How to Prayerfully Handle bin Laden's Death

News of Osama bin Laden's death came as a surprise to me, like everyone else.  A decade goes by and the little boy who was snacking on Cheerios in his high chair when Matt Lauer was reporting live on the World Trade Center disaster is a 7th grader who shaves his lip on occasion.  I'd forgotten about bid Laden, even when I've joined people in the strange ceremony of removing our shoes, as if on holy ground, to be scanned at the airport. 

Now he is dead, shot by special forces, who rose above technical problems like broken helicopters and quick-changed their strategy, removing the body covertly from the building in Pakistan.  American crowds spilled celebrating into the streets of DC and NYC.  The huge crowd atYankees Stadium stopped the game to chant U! S! A!

I, too, reacted excitedly.  Hooray for the tired troops who finally get a victory.  Hooray for the 9/11 families who see some closure.  Hooray for the innocents who won't be killed at bin Laden's command. 

But, hooray we killed him?  The Old Testament is full of God-ordained battles and victory dances under the dangling bodies of enemy kings.  But Christ came along and preached love, forgiveness, peace.  Martin Luther King, Jr. said words that seem to flow from the heart of Christ and apply to this dilemma:

I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Beautifully said, Mr. King.  But the convictions of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German preacher who was part of the plot to assassinate Hitler, truly capture my heart on this issue.  Andrew Zirschky wrote this in a fascinating recent article:

Bonhoeffer's Ethics, left incomplete at his death, provides helpful theological thought about violence in the face of horrendous evil.  Bonhoeffer took the interesting stand of proclaiming actions such as those he agreed to participate in against Hitler as unrighteous but responsible, sinful and yet without better option.  Bonhoeffer did not rejoice at the prospect of killing, rather he mourned, admitted the sinfulness of the undertaking, and reserved all judgment of such actions for God.   -Andrew Zirschky


In the end, Bonhoeffer was caught and hung by the Nazis and Hitler took his own life.  Ugly and complicated is all of it.

So, with great sobriety, I thank our brave troops and I petition our mighty God for his grace.