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JJR's avatar

You so succinctly explained my life since 2015. You are not alone in having estranged family and friend relationships, although my friends and I are more like minded; many of them are experiencing friction in relationships, as well. I thought an adjudicated rape charge and 91+ federal and state charges would bring them to their senses. I’m still waiting…

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Woody Haiken's avatar

John, you wrote: "Even as I despise their theology and oppose their politics and condemn their violence, there is an ember of mercy in the recesses of my heart because we could have been standing in very different places right now."

That ember of mercy--that is what has been burning in my heart. I've mentioned this in previous comments. Among the deceived are two groups of people--those that celebrate the freedom to express their worst impulses while justifying it by saying they're doing God's work; and those who have been brainwashed because they allowed a pastor, a talking head, and their cultural milieu to herd them away from the Truth.

They might still belong to God. They are like sheep that have been rustled. Their minds have been stolen. Yes, we are responsible for our thoughts and actions, but when someone puts a leader with evil intent in the driver's seat of their mind, they're lost.

My heart goes out to them. They are on the cusp of having to make the kind of decision that decent German citizens had to make in the early 1930s. How do we reach them before they are lost forever? How are they different from the average poor oppressed Jew that lived in Jesus' time, who were under the thumb of the religious elite of their time, under the heavy yoke?

Jesus' message to them--the yoke is easy, God loves you, and wants you live abundantly in love and joy--was resisted by the powerful religion of the time. Jesus' message to the Church today is the message He had for the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes in His time: come out of bondage, and let the Truth set you free!

I never thought I'd live to see a day where an obvious lie, with so much evidence against it, has imprisoned the minds of so many people. Never before has the phrase, "The Truth will set you free" been more meaningful. Time to speak to the truth in love.

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