"Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?""
Author: Jonah 3 Verses #: 9
The story of Jonah is a story of a prophet who did not want to do what God wanted him to so God caused a big fish to swallow him. As the story goes, Jonah cried out to God for 3 days and 3 nights from sheol (the place of the dead) and God brought him back from death and caused the fish to vomit him on dry land. He then goes to Nineveh and tells the people to repent of their violence and evil or they will be destroyed. The entire population repents and God does not destroy them. Jonah is disappointed that God did not destroy them and goes into deep depression and asks God to kill him.
The book of Jonah is a very exciting and interesting tale of how God worked through a prophet named Jonah and relented of destroying a city of 120,000 people when they began to worship him, the Hebrew God . Jonah believed that God would bring destruction on the city of Ninevah if they did not repent and worship Yahweh.
Many modern americans believe hurricanes, and 9/11 are acts of God meant to punish America for it's evil, but our violence to other countries like Iraq are not interpreted as a violence God abhores. Men like John Hagee and Pat Robertson are blaming any american tragedy on God's anger and judgement. All this implies God punishes some people including children out of anger because america is not "christian enough". This strikes me as very arrogant and superstitious. I suppose the same mindset dimishes bombing raids in Iraq and Afghanistan because those people are evil and deserve the judgement of God. Somewhere in the psyche of America the God of Jonah justifies our "holy" wars against a people who believe and look differently than we do. 18 and 19 year old boys become our "grim reapers" and fight "evil" (GWBush favorite phrase) in brigades in the streets of Bagdad by that name. What a culture believes about God does matter and the muslim world will suffer because we have the bombs and afterall God is on our side!
