The Right Narrative?

The antidote to a wicked heart is the presence of a willing heart - a heart willing to follow Christ. He is the one who offers us the way to salvation. Jeremiah 17 states:
7 "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, And whose hope is the Lord.
8 For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit.
9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
10 I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.

We can look around us and be discouraged by the evil we see - just this past weekend, a man walked into a house of worship and took hostages.  We hear about crime statistics in our major cities.  We see the fruit of people being divided and hating one another.  The level of anger perhaps has reached a boiling point.  And, the enemy can take our divisiveness and turn us against one another. But Jesus brings the ultimate solution - He gave His life so that hearts might be changed and purified, that lives might be brought out of darkness into light.

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In our world today, we have to recognize the presence of pure evil.  The centrality of our problem with 
crime is not flesh and blood, as 2nd Corinthians 10, but the work of the enemy to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus was very clear about the wickedness of the human heart. He said in Matthew 5:
21 "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.'
22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'Raca!' shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire.

If a person is not walking with the Lord, he or she becomes prone to do harm to others. And, so often, we reject the spiritual dynamics at play.  

Take the recent events near Fort Worth in a synagogue this past Saturday.  A man enters the building during a service and takes four hostages, including the rabbi of the congregation - in a rescue operation, he loses his life. But, there were initial reports that the fact that the site of the incident, a Jewish synagogue, was merely incidental to the motive of the hostage-taker.  So, then, why not go into a department store?  A crowded theatre?  A police station?  You have to at least consider that the fact that there was a motive dealing with religious matters. 

Todd Starnes pointed this out on his website over the weekend, writing:

The terrorist had demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, also known as “Lady Al-Qaeda,” a convicted Islamic terrorist who had tried to kill U.S. soldiers.

He quoted an FBI agent who said, “We do believe that, from engaging with the subject, he was singularly focused on one issue and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community,” adding, “We will continue to work to find motives and we will continue on that path in terms of the resolution of the incident.”  

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that:

Before the Facebook livestream was taken offline about 2 p.m., an angry man could be heard ranting, at times talking about religion. The video did not show what was happening in the building. The man repeatedly mentioned his sister and Islam and used profanities. He was heard asking for his “sister” to be released from prison. The man said a few times he didn’t want anyone hurt, and he mentioned his children. He also said repeatedly he believed he was going to die.

The Guardian reports:

The British man who took hostages at a Texas synagogue had been under investigation by MI5 as a possible Islamist terrorist threat as recently as 2020, Whitehall sources acknowledged on Tuesday morning.

British intelligence closed the investigation, however, after officers had concluded Malik Faisal Akram from Blackburn posed no threat, and as a result he was able to freely travel to the US and purchase a gun.

Newsbusters featured the networks' coverage of this situation over the weekend, pointing out that the networks had stayed away from the phrase, "Islamic extremist" when describing the case. But, the website posed this question:

Back in December, the networks quickly abandoned a bigoted, anti-Semitic criminal as he drove his SUV into a Wisconsin parade, murdering six. After a day and a half, the networks have covered the synagogue hostage situation for 45 minutes. As more details come out, will they drop this story too?

On December 13, Newsbusters said:

It has now been 22 days since a bigoted, anti-Semitic criminal drove his SUV into a Wisconsin, parade, murdering six. Yet, not long after the Waukesha slaughter, the networks stopped mentioning the name of alleged killer Darrell Brooks. By December 7, ABC, CBS, and NBC had completely abandoned the story altogether.

The story says goes on to chide news organizations for using language that the attack was carried out by "the SUV."  

Miranda Devine, writing for the New York Post, has a theory on the reason for the silence concerning the Waukesha tragedy. She says:

There’s a reason the media are incurious about the hate-filled, anti-white social-media posts of suspect Darrell Brooks.

Waukesha is of no interest to these people, not just because the story does not serve their political purposes, as the Kyle Rittenhouse case did when they wanted to paint Donald Trump as a white supremacist.

No, they are burying the Waukesha story because it threatens the very core of the progressive revolution convulsing the country: criminal-justice “reform.”

Six people would still be alive if Milwaukee had not been hijacked by progressive prosecutors.

She takes Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm to task, writing: "His office let out Brooks on $1,000 bail Nov. 16, after he allegedly punched his girlfriend in the face and deliberately ran over her with the SUV he allegedly used in Sunday’s attack. Brooks’ criminal record is over 50 pages long." Devine adds:

Chisholm feigns dismay at the low bail now, but it was part of his plan.

He knows what happens when you let violent, recidivist criminals out of jail, if you handicap police and strip them of their powers, if you break the adversarial system, turn prosecutors into social workers, and close prisons.

Everyone knows. Crime and violence skyrocket, along with mental illness and homelessness. There is nothing compassionate or equitable about progressive criminal-justice reforms. They tyrannize the weakest and most vulnerable, the elderly, the infirm, and women and children.

But she contends that the DA "knew but he didn't care."

It seems you have politicians who are taking the "criminal" out of criminal justice - with lower bail for those caught damaging property in the summer of 2020 and reduced sentences for certain crimes in New York City.  We continue to see crime rising in major cities across America, and while it is certainly justified to point the finger at so-called "progressive" officeholders who have created an atmosphere in which crime can fester, we also have to understand the spiritual dynamics.

Jesus was clear about the evil that resides in the heart of individuals.  If we have hate toward another person or allow anger and bitterness to have a place inside, we have a time bomb that is ticking within our souls.  The enemy's scheme is to cause us to be divided, and hate is a powerful weapon.  So is 
anger. Those components in our hearts become toxic to us personally, and to our culture. Jesus also taught in Matthew 15:
18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.
19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

In order to combat crime, it is helpful to understand why a person engages in criminal behavior, and those are heart issues.  That is why we must be faithful to display the truth of God to a needy world.

And, we should certainly not harbor hate toward another person because of his or her religious practice. Each person has the right to choose the religion, or not religion, that he or she will follow.  And, there will be disagreements.  We should actually love a person of a different faith so much that we want that person to come into a saving knowledge of Christ, rather to hate him or her because they believe something different.  And, when we disagree over religion - or anything else - we should do so in a spirit of Christ's compassion.