Made in the image and likeness of God
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God's nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
"Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
- Genesis 1:27 MSG
Today we visited the Israeli Holocaust Museum. It is emotionally disturbing to see photos and video of starved kids, women and men in concentration camps. I saw images of Jewish babies with extreme skin burns, deformations, and tumors from the medical experiments performed on their little bodies from doctors and scientists. They were treated like tests rats, and endured the worse kind of torture imaginable. To think that so many people and nations participated in this kind of racism, brutality and hatred is disgusting. I am horrified and ashamed.
I am ashamed of the Christians that perpetuated the hostility towards the Jewish population, and did nothing to stop the violence. I was wearing my cross earrings today, and I wanted to pull them out and tuck them in my purse. The church failed to protect image bearers of God - those he called "his chosen people". Many Christians blamed Jews for killing Jesus, but to the contrary, Jesus stated,
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To be fair, there were Christians who fought on behalf of the Jewish people including Diedrich Bonhoeffer and many others. Still, the church could have done so much more to protest and protect. I am also ashamed of the United States for not intervening soon enough, and not allowing Jewish refugees to immigrate into our country.
Six million Jews died during the Holocaust. I wonder if we would have a cure for cancer right now if not for this atroctiy. Did you know one-fifth of Nobel Prize reciepients are Jewish, and yet Jews only make up 1% of the (world) population? That is HUGE! Nobel prize winners are the best and birghtest in their expertise, and a large portion are Jewish. The world eliminated 6-million potential researchers, artists, doctors, educators, etc. What a loss.
This is why Bill Gates is a true visionary and a hero of mine. He invests his life and resources in delivering vaccines and medical care to Africa where millions of people are dying from preventable illness and diseases. He understands that each life is incredibly VALUABLE. We are all made in the image of God, and are jam-packed with natural gifts, strengths, and abilities. When people are needlessly dying, we all lose (especially the generations that follow us). We lose people who can contribute new technologies to improve our lives, arts to inspire our spirit and medicine to heal our diseases. Bill and Melinda Gates "get this" and so do many others who are involved in bringing life-saving resources to desolate places and people around the world.
Every life is valuable to God because we are his children, and are loved immensely by him. He says we are precious in his sight. I wish we could see the value of every single life on the planet, and see how intertwined we are as a human race. Then we would love and protect each other.
Ps. The image above is most likely what Jesus looked like according to the research and data Time Magazine published years ago. I wish we could see the "Jewishness" of Jesus in our churches and museums throughout the world (instead we see a very fair skinned white man). Hmmm...
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