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Opinion: Reflections on a week when madness overwhelmed public discourse

Live the faith steadily and, perhaps equally important, don’t lose your sense of humor. A little jocularity helps when the circus insists on calling itself statesmanship.

(Image: Xavi Cabrera / Unsplash.com)

These past few days have given us a series of civic episodes in which the public square seems to lose its mind all at once. Let’s consider just a few of them.

Joy Behar said on ABC’s “The View” that Jesus never went around declaring Himself the Messiah and then got corrected in real time by her own co-host. Tucker Carlson amplified the line that “Muslims love Jesus” in the middle of a broader anti-Israel turn. President Trump publicly attacked Pope Leo XIV on Truth Social, and Vice President Vance publicly joined the criticism. And Trump also circulated imagery on Truth Social that drew outrage for casting him in overtly messianic terms during his feud with the Pope.

I’ll begin with the obvious point: Jesus did, in fact, identify Himself in both messianic and divine terms. In John 4:25–26 He tells the Samaritan woman, “I who speak to you am he.” In Mark 14:61–62 He answers the high priest’s question about whether He is the Christ with an answer so direct that the court erupts. In Luke 4:18–21 He reads Isaiah in the synagogue and then declares that the Scripture has been fulfilled in their hearing. Catechesis and theological musings rarely succeed on daytime television talk shows. But Scripture does state that Christ is “the same yesterday and today and for ever” (Heb. 13:8), which means our era gains zero authority to reinvent Him according to comedians such as Behar.

Meanwhile, the Tucker Carlson line must, I think, be judged more strongly, because the claim that Muslims and Christians “love Jesus” in any shared theological sense is false and absurd. The Quran says of Christ, “they neither killed nor crucified him” in Surah 4:157, says “Allah is only One God” and “far above having a son” in Surah 4:171, and says “The Messiah, son of Mary, was no more than a messenger” in Surah 5:75. That figure is radically different from the Jesus of the Gospels and of history, who said “I who speak to you am he” in John 4:26 and answered the high priest, “I am” when asked whether He was the Messiah in Mark 14:62.

Christians worship the crucified and risen Son. Muslims reject His Sonship, His Cross, and therefore His saving identity. As the late New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado once wrote, “to speak about God without reference to Jesus is inadequate discourse about God.” Tucker would do well to learn that point. The Islamic Isa is a revised religious character stripped of Calvary and emptied of divinity. Therefore, Tucker’s remark was asinine, as Muslims and Christians do not revere the same Jesus at all.

Then there is the Trump versus Pope Leo clash, which has now moved far beyond a passing irritation and into the realm of real public disorder. Trump publicly called Leo “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy,” refused to apologize, and kept escalating after the Pope’s peace appeals regarding Iran. Reuters also reports that Trump reposted an image of himself with Jesus embracing him amid the widening backlash from Catholics and other Christians. Vance then sharpened his own criticism of the pope’s rhetoric, even as the political and religious fallout in the U.S. grew more visible. None of this, of course, proves that every papal prudential judgment is beyond disagreement. It does, however, prove that American political culture has become intoxicated with treating even the sacred authority of the papacy as just another target in the mud-slinging grinder of political ugliness.

Yet, amid such insanity, Christians ought to resist the temptation to talk as if history began less than a week ago. Western history has seen weeks far more mad and troubling than this one.

During the Reign of Terror in revolutionary France, the state quite literally put terror “on the order of the day,” arrested hundreds of thousands, and executed thousands as revolutionary virtue became an excuse for bloodlust. In 1914, Europe moved from diplomatic tension to world war in roughly five weeks after the assassination at Sarajevo triggered alliance systems and mass mobilization. In Salem, Massachusetts, during 1692 and 1693, an entire colony descended into accusation and judicial delirium until nineteen people had been hanged and many others imprisoned.

Human societies can lose proportion very quickly when fear, tribalism, and ideology take hold. Our age did not invent this frenzy; it just digitized it and gave it social media traction.

