Celebrating Hugo Chavez’s Death?

on March 7, 2013

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Jonathan Merritt, the sometimes liberal Baptist columnist, has written with concern about celebrants of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez’s death. He cites a few lesser known Christians who tweeted quips about Chavez and his eternal destiny. Merritt’s points, from the standpoint of God’s holy standards, are not wholly illegitimate. Although in our current age of irony, such quips are typically intended unseriously. Likely the persons he cites, if asked seriously, would agree that the death of even the wicked is better cause for sober reflection than celebration.

More scandalously, liberal Baptist Jimmy Carter praised Chavez in a news release. “We came to know a man who expressed a vision to bring profound changes to his country to benefit especially those people who had felt neglected and marginalized,” Carter absurdly gushed. “Although we have not agreed with all of the methods followed by his government, we have never doubted Hugo Chavez’s commitment to improving the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen.” Really?

Carter, who is an outspoken Christian and humanitarian, was almost effusive: “President Chavez will be remembered for his bold assertion of autonomy and independence for Latin American governments and for his formidable communication skills and personal connection with supporters in his country and abroad to whom he gave hope and empowerment.”

In truth, Chavez was a shameless demagogue and hate-monger who got rich by exploiting his people and aligning himself with heinous dictators and plutocrats globally. He first tried to seize power by military coup, and later retained power by corruption and coercion.

Sadly, Carter has devoted decades to praise of and apologies for anti American dictators who brutalize their people and imperil the world’s peace. His policies as president accommodated and gave rise to many of these dictatorships, for which the world still reaps the consequences. Poor Carter, like many liberal religionists, likely means well. But his delusions, and their delusions, fueled by a faulty theology, facilitate much harm, sometimes even disaster.

Carter aside, how best to react to the demise of miscreants, tyrants, and monsters? As a college student I recall trying to buy a cake to celebrate the decease of Soviet chief Yuri Andropov, the former KGB thug with gallons of blood dripping from his sticky fingers. My attitude maybe wasn’t very Methodist, but my reaction was visceral.

My own lifetime has witnessed some of history’s most murderous rulers. I still recall the headline about Mao’s death. He likely killed tens of millions of fellow Chinese, though it wasn’t then fashionable to recall. Devoted Maoist Pol Pot, at that very time, was murdering up to two million Cambodians. He was overthrown but later died peacefully, never held to account for his vast crimes. Uganda’s hideous Idi Amin, who sometimes cannibalized his victims, had decades of peaceful retirement in a Saudi hotel. Fellow cannibal Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic also died peacefully years after his horrendous crimes. Even the French got fed up and removed him after he began shooting school children who refused to wear uniforms the empress had designed. Mengistu, the Ethiopian communist dictator who killed a million or so of his people mostly starting during the Carter presidency, has lived peacefully for years in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe, himself a disastrous dictator whose ascension to power President Carter facilitated, pushing aside Methodist Bishop Abel Muzorewa, whom I once had the pleasure to meet. The Ethiopian salesman from whom I buy suits often refers to Mengistu as “The Devil,” and rightly so, having murdered some of this man’s relatives, among so many others.

Of course Hugo Chavez’s best buddy, Fidel Castro, Cuba’s longtime jailer-in-chief, has outlived nearly all his contemporaries and likely will quit this world never facing his countless victims or the bar of justice. We now know that Castro favored nuclear war during the 1962 missile crisis that he helped precipitate, which even blustery and blood soaked Nikita Khrushchev was unwilling to risk. Castro is still mindlessly celebrated by some, even in our churches, as a friend to the poor. In fact, he tragically perpetuated poverty, which sadly was among the least of his crimes.

Occasionally murderous dictators get justice. Saddam Hussein killed hundreds of thousands of fellow Iraqis, maybe more than a million, not to mention his countless other atrocities of mass torture and rape, amid atrocious thievery. His trial and execution came none too soon.

The last century’s greatest criminals, still directly recalled by a few oldsters yet alive, were Hitler and Stalin. Hitler of course escaped earthly justice by killing himself in his fetid bunker, but at least he died knowing that his entire empire of evil was utterly smashed. Stalin died appropriately alone in his dacha, servants, aides, doctors and even Politburo members understandably too fearful to approach. Supposedly he left this world while pathetically stammering about wolves. He perhaps was seeing the gates of Hell themselves. The Bible never directly names anyone in Hell, except the “rich man” in Jesus’ parable, so we too should be reluctant. But sometimes it’s tempting.

There are so many horrors in the world that tweeted quips about a despot’s death probably don’t rank very high on the sin ladder. But Merritt is at least right in his column to remind us to reflect on our own “depravity,” remembering that only God’s grace separates us from the beastly rulers and their minions who too often plague humanity.

