That's why Jesus talked a great deal about punishment, and the moral obligation to oppose evil with a strong and swift hand. Human evil must be confronted, he said, not merely contained. Depending on the threat, a kind of "pre-emptive strike" or judgment against evil might even be required: "Be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28). Allow the darkness to roam unchecked, Jesus said, and it will devour individuals and entire regimes. That helps explain why in the New Testament we see the Son of God rebuking hateful mobs, casting demons into the abyss, chasing religious charlatans out of a temple with a whip. "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth," he said. "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34).
the very Gadarene Mr. Joseph Loconte 01/28/03, in The New York Times, of all places
{this probably isn't the best time to mention it, but it's important that we not forget that Jesus Christ was an outlaw. that he was arrested, and tried, and convicted, that he was abused by his jailers who were the sworn officers of the law of that time, and that he was executed by the state, crucifixion being the lethal injection of those days. no amount of mealy-mouthed revisionism will change that. if there was in fact an historical Jesus that is the most essential part of his story. what exactly that has to do with the oil-demon and Israeli-chauvinist 'war' on Iraq, I'm not at all sure. but it is certainly an illuminating gauge of the depths to which we have descended now, that this scurrilous horseshit was printed in the Times.}
