Permit me to muse a little. Are we, today, seeing God’s judgment being rendered?

Consider that for years, the religious pro-life groups have been praying to end abortion. Further, for years, they’ve been praying to (a) remake the supreme court so that it would have a rock solid pro-life majority, and (b) to build a solid pro-life legislative and executive majority to craft suitable pro-life law.

For a six year period, between 2000 and 2006, just such a majority existed in Congress, with an adamant pro-life President in the white house. During that time, no major pro-life legislation ever made it out of committee for debate, much less for a vote. Since then, the Republican party has seen a severe decline in it’s political fortunes.

I hesitate to assign God a part in such things….and yet…..

On the more general subject at hand, Khalid talks about the difficulty of assigning righteousness to God. I was raised with a very clear understanding that ‘I’ will always get myself in trouble when I try to specify what God will or will not do. God, after all, is by definition omnipotent and omniscient. Ultimately, God will do what GOD will do, and only occasionally will God do things my way. On prayer, I say frequently that I should always be careful what I pray for, I might just get it. The classic example is that one should never pray for patience. Most likely, the answer will be you finding yourself in a situation that requires infinite patience.

Tiller reaped what he sowed.

Obedience is a “good” thing, and it works as a discipline. Yet, it is only an act of discipline on the journey to being. Wax on, wax off.

Practise obedience and the way “may” occur automatically. What is still missing for an obedient person is to choose for themselves that which is the source.

Here is another way to view it. To your post, view the outcome, do the ends justify the means?

Do you do what you do to be right, or to honor your chosen way of being. Choose a way of being, and with integirity, the outcome is righteousness as viewed in God’s eyes.

Is a winner a winner in their own eyes, or do they work at their passion an the outcome is winning in your eyes? Do you see past the winning?

Do you not kill because you honor righteousness, or because you love and honor life?

Do you honor the elder in your community because they are righteous, or with respect for the virtues the elder honors.

For me, God has humility.

humble–adjective 1. not proud or arrogant; modest:

My view of God is that God is free of pride and arrogance. These or symptoms of righteousness. Only God can has power over righteousness.

For me, God has authenticity. God’s righteousness is not a strategy, but the outcome of “being” who God “is” when viewed by another. We do not honor the being when we see only in this way.

We are like God in this, as most things, in that we are in God’s image.
It is the same with judgement.

To your comment regarding terms, the distinction is, we do not apply them, we witness them, both in ourselves and in others.

If on judgement day, God chooses to apply them, God will, but not until then.

Much shorter version and after being more with your thoughts.

It is not possible to “be” right or righteous. It is inauthentic to claim it as a way of being. To your point, God can not “be” righteous. God can/may judge. We can not.

We may choose to be many things: accepting, powerful, free.

We can no more “be” right than “be” love. We access these through our choices in being.

Acceptance is our access to love. Judgement is our access to right and wrong (righteousness).

We may act in a righteous manner. These are only other’s views of us made in judgement. We may be judged as righteous. To your point, do we dare judge God as righteous? god may speak this only of God’s self.

Jesus says of himself. “I do not judge, and if did I would be right.” Very powerful. speak it for yourself, both as God would speak it and then as you as human would speak it, both as power over it, and as warning to it. the key to getting it as the word is jesus is not boastful.

We may not truly “be” righteous. Thank god.

Even shorter, there is no glory in “being” right.

At best, it is a booby prize. Those with integrity and faith are up to other things.

Tarnishing this prized possession of the believers will not make me popular, I am sure.

It is Jesus message to the Pharisees, and his call to be born again.

It is perfectly acceptable to get angry; Christ himself was angry when He overturned the moneychanger’s tables. We should get angry at sin.

Too many times Christians turn their backs on the world and their brothers who are trapped in sin or are temped by sin: it’s not my problem, I shouldn’t judge. What a shame, you stand up for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.

Christians are called to be obedient to God’s teaching.

Another–God doesn’t say don’t kill, He says don’t murder (premediated killing). He also understands that there will be accidents (see old Testament about an axehead flying off and killing your neighboor-Duet. I believe)

Righteousness is trying to think and live according to a set code, e.g. the Bible. If we are called to be like Jesus, shouldn’t we strive to be righteous?!? I agree self-righteousness is not a quality that should be desired.

