out of the cab and this made the protestors extremely agitated but they agreed to cease video taping if I quit taking pictures. We had reached an agreement and the outreach went on as scheduled with hundreds being saved. The hand of man cannot stay the hand of God! We went forward in faith and strength as we prayed I Timothy 1:7 "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power and of love and of a sound mind.", and Hebrews 13:6 "We will say with confidence, the Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can man do unto me?" God is breaking through in Russia, the Russian people are hungry for Him! So many miraculous healings took place that it's hard to recall them all; Club feet, bad hearts, injured backs, injured necks, deafness, etc. . . were all supernaturally healed. When God's Glory falls, signs, wonders, and healings occur. The last city country on our three city tour was Odessa, Ukraine.
Or like one of my favorite Freepers, TrueBeliever9, would say, "Nuke them with prayer!"
And you are saying, indirectly, that firing would not be the Christian thing to do? What rot. Actions have consequences. Sin has consequences -- between God and man, obviously, but also between man and man.
I'm all for forgiving (or reprimanding) the guy as one person to another, particularly if he was contrite, but he burned the NT while in his role as a teacher and a leader. Firing him is not going too far -- and it's certainly not unChristian, if that's what you were implying.
We sang secular and religous songs. We performed together with a French choir and a Czech student orchestra. The orchestra conductor tried to limit the number of religous songs in the program. Some people were drawn to us but we did not experience any outward hostility from any who may have been offended or angered.
Actually, it sounds worse to forego a chance at offering someone salvation.
Incidentally, missionaries aren't dragooning these kids off to some Christian mind control camp.
So what? There are many Ukrainians who were traumatized by Kaganovitch and are obsessed to the point of mental illnes.OK for them to burn the Talmud?
What is not in question, however, is that the teacher burned the New Testament in front of his sixth-grade class. The teacher who did that should be fired.
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