May 09, 2013
Leading a Rebellion
I’ve noticed that
radical Islamic clerics will stir up their followers, but they themselves won’t
get their hands dirty by personally getting involved in the upheaval and
unrest. Last week there was a similar situation when a retired military veteran
tried to get others to show up at the local court house to support a veteran
and his vicious dog that were on trial. Interestingly, not one veteran showed
up, not even the guy who tried to rally the troops. Jesus said that he would be
betrayed by the chief priests and the teachers of the law and they would condemn
him to death. Not wanting to soil their hands they turned Him over to, “…the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and
crucified.” (Matt 21:19a NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----That’s why they’re called “leaders”. Their job is to plot, plan, and incite. Of course, leadership isn’t the kind of thing that exists only on one end of the stick. It extends down through a following to what is supposed to be the mob articulating the leader’s plans into action. That no veterans turned out to support one of their own and a vicious dog on trial does not evidence a lack of concern in the community. It might evidence the lack of just one of many leadership skills needed to rock-and-roll a crowd.
-----In America, these skills are even more important. The followers of the Islamist cleric are shaped like him mentally. They are all much more formed of one mold than are we. And that mold has much to do with roused rabble in the first place. The mob risen against Jesus occurred within a more free thinking people whose current frames of minds were focused upon a commonly experienced series of extraordinary events not yet defined by a concluded cause. Therefore, by two rather different circumstances, the rabble roused by Islamist clerics and that by the chief priests of Jesus’ day appear similar. But in substance, they are different. The hearts and minds of the Islamist rabble are loaded and cocked pistols. The hearts and minds of Americans, even more than those of the rabble the chief priests roused, must be loaded and then cocked as well by leaders towards some commonly visible and stirring situation.
-----Like Rahm Emmanuel said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” situation is where the readied pistol meets reality. I feel some sympathy for the veteran who tried to rouse a bit of rabble. I can think of a few reasons other than not wanting soiled hands as to why even he did not show up. He had what he considered a situation, but maybe nobody else considered it that way. Or maybe it really was a considerable situation, yet he was not charismatic enough to rouse rabble. Either way, even I might have been embarrassed or disgruntled enough at such a lack of response that I would have chosen to sit at home and watch Daffy Duck, too.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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