9/11, the Injeel, and am I Jonah?

So it's been awhile.

9/11 was yesterday; the eleventh anniversary.

It's nuts to think that was 11 years ago; for some reason it seems much more recent than that to me.

It boggles my mind that a human being can wreck that type of destruction willfully on someone else. It must take someone with some type of skewed mentality, who cannot empathize with others, to commit such a heinous act.  I can comprehend, to a limited extent, someone with a mental illness committing such crimes - the Aurora, Colorado shooter, for example, seems to have signs of paranoid schizophrenia, perhaps believing in an alternate reality where he is the Joker.  But someone who is technically sane killing thousands just leaves me at a loss.  Perhaps theirs is a different kind of mental illness. They could have been trained from a young age to hate all things Western, to despise the stars and stripes, to believe that America is actually the Great Satan. Maybe they were traumatized from a young age; seeing collateral damage in their towns from American missile strikes aimed at Al Qaeda hitting schools or something.

However, I don't think it's excusable. If you read the Qur'an, it is clear that 'People of the Book', e.g. Christians and Jews, are to be respected by Islamic Muslims - in Medina the Prophet was clear on this.  It seems heretical, then, that Tehran is spewing hatred toward Israel, and splinter groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban target America (and one could argue Christianity) with such animosity - their own sacred text describes Jesus as virgin born (not even Mohammed had that honor), refers to him as 'the Spirit of God' (see Sura 5:46 onwards if you're interested; the Injeel is the New Testament), and says a lot of true things about him (though there are discrepancies as well; such as his crucifiction).

Sura 5:82, for example, says "...you will certainly find the nearest in friendship to those who say: We are Christians; this is because there are priests and monks among them and because they do not behave proudly"

Sura 3:3 says "It is He Who sent down to thee (step by step), in truth, the Book, confirming what went before it; and He sent down the Law (of Moses) and the Gospel (of Jesus) before this, as a guide to mankind, and He sent down the criterion (of judgment between right and wrong)."

Sura 5:46-47 says "And in their footsteps We sent Jesus the son of Mary, confirming the Law that had come before him: We sent him the Gospel (Injeel): therein was guidance and light, and confirmation of the Law that had come before him: a guidance and an admonition to those who fear Allah.

Let the people of the Gospel judge by what Allah hath revealed therein. If any do fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (no better than) those who rebel."

So you can tell that those terrorists who are killing Christians and Jews in the name of Allah are truly misguided, not only by our standards, but even by their own sacred texts.  

Now as far as the reciprocal goes, Christians are definitely called to respect Muslims, as we are called to love our neighbors, as well as our enemies.  Which means we are even called to love terrorists, the very ones who are killing our loved ones.  That's a hard thought.  I never found it all too difficult to forgive, or pray for the bully that was my 'enemy' in grade school, but it's a different story when it comes to those who literally want me to die.  It shouldn't be - and I've managed to pray for them to come to know Christ and repent, etc... but still.

I feel like I know how Jonah felt when God told him to go preach in Nineveh to Israel's enemies - Jonah was flabbergasted and went the other way (hence the whole whale story).  The Assyrians / Ninevites had done some pretty rapacious deeds to Israel in Jonah's life time, and he didn't want to see God forgive them; when he did end up begrudgingly preaching to them, and they sincerely repented, he was actually upset! He wanted God's justice to be done to them, while God had mercy in mind.  It is often thought that God sent Jonah to the Ninevites not only for their benefit, but for his; God wanted to melt Jonah's heart of stone, but it appears that Jonah would have none of it - the book of Jonah ends unresolved and we never hear anything more about him.

So the question becomes apparent; am I like Jonah? Or am I willing to forgive and preach to my enemies, praying that God would forgive them for what they've done? I pray I'm the latter, but it's a journey.  Eleven years later, the world is quite a different place.  But one thing surely hasn't changed; God still wants his Muslim children to come to know Him. And we are called to love our enemies.