Even so, history also gives us reason for hope, because each of those episodes eventually broke under the pressure of truth or institutional recovery. The Terror ended with Robespierre’s fall. The fever in Salem ended when authorities finally rejected spectral nonsense and started acting like adults again, letting reason reign. Europe eventually rebuilt after wars that had shredded its own soul. Human beings are capable of great madness. Human beings also are capable of returning to reason, rebuilding institutions, and rediscovering our moral limits. Grace can do even more than that.

The Christian assessment of history never cycles in despair, because the Resurrection introduced an irreversible fact into time: Christ rose from the grave. Therefore, history has a Lord, chaos has an expiration date, and, most of all, the insanity of evil has a stopping point.

That is why Christians must guard their minds. “God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-control” (2 Tim. 1:7). “Do not be anxious about anything,” and “the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6–7). “You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you” (Isa. 26:3). “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).

Our Lord Himself says, “Let not your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1) and “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). These texts compel us into disciplined sanity under God’s divine sovereignty.

The Church says the same in her public teaching. Gaudium et Spes teaches that peace is far more than the absence of war and must be built upon justice and a rightly ordered society. Benedict XVI taught that politics itself is inseparable from the question of justice and therefore from ethics. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church teaches that the Church’s social doctrine illuminates society precisely because the Gospel speaks to the human person and to public life as such.

In other words, the Church does not retreat into a private devotional corner while media insanity stokes cultivated frenzy. The Church stands firm that Christ is Lord over man, nations, and history.

Do not get disheartened, my friends. This week has been ugly, overheated, and intellectually embarrassing. Oh, at times, so embarrassing. Yet Christ is Lord, and media cycles will burn out very quickly. The Church has seen everything, including wars and outrageous actions. She outlived them all because Jesus Christ, the true Messiah and eternal Son of God, lives. Keep your head and keep your prayer and fasting constant. Live the faith steadily and, perhaps equally important, don’t lose your sense of humor. A little jocularity helps when the circus insists on calling itself statesmanship.

Above all, keep your eyes on the Lamb who was slain and who lives eternally, because this whole scenario may still unfold in ways none of us can yet map, yet the final verdict already belongs to Him: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11:15).


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About Marcus Peter 15 Articles
Dr. Marcus Peter is the Director of Theology for Ave Maria Radio and the Kresta Institute, radio host of the daily EWTN syndicated drivetime program Ave Maria in the Afternoon, TV host of Unveiling the Covenants and other series, a prolific author, biblical theologian, culture commentator, and international speaker. Follow his work at marcusbpeter.com.

47 Comments

  1. Why is it asinine to say that Christians and Muslims “love” Jesus? Carlson was making the point that they both revere him, not that Muslims are Christians. As is well-known, they revere Christ only as a prophet. Now Mr. Trump, for example, can love Mrs. Trump without believing her to be God; he could even be grossly offended by people who thought she was.

    We don’t think the world began this week, only that Trump and Vance let the cat out of the bag when it comes to respecting the Church’s duty to speak on public morality. It wasn’t a pretty sight. So, yes. It’s been a week to remember.

    • I agree with you Mr. Cervantes. It makes sense to me.Love, revere, & honor are all related to each other.It doesn’t have to define who we believe Christ to be. That will differ according to our religion.

  2. No human person is capable of bringing about peace in the world. Peace is only possible when it comes through Jesus Christ. The world needs Christ and Christ needs to be front and center before ALL others.

    • “Benedict XVI taught that politics itself is inseparable from the question of justice and therefore from ethics.”
      “No human person is capable of bringing about peace in the world. Peace is only possible when it comes through Jesus Christ. The world needs Christ and Christ needs to be front and center before ALL others.”

      To be honest, this week illuminated the fact that once politics no longer puts Christ front and center, all hell breaks out, which is why we can know through both Faith and reason that Peace is not just the absence of war, and why we can know through both Faith and reason that because of the Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life, we have a responsibility to protect innocent Human Life from those who desire to harm and destroy innocent human life, hence The Catholic Church’s teaching known as Just War. One would think a Just War is one that serves to destroy the means of terror while sparing innocent human life.

      Unfortunately, by selectively address the crux of the matter and not calling terrorism, evil, it appeared that the Papacy dismisses the evil of terrorism, and that it is merely a political entity that Christ did not establish for The Salvation of Souls and thus for human flourishing, which is more than disturbing from a Christian perspective.

