Less than 24 hours after writing this post, I came home from work to discover that my housemate's motorbike had in fact been stolen from our back yard. Seems it was third time lucky for our local neighbourhood deviants. The police found the bike earlier today but unfortunately it had been torched, so that seems to be the end of the matter.

Today was my official graduation ceremony at Manchester Uni, so I now officially have a first class honours degree in Theology (yay) but also a somewhat troubled conscience. It all stems from the NT reading that we had at the graduation service:

"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"says the Lord. On the contrary:

"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." (Rom 12:17-20)

What troubles me is that I don't really fully understand the sentiment of what Paul is trying to put across here. Like Jesus, he seems to reject the idea of Christians retaliating against their enemies or taking revenge on people, and instead suggests that we ought to act lovingly towards them. The thing that puzzles me somewhat is that Paul makes it all sound a little two-faced by suggesting that we love our enemies not because we really do actually love them and want to be reconciled with them, but because our being kind to them in the present seems to contribute directly to the intensity of their future punishment in a kind of revenge by the back door. Any thoughts?

I'm finally back in Manchester after almost 2 weeks of travelling around and having no internet access, which means I can start blogging again. My recent contact with criminal imbecility continues unabated: twice this week someone has tried to break into my house (I caught two lads trying to steal my housemate's motorbike last night) and on the bus home from work a gang of hooded deviants threw bricks through the bus windows and covered all the passengers with glass. Will they ever get caught and punished? Probably not.

I fully sympathise with people who take the law into their own hands, it's very difficult to get rid of the feeling that you would like to do a great deal of violence to people who seem intent on causing only misery to others and who apparently have no respect for anything or anyone. I also fully sympathise with all those old Jewish apocalyptic writers who wrote some fairly extensive literary works that detailed just exactly how God would mercilessly punish their enemies at the end of the age, and how they would actually rather enjoy watching their enemies be burned for ever and eaten by worms. They'd be sorry they ever stole the bikes of the righteous, that's for sure.

I'm also rather curious as to why someone arrived at this blog by searching for "pyromaniac evangelical death." The mind boggles.

Normal service will resume shortly.