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+--- Thread: Winking at God while breaking his laws (/Thread-Winking-at-God-while-breaking-his-laws)
Winking at God while breaking his laws - Bushbaby - 25-08-2005
Winking at God while breaking his laws
By Robert Kirby
For the murders of 10 people, BTK slayer Dennis Rader on Thursday received 10 consecutive life sentences. He will have to serve a minimum of 175 years.
Rader, who was actively seeking his next victim when police arrested him, has apparently found Jesus instead. During sentencing, he offered biblical quotes and said that the Lord's light was starting to shine through the dark part of his soul.
I was hoping Rader would find the light in jail. But I wanted him to find it in the form of 80,000 volts. Instead, he'll live long enough to memorize the entire Bible.
Those of us who also profess to believe in the Bible consider it more than a bit ironic that Rader didn't find the light while serving as president of his church's council at the time of his arrest.
Even though he worshipped God on Sunday, Rader had previously hauled a body of one of his victims into church when no one was there so that he could take bondage photos of it.
Makes you wonder what he was thinking when he sang hymns and prayed in a building he had defiled. How could he compartmentalize his attitude toward God like that?
The fact that Rader discovered the light only after he was caught is laughable to those of us who really know Jesus, right? I mean, really, how can he say that he believes and still behave that way?
Except that we all do it. We aren't serial killers, but we're all winking at God while behaving contrary to publicly professed beliefs.
At a news conference after the sentencing, a relative of one of Rader's victims announced that she couldn't wait until he died. In heaven, Rader would be met by all of his victims and God, who would fling him into a pit for an eternity of suffering.
The woman obviously believes in God. After all, she included him in her plan for Rader. But she wants payback even though the Bible really only offers justice. She wants God to prosecute her hate despite being taught that he's all about love.
It's understandable that victims have these feelings. It's a little odder when they expect a merciful God to be their hitter.
We all have our personal counter-God passions, the darker sides of our natures that we feed while pretending to be much nicer. We're so good at pretending that we sometimes fool those closest to us. Hey, sometimes we even fool ourselves.
Lust, drugs, money, power, hate, indifference - we're all willing to wear a different face while pursuing private agendas, even though we really ought to know better.
I'm not saying that Rader should be let out of prison and welcomed back into the arms of his church and society. He is where he belongs.
But while I say that I'm a believer in forgiveness, mostly I believe that I'd like to see Rader ride some lightning. And he hasn't even done anything to me.
Just imagine how I feel toward the people who have.
If you want to understand how Rader could do what he did, how he could get away with it for so long, a good start is to examine the other side of your own mask.
http://www.sltrib.com/kirby/ci_2958100