“Hamas, release the hostages. End the war. Israel, free yourselves from Benjamin Netanyahu and the far-right fundamentalists twisting your holy scriptures,” cried U2 frontman Bono.
My wife showed me this quote on Instagram while we were heading to the cinema in Jerusalem. The film we watched was Reading Lolita in Tehran, a new Israeli film in Persian based on Azar Nafisi’s internationally acclaimed autobiographical novel. The work recounts Nafisi’s secret literature circle in 1990s Tehran during the Islamist regime’s rule following the Iranian Revolution. Amid repression and censorship, she gathered young women to read banned Western literature, including Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Why mention Bono and this film together? Why are leftists heroes in Iran but traitors in Israel?
Because both got me thinking. I know many people who sharply criticize left-wing and progressive voices in their own country—or in Israel. But what about the opposition in Iran? There, liberal, feminist, and secular forces courageously fight an authoritarian regime. Interestingly, these Iranian leftists often garner...
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It’s all in the definition. In the U.S., it’s conservatives (many evangelicals ) vs. liberals. My question is always “Is it conservative to support adulterers, those who steal from their fellow man, those who continually bear false witness (lie), those who covet their neighbors wives and goods, those who treat the stranger with disdain…and on and on.
Our Lord doesn’t force-feed righteousness. It is a choice He gives us to choose how we live. In fact, had there been just 10 righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah, the rest would not have been destroyed. CHOOSE THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE!