The Bigot is Blind and So Fails

Last updated on: July 27, 2016 at 11:04 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

The Bigot is Blind and So Fails 2016-07-27T23:04:09-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Don’t pity Haman.

Esther wins because she lives in the real world.

Give him the Bronx cheer for his role in the drama of Esther deserves. As a Biblical character he is one the worst: a genocidal, conniving, vain man with imperial delusions. Thank God he was undone and his plans defeated.

Esther did it: brilliant and beautiful.

It was her beauty that blinded Haman as bigotry always does.

He looked at Esther and saw a beautiful woman and discounted her because of her beauty and femininity. He would die regretting that decision. Haman, the master political intriguer, had decided to kill the Jewish people because a better man, Mordecai, had slighted him. Would be tyrants are always enraged by a slight and they always over react.

This is even true in the workplace. Tell some little Haman his ideas are bad and if he can, he will fire you and all your friends. Haman will build a tall gallows on which to kill you, because that is what petty potentates do.

They build the heights from which they end up hanging.

How could such a clever politician miss this key fact: the favored Queen of Persia was related to his chief foe?

His assumptions, his prejudice, his misogyny, blinded him to the fact that Esther was bright and beautiful. She played on his bigotry to get him to come to parties and then trap him into destructive words and actions.

Esther used his evil to do great good and so saved her people.

We should fight injustice because it is right to do so. We should fight bigotry because believing a falsehood is wrong. But if you need more than truth and justice, then fight prejudice because it will cause you to fail. The lies you believe about others will be the very place your “enemies” can fight back.

While you are monologuing endlessly about “the Jews” and ogling that good looking woman from the haram, she will trap you and defeat you: hanged by the neck on your own prejudice.

This is encouraging as Christians face tough times, but also a warning. For those of us who are traditional Christians, we must be careful to tell the truth, face the facts, and look at people as people and not categories. The atheist is my fellow human being created in the image of God. Islam is a complicated idea not captured in Tweets or books by self-proclaimed experts who cannot even read Arabic.

We don’t need to be foolish or soft to be compassionate or truthful. Esther was effective and fought back because her opponents had all the power, but also all the prejudice. Ignorance breeds defeat.

We need to argue our case as Christians with accurate data, with charity, with tough mindedness. We need to be like Esther: brilliant, beautiful, bold.

God, raise up champions like Esther and keep us from the ignorance and hate of Haman.

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