I identify myself more so with the Republican party than others because more often than not they are more conservative. I believe in self reliance, most people should work for what they have. Some people cannot do that and they need help, the help should atart at the community level.
I don’t believe it is the government’s responsibility to take care of me or anyone else on a personal level.

Another,
Thank you for your thoughtful comments and the effort you are putting into them. One message I am getting is the futility of words how they can imprison our ideas. You are using some of the terminology of Tolle so I am assuming you are familiar with his work. From reading what you wrote I realized that I am using the word righteousness in a very different manner. In Islam we are engrained in the idea that there are no absolutes of qualities for human beings only for the divine. Mercy, love, justice, whatever these qualities only exist in perfection in the Creator (Al-Lah The Undefinable). So when talking of them with respect to us I have (unconciously) implicitly thought of them as relative qualities. So righteousness is our attempt at being in harmony with the Creator’s intent. It cannot be a fixed set of actions. Life is a growth process (hopefully!) and so our understanding of the Creator’s intent should also evolve. Righteousness would then be evolving our actions to keep working on achieving harmony with the Creator’s intent.

I know we have digressed far from the original intent of this blog (but c’est la vie!) but in a way understanding prayer (or meditation if you will. Again lets not get hung up on words) as our connection to the Creator is essential to understanding everything else. Fatima Mernissi in her book ‘Beyond the Veil’ ( which was a critical look at male domination in Muslim Society) talks of the comfort of prayer. She talks of women praying and how it comforted them in a world full of oppression. If nothing else prayer can be a refuge for the oppressed. But used properly it can be like a beacon steering us to do God’s will.

The problem is that people do not pray. They go through the motions but there is no communication. Their actions that need to evolve through the guidance of prayer instead get frozen in the direction they chose at an early point and no wonder they steer off course.

Peace.

I will offer another view.

Instead of anger, Paul suggests it is appropriate to experience grief in the face of sin.

anger–noun 1. a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong; wrath

Anger is aroused by judgement of a wrong. Wrath is fierce anger with deep resentful indignation, vengeful and punishing. If this does not demonstrate the distinction of Old and New Testament, I do not know what will.

Consider it takes great strength and faith to be in the presence of sin, and accept responsibility for it. Even when as a person we are not the source. It is automatic in us to take this on universally as God does, as Jesus does for us. We are in God’s image.

The pain of it is too much for us to bear, we are tempted to judge and blame to numb the pain and grief of sin. We can not bear the responsibility of it. To use judgement and righteous indignation in this way is not Godly.

It is not wrong. It is what we do. Jesus has taken this on for us. We no longer need to blame in the presence of sin. We are given freedom from judgement.

I shared your view of Jesus and the money changers. I remember pictures of an angry Jesus in a picture in my Sunday school class driving out the money changers.

Interestingly, there is no mention of Jesus being angry in the scripture. Only that he overturned the tables and drove them from the temple. Then he went about healing. One cool dude.

Judgement is not neccessary to take action. We are called to action by who we are, not the sin of another or the fear and anger in its judgement.

The temple has an intent. There was a lack of integrity in what was occurring. Jesus, a rabbi, took action to realign it with its intent. No anger.

A choice, a commitment, and integrity is all that is required to be called forth to take action.

The idea that action must be justified has many purposes, none have integrity.

Truth be told, we are inspired to act. Any action that is undertaken in the context of anger is suspect in that it is several layers removed from the inspiration that we are. Those layers are reason and justification to hide our guilt at acting in anger from judgement, because we want to be seen as strong and righteous in our anger.

For me as a discipline, it is more effective to be obedient than righteous. In obedience, an inspiring choice, commitment and integrity are required. In righteousness, justification and judgement are required.

I accept your distinction of murder and killing. I would debate the use of justification in killing, but for another time.

Look to the words. Jesus is this word incarnate. What a blessing, our God.

Khalid,

My most recent post was for John R.

Clarity in word is essential to prayer. If it is not in our laguage, and clear in our use of it, it does not exist for us.

People pray as they speak.

Thank you for your work in this.

Mr. Shah, thank you for deleting my comment asking why you are ignoring my comments. What? They weren’t funny enough for you this time? Come on respond. I’d like to read what you have to say. Why hasn’t the Muslim community issued a statement regarding their last terrorist act in America?
At least the pro-life community condemned Dr. Killer’s killing.