In a quick return to business as usual, we descend from the "Happy New Year" high. From MSNBC:
NAIROBI, Kenya - A mob torched a church sheltering hundreds of Kenyans fleeing election violence on Tuesday, killing as many as 50 people as the convulsion of bloodshed continued after the disputed vote that gave the president a second term. The opposition leader accused the government of "genocide."
....
Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said that so far 145 people have been killed, 33,500 Kenyans have been forced to leave their homes and 208 properties have been destroyed.
Please pray for the people of Kenya, a country which has, until now, been one of the more stable in Africa.
Whatever happened to the idea of the church as a place of refuge? I know. There are many recent and ancient examples of of the violation of the concept of the church as a place of refuge. It appears that today, as in other times, the church is not a place of refuge against non-violent oppression, either. Too often the oppressors are the powers within the church.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
praying for Kenya...
ReplyDeleteMimi - in answer to the question that you left on my blog:
ReplyDeleteyou are the only person who can see them. If you trying logging out of blogger and then look at your blog page you won't see them. I can see them on my page but not on yours. when I log out I don't see them at all.
hope that this helps.
Diane, they surely need our prayers.
ReplyDeleteDennis, love, thank you. I thought they were messing up the looks of my blog for everyone. I like to be pretty, you know. They can stay, as long as they're invisible to my readers.
I have written about another place of sanctuary turned massacre, El Mozote, on my blog.
ReplyDeleteI know - this is heartbreaking on so many levels. People don't believe in evolution and I feel like I see discernable evidence of de-evolution all around.
ReplyDeleteSo sad.
caminante,
ReplyDeleteI read Mark Danner *The Massacre at El Mozote* twenty years ago; I may still own it, but it's not the kind of thing it's good for me to keep around too much: too many examples, with which I am "knowledgeable" as tradetalk put it forty years ago, both the literature and the personal experience.
JohnieB, morbid since Holy Innocents, but mostly winning so far.
Caminante, I will go read it, when I can.
ReplyDeleteFran, it's always some damned new and awful thing, ain't it?
Johnieb, prayers for you, my friend. Keep winning.
What with this and Akinola I really do wonder about African religion. Think back to the role of the churches in the Rwandan genocide too.
ReplyDeleteI think we are fools to expect a first world response to anything in Africa but somehow that seems both inadequate and racist. I can't help the former and don't intend the latter, but what is it about Africa?
Lord have mercy!
I just heard about this on NPR while driving home. Jesus wept.
ReplyDelete