Although mean-speak is almost exclusively a province of way-far lefties who call for soldiers to train their guns on their officers and who say the vilest things about their political opponents (whom they see as "enemies"), sometimes even fine people succumb to the temptation to cross the line with their rhetoric. We hope the good folks at Le Sabot Post-Moderne would reconsider the wording of this post on the Christian Protest Team members who have been kidnapped in Iraq and who are threatened with death by their captors. They write:
In an ideal world, active treason would have consequences. For example, take Americans and Brits who go to a war zone and "work against" the American and British troops fighting and dying there. In a perfect world, really bad things would happen to such people. Well, sometimes the world can be downright ideal.
This is the truly amazing part about these chuckleheads. . . They went there to collaborate with the bad guys. The Islamists in turn kidnapped them and are threatening to kill them.
Whatever CPT's motives for being in Iraq, the kidnap victims should receive our compassion rather than our scorn. These are people who are doubtless quite frightened and who have families which must be beside themselves with worry for their loved ones. We should be praying for their rescue rather than gloating over their foolishness and naivet�.
We agree with Le Sabot Post-Moderne that CPT's presence in Iraq is unhelpful and perhaps even a hindrance, but this moment calls for Christians to express our love, not our judgment.
Even harsher is the language used at this site. It's not so much the sentiments or even the words chosen to express them that are offensive, but rather the circumstances under which the sentiments are voiced. When the lives of people hang in the balance Christians, it would seem, have an obligation to show that we care more about the people themselves than we do about their ideology.