  1. Comment by frederick johnsen on March 7, 2013 at 12:52 am

    “We came to know a man who expressed a vision to bring profound changes to his country to benefit especially those people who had felt neglected and marginalized,”
    Jimmy Carter’s words sound much like those of the deluded Chamberlain of the 1930s when he spoke of “Mr. Hitler” in similar terms. Some things never change and folly never goes out of style.

  2. Comment by James Mace on March 7, 2013 at 8:50 am

    I recall the same incident you mention, Mark, about “the decease of Soviet chief Yuri Andropov, the former KGB thug with gallons of blood dripping from his sticky fingers.”

    You wanted to celebrate, and I actually did because the Lord had clearly prompted me to specifically pray starting a few months before that Andropov would either repent and be saved or that he would die and deliver us from his evil in that method instead of the former.

    It seems that the Lord’s evangelistic technique for wicked rulers is to smite them; cf. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who was converted after Yahweh struck him (Dan 4:16-17, 24-25, 33-37).

    Well, Andropov didn’t repent but died, and I knew the Lord was in it. Maybe we would still be at war with the Soviet Union if Andropov had remained in power more than fifteen months.

    Who knows–maybe the Lord called somebody to pray, Chavez (like Andropov) refused to repent, and at least he is dead now too. His evil is removed out of this world, and we can rejoice in that deliverance.

  3. Comment by Donnie on March 7, 2013 at 9:00 am

    I am getting pretty tired of the leftists constantly hyper-ventilating about how “Chavez helped the poor!”

    So what!

    Don’t get me wrong. Helping the poor is one of Jesus’s commandments for Christians. BUT I hope we can all agree that helping the poor, then ruling your country like a tyrant, imprisoning dissenters [not to mention, homosexuals] and associating with virulent racists and anti-Semites undoes any good you might have done. It’s easy to “help the poor” in public, then do evil things otherwise.

  4. Comment by Marco Bell on March 7, 2013 at 6:59 pm

    One should never celebrate the demise of another. It is certainly not Christian or Christ-like.
    And it’s important to remember, that for the many non-Christians, it is not fair to assess that one is evil just because one hasn’t repented. If you’re Christian it’s important, but it’s not necessary in order to die in peace.
    We have no proof of Hell, and it’s a vicariously vengeful idea to presume that there is some place that will ultimately exact a ‘price’ for all of one’s sins.
    Live a peaceful and helpful Life, and don’t worry what happens later, as you’ll just be dead!

  5. Comment by gregpaley on March 8, 2013 at 6:54 pm

    Those in the “creative” community tend to be at the mercy of trends and fashions, and so they can’t grasp that at the core of Christianity (and other religions, as far as that goes) is the belief that some things are not subject to trends and fashions. One reason I left the Episcopal church was just that sort of shallowness, as if Christian worship was supposed to be “pretty,” while they had absolutely no beliefs that differed from those of unbelievers.

    I understand lots of the concerned-n-compassionate folks like to mock the belief in hell, since it makes them sound sensitive. They usually don’t bother to mention that an even more important reason is that, if there is no hell, they can lead scandalous and self-centered lives and never suffer any consequences for it. I hardly think it’s “sensitive” to see a thoroughly vile character like Hugo Chavez occupying a place in heaven alongside Mother Teresa or Francis of Assisi or the apostle Paul. No one who is Christian should toss the docrine of hell aside lightly, due to the fact that Jesus, the One who spoke so often of God’s love, also spoke often of the Last Judgment. Christians who say that hell is not in keeping with belief in the God of the Bible obviously never read the New Testamament. Who knows more about the nature of God – 21st-century skeptics, who dislike the idea of ever being held accountable for their lives, or Jesus of Nazareth? I’m counting on Jesus’ opinion to be more valid. So, while I’m not exactly turning cartwheels over the death of Chavez, I don’t think it’s wrong to take some comfort in truly evil people finally reaping what they sowed. I would not want to worship a God who has no sense of justice. That kind of God would not be a loving God. Universalism is not a “sensitive” teaching, it is extremely cruel, because it means our deeds have no consequences, so why bother to be good?

    If I thought that death was the end of it all I would cease being a Christian immediately. The line in the sand between Christians and the post-Christian churches is that the post-Christians are quite embarrased by the doctrine of an afterlife, hence their focus entirely on this world. The New Testament hinges on the key miracle of Jesus’ resurrection, and the “good news” the apostles preached wasn’t focused on Jesus on the cross, but on Jesus risen. People can admire Jesus for being a great moral teacher, or for setting an example of self-sacrifice, but a Christianity without a Last Judgment afterlife is an oxymoron. These have been “deal-breakers” for two thousand years. People are free to reject them if they wish, but you can’t have a community of faith without at least a handful of basic beliefs.

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