By Donnie Johnston
COLUMNIST
When I was a child, we sang this song in Bible school:
Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Red and yellow, black or white
They are precious in his sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world
It might be very difficult to explain Earth religion to an alien from another planet. Put simply, almost all religions — and there are hundreds of different ones scattered around the planet — agree that there is an all-powerful creator to whom we must give thanks for our very existence. But Earth religions are far more complex than that.
The members of every sect believe strongly that their religion is the only true religion and that all the followers of any other religion are misguided and bound for doom.
To that end, the members of every religion want every person on the face of the Earth to belong to their religion because they are right, and all others are wrong. And they will kill and maim and torture to make that happen, all in the name of God, of course.
I bring all this up right now because America is now in a war with Iran under the pretense that that nation is developing weapons of mass destruction (where have we heard that before). It, of course, has nothing to do with the fact that Iran is an oil-rich nation and we would love to gain control of their crude.
We have wanted control of Iran and its oil since the end of World War II when we established a puppet government there under the leadership of the pro-American Shah.
But the Iranian people burst our bubble in 1979, toppled the Shah and sent Western civilization packing. We have been fuming ever since and just itching to attack and reconquer the land that was once the Persian empire.
To do so, however, would be to further destabilize the Middle East, already boiling with wars, rumors of wars, regime changes and civil unrest in virtually every country. And we had no legitimate reason to attack Iran. They were no real threat to us.
Now things are different. Now we have an excuse. When Israel attacked Iran, the conflict became a holy war and holy wars are permissible under all conditions.
Sen. Ted Cruz reiterated this point in an interview last week. He said that he learned in Sunday School that we must never turn away from Israel. He did not elaborate on whether “turning away” and aiding and abetting are different strategies.
In one respect, Cruz is right. According to the Bible, the Israelis are God’s chosen people, which means that whatever Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does has God’s blessing and likely occurs on God’s orders. Thus, if America follows suit, we are not making an unprovoked attack but rather helping the Almighty achieve His purpose.
But then if the Israelis are God’s chosen people, then we are not, so President Donald Trump likely does not have the hotline to heaven that Netanyahu does. Given this lack of communication, maybe, just maybe, God wanted us to sit this one out. But then we seldom listen to God when oil fields and greenback dollars are at stake.
I know it may be hard for Americans, in all our arrogance, to believe, but as stated in the Bible, the Israelites, not the citizens of the US of A, are God’s chosen people.
To be specific, America is mentioned nowhere in the Bible. In fact, to the writers of the Bible, 80 percent of the world – including North and South America, Asia, Antarctica and the countries of the Pacific realm – did not even exist. Under the science of that day, the world was flat, and you fell off some giant waterfall into oblivion long before you got to America.
The biblical world was essentially limited to the Middle East, Greece and, in the New Testament, Italy. North America was non-existent.
Which brings us back to the little song at the beginning of this column. God loves all the little children of the world, yet we have no hesitation about sending bombs into a country that has not attacked us and blowing innocent kids to bits, all in God’s name.
And because they have not been baptized, many Christians believe these children’s souls will end up in hell, even though we kill them before they are old enough to be converted. Explain that facet of religion to someone from another planet.
One final note. Where, you may ask, is the United Nations in all this Israeli-Iran mess?
Unfortunately, the UN was emasculated by President George Bush in 2003 during the Iraq invasion. Americans now condemn it as “useless” because it no longer rubber-stamps our every wish.
The other day I heard an online preacher say that if all this turns into World War III, it is simply God’s will.
That’s one of the beauties of religion. If we mess up and it all goes wrong, we just blame it on God’s will.
You have to wonder if the Almighty gets tired of being used as the scapegoat.
Amen.
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