How celebrating Life displaces celebrating God

The slogans that tell us that violence only breeds violence are, in the end, misleading. War often brings peace and reform as we found in Europe and Japan after the second world war.

Pacifists idealize the world we live in and ignore the existence of evil in the hearts of men and women and the absolute necessity of opposing them. The violent men who have robbed us of our humanity and turned us into objects to be disposed of must be stopped. The innocent must be protected and there are times in which the only way that that can be done is through violence.

The Christian can and must take up the gun, with fear and trembling and with great dread but with quiet resolve and strength. Otherwise evil will triumph.

There are some things that we are called to oppose, some things for which we might give our lives, some things for which we must be prepared to go to war. So, as we contemplate the events in Bali last Saturday night and how the bombs were detonated so as to create the largest number of casualties, our passion for justice must be kindled. This does not mean that we cry for revenge or that we persecute the adherents of Islam but it does mean that we coolly take steps to eradicate the organizations and individuals that were responsible and we pray to God to steel our judgment and to have mercy on us.