Dear Friends,

This week we are able to see the ravings of the extremist clerics applied again to the poor and unfortunate.

Some time ago a senior rabbi in Jerusalem made the incredibly inane and biblically inaccurate statement that the victims of the Holocaust were all Jews who had been sinners in previous lives and were resurrected to suffer the Holocaust as a punishment for their sins. Aside from being biblically false, and contrary to the concepts of the resurrections displayed in the Law and the Testimony, it is a hateful and hurtful instance of self-righteous ranting.

This week we had the ABC report of 28 December from Indonesia, by Geoff Thomson, concerning the massive floods and landslides. The Report said:

“An extremist Islamic cleric in Indonesia has blamed the recent Java landslides and floods on its victims, as the death toll passes 130.
Cleric and former Jemaah Islamiya (JI) leader Abu Bakar Bashir toured a village in the badly affected Karanganyar district of Central Java, where he blamed the disaster on the "immoral acts" of its victims.
Meanwhile, as the number of dead and missing passes 100, concern is turning to the people who have been displaced by floods and landslides - an estimated 28,000 in Central Java according to government figures and 45,000 in East Java according to the Red Cross.
Fifty lives are feared lost in a single incident in East Java when a busy bridge was washed away by a swollen river.”

How thoughtful and comforting of him. How proud Nabi Isa al Masahi would be of his attitude. The parable of the Good Samaritan and the injunctions of the Koran mean nothing to this self-righteous humbug. This was the organisation that was involved for the Bali bombing. He spent time in prison for terrorism-related offences.

Let us look at the mentality and the logic behind this attitude and pronouncement. Central Java lost many lives and 28,000 were made homeless. East Java is the centre of these religious bigots, yet it was the hardest hit.

Last time it was the devastation of the Tsunami that hit Sumatra killing hundreds of thousands. What happened there? Did they all deserve to die? Was that God’s judgment on the people there? The vast majority of those dead were professing Muslims. According to the logic of Abu Bakar Bashir, God must be exceedingly angry with Islam as it is most of their people who are being killed.

They are not even safe when they go on the pilgrimage to Mecca. Hundreds die in the paganised rituals of the ritual stoning of Iblis, or in the crush of the Ka’abah. That is not what God has said through His servants the prophets in either the Bible or the Koran. We are protected on the Feasts of God when kept according to His Calendar.

Moreover, who were the ones first to pay the poor due? Where did the assistance come from to aid the victims of the catastrophes? The first on the scene in Sumatra to assist their Indonesian neighbours were the Christians from Australia who this cleric and his organisation of hate had condemned, and who had praised their bombing and killing in Bali. What real help did this man offer in Java?

Who were more righteous; and who was more like Christ and the prophets? Was it this raver, or the people who came with assistance, asking nothing and giving what they could?

How will we ever promote the love of God with self-righteous hatred like this? We see it all the time in the racism of the fascists in Europe, Russia and the US, and in the Middle East. This type of raving hate is also directed against the Churches of God all the time. They hate without cause.

As you judge so shall you be judged (Mat. 7:1-2). We are not to make a railing accusation. Christ did not make a railing accusation against Satan, but merely asked God to rebuke him.

May the Lord rebuke these peddlers of hate!

Pray for the people who have been killed and dispossessed. They were killed in natural disasters and many are displaced. Pray for their healing, and pray also for the diseased minds that make these pronouncements and cause so much hurt.

We see the Buddhist and Hindu liberation theology crippled also by this attitude. It comes from the theology of the law of the Dharma and the Karmic cycle. Good and bad happen because of some past actions (see Mysticism Chapter 6 Origins of the Indian Religious Systems (No. B7_6) and also Mysticism Chapter 7 Buddhism (No. B7_7). The theology is also examined in chapters 8 and 9 dealing especially with Southeast Asia. This age is not their time of judgment. It is the time only of the elect to be judged now. These comments come from ignorance of God’s Plan as revealed in Scripture and in the Koran also, if they cared to study it correctly and do what God says.

The time is coming when God will arise and judge the Earth in His wrath, and it is fast approaching. It will be obvious to all when the time arrives, and we will not need to be told. A child will know. When you see those two clothed in sackcloth standing in Jerusalem you will know, and the world will hate them (see the paper The Witnesses (No 135)).

Scripture cannot be broken (Jn. 10:34-35).

Love one another and show thereby that you love God.

Wade Cox
Coordinator General