I Forgive Osama

Just a few weeks after the World Trade Center atrocity, our congregation at the Anglican Chaplaincy iat Bradford University held a service in which we were challenged to pray for and bless our enemies and those who persecute us -straight out of reflection on the Bible passage. One of the things we did was have a newspaper photo of Osama binLaden on the wall and some post-it notes with the challenge to write some prayers of blessing. It was indeed a challenge but we also discussed it. Some were prayers for the blessing of repentance to come to him [fair enough]. It so happened that our chapel was visited a little while later while these prayers were still up around the walls. The visitor on this occasion was a Jewish man who found it very hard to take. I tried to explain the teaching of Christ at this point but he was very bound up in the ideology of pre-emptive 'defense' We ended up with a heated discussion of the morality of kiling people before they could do something wrong. [Whatever happened to the idea of presumed innocent until proven guilty? Or even of trying to create conditions for peaceful resolutions]

Now I'm not sure how we talk about forgiveness in this case where the person has not been directly [?] affected but nevertheless it certainly fits within the orbit of praying for those who persecute us. So I applaud the bravery and fidelity to Christ's Spirit shown by this website....
"There may be those that would say this is a naive gesture. Violence and retaliation are inevitable. I cannot agree. I choose to reach out and forgive. I choose to hope for change. I choose to listen. I believe that forgiveness is the first step toward genuine dialogue and progress.
Finally, I want to ask Osama for forgiveness..."
I Forgive Osama