      “Human societies can lose proportion very quickly when fear, tribalism, and ideology take hold”, but when a man elected to the Papacy has lost proportion, in regards to Faith and morals, than woe to us!
      The Papacy has been compromised.

      Novena to Saint Peter Damian: 15–23 February – Voice of the Family

    • We used to be taught that Honest Abe had a plan, or at least a chance, at promulgating world peace, before he was assassinated.

      • I think Lincoln had a chance of avoiding a terrible war in the first place. But so did some unwise folks in the South.

  3. Certainly, President Trump went way overboard with his statement with his words, “we’ll destroy their whole civilization.” That runs counter to his other statements that he is trying to help the freedom loving people in Iran (who as we all know) have been and are being slaughtered by the Islamic Revolutionary Regime controlling Iran.

    The essay is a tad incomplete and ill-balanced, obviously. It leaves out the political words and actions of Pontiff Leo, when he contradicted St. Augustine regarding Just War, and completely threw away the Just War principles, and declared that “God doesn’t hear the prayers of those who wage war.” After which he performed an act of naked politics by meeting with Obama’s agent David Axelrod, whereby the two orchestrated the political theater of having “the 3 STOOGES OF McCARRICK” go on 60 Minutes.

    Vice President Vance was correct in criticizing what the Pontiff Leo said about waging war, showing that he believes in Augustine’s principles of Just War, in contrast to the words (and likely the actual beliefs) of the Pontiff Leo.

    Our Church leadership establishment since the abdication of Pope Benedict seems to be “contracted out” to serve the will of Barack Obama (who was in league with McCARRICK) and David Axelrod and President Xi of China and James Martin, to ensure destruction of the US snd Europe by open borders, to conduct the prototype of changing the Church in China into a political tool that teaches children Mao-ism and Marxism, and promotes the “Queering-the-Church.”

    So while I do think that it’s good to have a sense of humor, and mine extends to the bombast of President Trump, my sense of humor also includes the Church, and right now, and indeed ever since 2013, the Church establishment is a joke.

    Sad to say, with the Church reducing itself to a joke, the joke is on us. Just ask David Axelrod.

    • Chris in Maryland: Do you think for a minute that, were he not murdered by a leftist lunatic, Charlie Kirk could have asked for and received in short notice a private meeting with the Pope as did the Obama operative/Saul Alinsky protégé St. David Axelrod?

      Yes, the Church of Latter-Day Teddy McCarrick is alive and well in the USA and throughout Europe.

      • I agree 100% Ed.

        To the progressive Catholic Church establishment, a word of prophecy from Good Friday:

        “If they do this to the green wood, what then will they do to the dry.”

    • Well said Chris! A balanced reply like yours rings true for me. I especially agree with what you say about Pontiff Leo who I believe is misrepresenting the Church’s doctrine on war by implying that all war is unjust by the recent statements he has made. They come off as very nieve and ideological which is not the true Catholic ideology anyway. He is liberal and influenced by nominalist philosophy and modernist ideas.

      Certainly I agree in the principles of Just War from St.Augustine and medieval times in the Church. I believe the interpretation and practical application of Just War priciples need to consider the inflitration of the enemy’s culture and the power of nuclear warheads and intercontinental missles in modern warfare. Proactive defense is appropriate in my opinion to counter these threats. We need to counter threats in this modern age before the infiltration tactics of communism and radical Islam have taken serious weakening effects and division which makes the western world and US vulnerable to destruction.

      • John:

        Thank you. I agree 100% about the need to grasp the Just War principles. Sometime earlier this week, a contributor at First Things has an essay about this topic, and argued that it is being distorted and impoverished by the Pontiff Leo, who is now being exposed as a life-long member of the “Ted-Kennedy-Katholic-disarmament-Church.”

        I will post a link to the FT essay on Just War principles.

    • Intimidation is a very useful tactic in any violent situation. Individuals and nations are both aware that you have to be willing to act as well as capable of it, so using words, body language, etc. that indicate your willingness can go a long way toward convincing them that you at least *might* be willing, which can often avoid far worse consequences than some unpleasant rhetoric.

