Casting the First Stone

The world has really gone mad in the past few months. As the world is scrambling to deal with crises around the globe: the Islamic States, the Trump Presidency, Marriage Equality etc. etc., governments around the world seemed to have lost sight of what they are supposed to do as government or what it meant to be a government.

In Australia, the whole “us versus them” attitude in the government has never been as rife as now, thank you to the extreme right wing Tony Abbott government that tarnished and destroyed Australia’s reputation while trying to build a Pearly Gate that shuts everyone but his closest cabinet members out. A change of Prime Minister had not been as beneficial as most Australians had hoped to be. The issue here lies within the still strong extreme right wing influence in the Parliament that clipped the wings of this new Prime Minister, who seems to be working to just keep his job.

What really disappointed me is the extreme right wing’s continued use of “Christian values” to cast their stones against everyone. They branded all Muslims in the country or the world as Islamic State accomplices throwing out commentary that does nothing but divides the Australian community. Their attitude of Christianity is more supreme than other religions is building gaps in the society that are wider than the Grand Canyon. And then these “Christians” continue to attack the Safe School program and Marriage Equality claiming that they are grooming paedophiles and promoting distorted lifestyles in Australia. They held their Bibles high and yelled at anyone who did not agree with them. If their Bibles are made of stones they will not hesitate to cast them against anyone who opposed them.

However, is that what exactly the Bible taught us? Or are they just using the Bible as a weapon without properly understanding it? Brought up as a Christian from a Christian school one of the very basic things we learnt since we were kids were love and kindness for “God so love the world that he gave his only son”. That is what I took from the Bible. I honestly do not understand how people could act in the name of the Bible when they don’t even understand basic principles as such.

Looking closer at the records in the Bible, we also understand the Middle East descended from the same ancestor. Yes, for those who conveniently forgot about this, if you go back to Genesis you will find out that Ishmael, the son of Abraham was the ancestor of the Middle East. There is no denial that there might be bad blood (nope I am not referring to Taylor Swift and Katy Parry) but the fact is that if this is your own making, isn’t your own responsibilities to fix it? And if you all right wing Christians read the Bible carefully, you will remember God told Abraham that he will still bless Ishmael despite the fact that he was not the chosen one for that his promised. So looking from this angle, if Christians do think they are brothers in God’s faith, shouldn’t they be helping the refugees from Middle East because they are supposed to be blessed by the same God they believe in? If they are not doing so simply because they are not practicing the same faith, are they actually breaking God’s promise to them? Are they just not doing the duty they are supposed to do? It is convenient to divide by religion but if the religion is not meant to be divisive but keeping basic promises made by God, they probably should study it real hard again before making further claims against the rest of the world. Please note that this does not mean condoning what Islamic State is doing but to extend your love and fulfil your duty to bless and keep the descendants of the person God promised to bless.

The other thing is about how those right wing Christians attack the LGBT community as deviants and finding every excuse to put them down. I find it particularly hypocritical when Members of Parliament attack the Safe School program as grooming paedophiles. Hello aren’t we currently having a Royal Commission about the long history of paedophilia in the Australian Catholic Church? Just judging from this I do not know why these Members of Parliament who claimed to be Christians, and Catholics specifically can go around casting their stones against the LGBT community branding them as a breeding bed for paedophiles. Before you attack shouldn’t you be checking what’s happening in your house first? Also their repeated claims of this is against God’s will and these people will go to hell basically has not solid ground to base on. The foundation of their arguments is built on sand so to speak. The thing is God has repeated demonstrated He will bless and utilise people whom the so called “core Christians” would despise. Read through the Bible, God has used and blessed prostitute and non-Abraham-descendants as his messengers or agents to carry out His will. And really if God hasn’t opened up the Gospel to the Gentiles, I doubt these right wing Christians can even call themselves Christians now. So where is the logic that you can tell people who are God’s chosen people when your ancestors were just gentiles and outcasts? That is another fundamental principle these so called Christians need to remember and reflect upon.

It is always easy to cast the first stone in God’s name, but whether by doing so you are upholding God’s principles or you are actually committing blasphemy is another question. You can try building your earthly Pearly Gate and shut everyone else out in the name of God, but if you do believe in God, then what only matters is the pass to the real Pearly Gate, not the one you built in God’s name whatsoever. Christianity is a faith about doing good and not about how you interpret what is good at your own convenience for what man could have God’s wisdom to swear and act in God’s name? If you truly believe that you are a Christian, stay open mind like God did in the Bible and do whatever is good to the people around and the world, as the wrath of God is not yours to unleash but God’s.