I may be deceiving myself but I find that the Christian Scriptures provide me with wisdom for each day. For this blog I use the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news.

PAKISTANIS PROTEST AGAINST SECTARIAN MURDER OF HEALTH WORKERS

How can killing anti-polio workers bring honour to Allah?

ISAIAH 10Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees,    who write oppressive statutes,
² to turn aside the needy from justice    and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be your spoil,    and that you may make the orphans your prey!
³ What will you do on the day of punishment,    in the calamity that will come from far away?
To whom will you flee for help,    and where will you leave your wealth,
⁴ so as not to crouch among the prisoners    or fall among the slain?
For all this, his anger has not turned away;    his hand is stretched out still.

When I wrote yesterday that I didn’t believe that God influenced events so as to punish evildoers in this life, one person at least thought that I was denying God’s wrath towards them. Far from it. The measure of God’s anger against evildoers is the sending of his beloved son into the world so that they may not perish: his anger fuels his saving justice. Doubtless evildoers who continue in evil and despise the rescue of God will have to face God’s anger after their earthly lives. The Bible suggests he will leave them to the destructive powers they have worshipped.

Am I saying I believe in heaven and hell? I’m afraid so. It seems to me evident that there is not full justice in this life and that therefore belief in a just God requires justice beyond this life. I expect to be held to account for my sins; indeed I welcome the promise that the clean judgement of God will prune away all that is wrong from my life, so that what remains, if anything, may live.

UK Chancelor who called people on benfits, “skivers”

Meantime those who make iniquitous decrees and oppressive statutes which target the poor, whom they have the impertinence to blame for the economic woes of the nation (WATCH OUT DAVID CAMERON, GEORGE OSBORNE, NICK CLEGG),  are reminded that the lack of immediate punishment does not mean they have got off with it: “for all this his anger has not turned away; his hand is stretched out still.” “Come off it,” some readers who know me will say,”You’re just making mischief. You don’t really think that decent people like the Prime Minster will boil in hell for their policies?

To which I answer, “Yes, unless they repent. They have deliberately encouraged people to blame the poor and to despise them. Their policies will kill more people than a serial murderer.”

“But God is love!”

“Yes, and in his love he respects the choices of his children so much that he won’t force them to obey. If they reject his light and choose darkness, they’ll get it.”

For Dante this constituted the divine comedy: we’ll all get what we truly want.