Horton on the Two Kingdoms and the Death of bin Laden

Mike addresses bin Laden's death in light of the two kingdoms.  Great stuff!

While I stayed up late watching the news coverage and am now sleep deprived (I wish I had been at the Phillies game when the crowd started spontaneously chanting USA! USA! or on the subway car in New York when people began singing the national anthem) Mike was busy writing, addressing the confusion of civil justice and the kingdom of God.

Horton on the death of bin Laden

Comments

[Richard]

Great stuff from Mike. Thanks for sharing. I didn't even bother seeing who won the Phillies game. Who cares?

[Alberto]

I am wondering due to something Dr. Horton wrote. He referred to "lust for revenge", and Christians tend to usually think of revenge as a bad and even sinful thing; is revenge really always bad? Isn't it necessary to seek revenge at times? If revenge is bad in an absolute sense, then we should never support the prosecution of someone who has wronged us, no matter how bad the deed might have been. It seems from Romans that God comforts us by saying to leave room for his wrath, and that the state is itself a means of vengeance that God approves.

Still, the article is good for all of us believers to read. We can't celebrate as some do, because when we think of our state before God apart from Christ, we realize that we are ultimately not better than the savage killers we measure ourselves against to feel good about ourselves.

[pb]

I'm finding myself in a minority in saying that these gleeful demonstrations give me great pause. It's good and just that OBL is dead on a lot of levels, but the celebrations I saw reminded me far too much of the jubilation on the "Arab street" when 9/11 took place originally.

[robin]

Providence has granted us a mercy in removing one great evil from The Present Evil Age.

[CVanDyke]

As usual, Dr. Horton nailed it. Very balanced, thoughtful, and biblical. I would say that temporal justice, admiinistered through due process or just war, is a fit subject for Christians to celebrate, with moderation as Dr. Horton cautions, since but for the grace of God we could be the object of the same temporal justice and eternal justice. The state bears the sword not in vain as God's minister for temporal justice. When God has through the state executed temporal justice, it is right and fitting, it seems to me, to rejoice and give thanks, tempored by mourning over the sins of a fallen world, including our own.

[Rana]

I'm so tired of hearing that the "Arab street celebrated after 9-11". The alleged evidence showing celebrations were video from 1993 after signing of the Oslo Accords. I was living downtown in the largest city in the Arab world. I'm telling you there were no such celebrations in the streets. Again, the footage that people often refer to is from 1993 Oslo Peace Agreement.

Not one single person was interviewed and given opportunity to speak, what the media calls V-for Victory was in actuality the Peace sign after Oslo Peace Agreement. The media doesn't interview one person in these videos, these videos are OLD from PEACE celebrations. No one is interviewed, no one is saying anything about 9-11.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuvscDkrs3U&feature=related

[Alberto]

This is not meant as criticism of you Dr. Riddlebarger, but I just read some of the comments at the White Horse Inn blog, and some seem to have come away with a somewhat different interpretation of what Dr. Horton wrote. Or maybe I'm wrong and you have some slight disagreements with Dr. Horton.

[Lloyd I. Cadle]

pb -

I thought much the same thing. It was great that we finally got OBL, but the reaction in the streets left me scratching my head. It didn't quite seem like the American thing to do.

[Stampie]

On Horton: You can't spend twenty years beating up Evangelicalsm, then go write for CT. That's simple hypocrisy.

[Kim Riddlebarger]

Stampie:

Taking drive-by cheap shots at people like Horton without using your real name is simple cowardice.