Safe Haven

Both The Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games were on AMC last night. I caught the end of Red October and the start of PG at 1:30 in the morning. The latter gets at the complicated nature of terrorism when it's not perpetrated by far-off strangers, but by neighbors. After I watched this video again, the film took on a new freshness. What if--rather than a legitimate means reluctantly employed by a civilized people--violence was a manifestation of our propensity to evil? In other words, what if 'civilized' is a lie? And is violence any more civil when conducted by a state , one much more powerful than the roving bands we often imagine? Is a call for peace nothing more than a limp passivity, a refuge for those too timid to stand against injustice, to defend one's own people? You tell me. But why do Christians celebrate and proclaim the death of a murdered innocent man? Are they crazy? Why did that man forbid violence in his own defense at his moment of greatest need...