Pastor Paul's Ponderings

January 28, 2026

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  The video shows people, demonstrators, in a frozen cityscape (Minneapolis?) running on a partially snow cleared road. They are running away from a cloud of gas/smoke and uniformed men pointing guns. One woman makes it past a parked car and begins to reach for her face, flailing her hands wildly before falling. The video continues as she is clearly in destress rolling around in the snow in a panic reaching for her face/mouth and flailing her hands wildly. Others come to her aid.

  The person who re-posts this video, is someone who is a professed ‘born-again’, ‘evangelical’ Christian: The lead caption above the video says: “Natural selection at its best”. I can only assume the obvious intent of the author is to say: good, if this person dies, she cannot reproduce and therefore there will be less people who think like her. The author (and the re-poster?) is, if not implying, out right stating that he/she wishes harm if not death to the person in distress in the video—and then to others like her.

  Jesus had plenty of reason to not like certain types of people, people who thought and beleived a certain way, and to be hateful, vindictive, and looking for revenge. He certainly suffered at the hands of other people….and was suffering nailed to a cross while some of the same people who helped put him there stood around him jeering him and making fun of him. Clearly these people did not think like he did. They did not have the same view and opinion as he did. Yet he did not wish them death, or even harm. He prayed for them. He asked for their forgiveness. Should not his followers do the same for those who do not think the same as them?

  Jesus came into a defined religion and upheld much of its theology and tenants (actually all of them) yet he defined it more and added some new commandments. One new command was to love your enemies. A radical idea, yet one that defines Christianity.

  Simple logic makes it impossible to hate your foes and wish harm on them yet still be a follower of Jesus who outright in the indicative commands that his listeners and followers love their enemies. There is a huge contradiction between loving and enemy and wishing death to them.

  In antiquity, people who didn’t have family or wealth who died were thrown out into the street, just dumped. Dogs and birds would eat the body. Jesus early followers were filled with such compassion and love for all humans, all who were in Gods image—the image of their leader—that they began caring for and burying the bodies, all human bodies, with dignity. These early Christians caught people’s attention. Not only did they care for the living but even the dead….their compassion and love for others, unearned, undeserved, love for others is recorded in the journals of ancient Roman historians and these acts of love and witness to Gods love became a main reason Christianity is still here today. Others witnessed this love and joined in.

  For the first time in history our country is no longer a majority Christian country. Our younger generations see little need for church and or Christianity. Quite frankly with the current witness of all too many avowed American Christians, I don’t blame them.

  Love one another. By this they will know you as my disciples.

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Grace and Peace,

Pastor Paul