Lockerbie Anger

We Christians (and as a subgroup "Westerners") have missed a great opportunity to push forward Christ's message of peace and compassion and the Western message of compassion with the public reaction to the Scottish court allowing a man to return home to die.

All I have seen in the news is how disappointed are the families of the victims, how angry all people are, especially incensed because he returned home to cheering crowds.

Yes, he might have been greeted as a hero, which basically says, "Yay! You killed almost 300 demons! Go, boy!"

But really, we should see it from a different perpective from our emotional knee-jerk reaction, which is anger and plots for revenge.

We need to look at it from the position of Jesus Christ, who taught forgiveness at every turn, even when people were stoning you to death (St. Andrew, was it? It's in Acts) - and we as Christians could have said, "Yes, we're releasing him because we are Christians . . . unlike you guys, who chop the heads off reporters and splatter the blood all over YouTube."

Similarly, we could have supported the decisions as a triumph of the compassion of Western culture over Muslim (Arabic) culture - we could have used this opportunity to tout our superiority in grace and compassion (that's for those who think more of us as Westerners than Christians) - as Christians we must state that it's Christ's love that we are sharing.

I believe that the Scottish Court acted in Christlike manner, and they will be blessed for it. We who are crying out for revenge should do the same.