      Police and soldiers know this, and use it. Displays of overwhelming force and profanity-laced, aggressively shouted orders are employed to avoid killing people. This is because even people who intend grave harm to others can generally be counted on to desire self-preservation. And even countries with military members willing to blow themselves up to kill others can be counted on to desire the preservation of the country (or at least to have some people in the government who do).

      Needless to say, intimidation tactics are a terrible idea in polite company, or even impolite company that has enough decency to not be trying to murder people. That is not the situation Trump is in with Iran.

      Pope Leo’s other statements seem to indicate that he at least believes in just wars in theory; he seems to have either used imprecise statements or an overly precise definition of “war” (to always mean “unjust war”, waging war means throwing the *first* punch, not responding to aggression by throwing the second) that no non-theologian/cleric understands. Which is the sort of thing that happens to everyone who talks a lot, even as it is very difficult for anyone listening to deal with. VP Vance and others who objected on those grounds were right to do so, seeing how much confusion it has caused in all areas of the political/ecclesiastical spectrum. But, thinking that Leo has actually rejected just war theory is a step too far, and unsupported by the evidence, and the sort of conclusion that we should be pretty slow to come to.

      If Pope Leo was engaging in politics (to a certain extent that comes with the Papacy, and it’s entirely possible that he’s taking Trump’s statements at face value), I think Trump’s attack in response turned it to Trump’s advantage as far as peace with Iran goes – dude’s willing to publicly attack the Pope over employing violence in Iran, probably he’s sufficiently willing to employ violence that Iran should be in self-preservation mode.

      Now, I can’t for the life of me figure out how much of this was intentional by any of the various parties, how much was intuitive or instinctual, and how much was just their misunderstandings, faults, and vices coming out. But God’s Providence has been in charge of the whole thing, and still is, and I’m pretty sure He and His bride the Church will have the last laugh.

      • Amanda:

        I believe you are replying to me and as such I wanted to respond.

        I agree with virtually all of your prudent and temperate assessment of the fraught situation.

        In candor, I diverge on one point, in that while the Pontiff Leo may have some very limited general concept that some warfare is just, and on that basis he or someone else might plausibly claim he somehow holds to Just War principles, I have concluded from his own choice of words, that he either completely rejects the principle, or that in his mind, and the minds of his cohorts, it is reduced to such a limited concept that it has no real bearing on reality.

        The Pontiff Leo knows how to speak clearly, and he is a Canon Lawyer, so in his case, the onus of clarity and prudence is on him.

        The news that he suddenly met with the political agent David Axelrod is a signal of alarm against trusting the actual motives of Pontiff Leo in posturing himself about the war against the Islamic Revolutionary Government Regime in Iran.

        And the report from a guest on the Hugh Hewitt show last Friday that as a seminarian, he participated in public political disarmament demonstrations againt President Reagan during the Pershing Missile controversy indicates that the Pontiff Leo probably doesn’t hold much of anything about Just War principles.

        In that matter, given what is emerging from Pontiff Leo, an opening assumption that might otherwise be granted to a pontiif, that he is not a pacifiist, but holds to JUst War principles, can no longer hold.

  4. “God doesn’t hear the prayers of those who wage war.” Pope Saint Pius V (Lepanto) and Blessed Innocent XI (Vienna) among others would disagree.

  5. I appreciate the article. It resonates with truth. The world is very divisive, but it has always been so to one degree or another. It is important for me to focus on my own community – am I being a source of peace with those around me and to what degree? My sins are many and I desperately need the prayers of others that my heart focuses more intently on the Savior. I depend on his mercy, and I am grateful that it is limitless.
    I agree that we all have a role to play in politics – but you will not catch me in a protest march. I participate by voting. My focus is striving daily to demonstrate where my heart is rather than attempt to mouth words that are not believed.

  6. Within all of the “activity” that has taken place over the past week, we also have the trio of Cardinals, all extremely liberal who continued to perpetuate a political agenda veiled in Catholicism, their version. The 60 minutes piece was an opportunity for them to promote their agenda of support for lawlessness (illegal immigration, hate for DHS/ICE) while also promoting “just war theory” as being absolute. The President was/is wrong, also the VP who spoke out in support of the President; but wrong from the perspective of presenting himself as a Messiah and generally attacking the Pope. Leo XIV as an American, but also Pope, leader of the Catholic CHurch spoke from a papal and American citizen viewpoint. Peace is needed and wanted, war is evil- agreed! yet, there is in today’s high tech world a place for preemption to prevent nuclear war without using nuclear weapons. Other issues TBD

    • Agree 100%.

      Those 3 characters are total outlaws and political agents, whose primary sacrament is their “preferential option for sodomy.”

    • I guess the real question is , who is behind the compromised Papacy, which we can know is compromised because it lacks the ability and desire to call the evil of terrorism, evil, when it had an opportunity to do so.I am going to take an educated guess and say it most likely would be Baptized Catholics who have broken their Baptismal Promises, by denying The Sanctity and Dignity of the marital act within The Sacrament Of Holy Matrimony and thus God’s Divine Will that we respect The Sanctity and Dignity of all Human Life from the moment of conception, in order to accommodate the Democratic Party’s desire that we are not only subject to the sin of sexual immorality that denies the inherent Sanctity and Dignity of every human person, but forced to accommodate their desire that abortion be seen, not as a denial of the inherent, unalienable Right To Life of every Human Person from the moment of conception but that it be seen as an affirmation of our inherent, unalienable Right to Life, which every Faithful Catholic can know through both Faith and Reason is a lie from the start.
      How else can we explain the failure of The Papacy to correct the Joe Biden Administration when it began its persecution of Faithful Catholics, for merely practicing their Catholic Faith by demanding they accommodate an occasion of sin or suffer their party’s inflicted consequences for Loving their neighbor enough to desire that they be treated and they treat others with Dignity and Respect in private as well as public?

      Sin “deprives a human being of their inherent Dignity”. – Dr. Mark as affirmed by Jesus The Christ.

      https://voiceofthefamily.com/novena-to-saint-peter-damian-from-15th-february-to-23rd-february/

  7. As coda to my previous comment, people are showing us things that explain Pontiff Leo:
    A. He has already been exposed in photos if him as a priest kneeling in a Pachamama ritual. That “pull-your-pants-down-polka-dot-underwear/Elmer-Fudd” behavior even made it to the screen on EWTN. (12 year old: “Mom, that’s wring for a Catholic to do that. It’s against the 1st Commandment.” Mom replies: “You’re right darling, that’s very, very wrong. Let’s pray right now for faithfulness and sanity in our Church.”)
    B. It just got aired by Hugh Hewitt, from ine of his guests, that there is a photo if seminarian Robert Prevost participating in a disarmament rally against President Reagan when Reagan put Pershing missiles into western Europe (which was successful in forcing the Soviet Union to withdraw its existing medium range missiles from Eastern Europe).

    So now I think very, very little of the Pontiff Leo. He is simply Blase Cupich in pontifical costume.

    Recalling these words of warning from the apostle Paul:

    “If for this life only we have believed in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.”

    • William:
      Let’s all just pretend that it didn’t happen and meant nothing.

      Just like we can pretend that Iran wasn’t building nuclear weapons capacity.

      And then we can pretend that muslims are not murdering Christians and burning down our churches.

      And then we can continue to pretend that abortion doesn’t end with the murder of a human person.

      Tell me when I should end the pretending game. ?perhaps never, in your mind.

      • Are you implying that Axelrod is in league with Islamic terrorists? Axelrod is a Jew, not a Muslim. Also, he holds no political office. He is just another talking head on TV. Why the focus on him?

    • Yes, Chris. Photos show Leo then as a priest atending and kneeling at a ceremony in Brazil in 1995 honoring the Pachamama, a deity that even accepted child sacrifice. Thank you for reminding us, Chris. Things are worse with this Pope and the Vatican (with the Cardinals who elected his predecessor and then him) than many of us realize, hidden behind ecumenism, peace, respect for other religions, inclusivity etc. See ecotheology ritual of the Pachamama with Pope Leo, then priest Robert Prevost in Brazil in 1995. A book published by the Augustinians shows a group photo of 1995 in Brazil on Augustinian ecotheology that includes Prevost with the subtitle “Celebracion del rito de la Pachama, Madre Tierra.” Min 9 ff
      https://akacatholic.com/fact-check-pope-leos-pachamama-past

    • Don’t forget another disconcerting fact. Leo was not even 4 months into his pontificate when he scheduled a private meeting with the homosexualist priest James Martin, SCH. I have a difficult time believing that, of all the pressing issues facing the church right now, this meeting was the highest priority. Tells me a lot about the man.

  8. I would be happy to hear just three words addressed to all Muslims from the lips of Pope Leo: “Stop killing Christians.”

  9. We need to stop the ultramontanism in the Church as it is damaging to the Body of Christ. Here is a sampling of the titles of some articles on this website:

    “Pope Leo XIV urges Angola…”

    “Pope Leo XIV says debate”

    “Pope Leo’s Algeria visit”

    “John Prevost discusses life as the pope’s brother”

    “Pope Leo XIV in Cameroon says…”

    I would imagine that a non-Catholic lurking here would conclude that the Pope is the center of our Catholic religion and not Jesus Christ. There is grave danger in this lopsided ecclesiology.

    • I enjoy knowing about what the Head of the Church says and does, especially when he challenges civil society instead of just following it.

  10. 6I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel. 7Which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. 9As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.

    10For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.

  11. That’s a stupid statement, even for you.

    A nobody wouldn’t have a clue how to approach and navigate the Vatican bureaucracy in order to get papal facetime.

  12. Yes, Chris, I was going to write about those photos of Leo when he was a priest in S. America, attending and kneeling at a ceremony in Brazil in 1995 honoring the Pachamama, a deity that even accepted child sacrifice. I may still do it and show the links. Thank you for reminding us, Chris. Things are worse at the Vatican than many of us realize, hidden behind ecumenism, peace, respect for other religions, inclusivity etc. See ecotheology ritual of the Pachamama with Pope Leo, then priest Robert Prevost in Brazil in 1995. A book published by the Augustinians shows a group photo of 1995 in Brazil on Augustinian ecotheology that includes Prevost with the subtitle “Celebracion del rito de la Pachama, Madre Tierra.” Min 9 ff
    https://akacatholic.com/fact-check-pope-leos-pachamama-past/

  13. Yes, Chris. Photos show Leo then as a priest atending and kneeling at a ceremony in Brazil in 1995 honoring the Pachamama, a deity that even accepted child sacrifice. Thank you for reminding us, Chris. Things are worse with this Pope and the Vatican (with the Cardinals who elected his predecessor and then him) than many of us realize, hidden behind ecumenism, peace, respect for other religions, inclusivity etc. See ecotheology ritual of the Pachamama with Pope Leo, then priest Robert Prevost in Brazil in 1995. A book published by the Augustinians shows a group photo of 1995 in Brazil on Augustinian ecotheology that includes Prevost with the subtitle “Celebracion del rito de la Pachama, Madre Tierra.” Min 9 ff
    https://akacatholic.com/fact-check-pope-leos-pachamama-past

  14. The title “Pope” is derived from “Papa” meaning Father.

    Now a Father had a wife and 10 children. In their neighborhood was a band of miscreants who terrorized the residents of the area. They targeted this man’s family, killing his wife and three of his children. They raped one of his daughters. What does this Father now do?
    a. Invite the miscreants to a meeting to better understand what reasons they have for acting this way.
    b. Contact the local authorities to see what financial services or social support the miscreants might require
    c. Assemble a community meeting among all the neighbors
    d. Let the miscreants know in nobm uncertain terms that the killing and raping must stop.
    e. Other (supply details)

    • no, no, no! You lay off the local peace officers then retrain them as social workers and THEN call on their aid, to stop the blood shed. Get with it man!

    • I know what my Mennonite friends would do: cooperate with law enforcement, forgive the offender but not stand in the way of justice, & reach out to the offender’s family in forgiveness & Christian charity.

  15. Thanks Chris. A very important issue. In my opinion there is too much ideology wrapped up in just war opinions when prudence of the circumstances need to be taken into account. This is being done, I think by people who would surprise you. I’ll leave names nameless.

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