Editor, Gazette-Journal:

I was saddened to hear about the Christian Medical Missionaries murdered in northern Afghanistan within the month. Among those killed were Tom Little, an optometrist from New York, and Karen Woo, a British surgeon. The doctors had finished their work and were returning to Kabul at the time of the attack. Dr. Woo wrote before her death that she realized the expedition would require a lot of physical and mental resolve and would not be without risk. The Taliban took credit for these murders.

Another American martyred while engaged in missionary work some 50-plus years ago wrote in his journal, "One of the great blessings of heaven is the appreciation of heaven on earth. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." That missionary was Jim Elliot, who also wrote the following: "Eternity shall be at once a great eye-opener and a great mouth-shutter. It shall be the Rectifier of all injustice, the Confirmer of Martyr’s blood. Lord, deliver me from sweet doctrinal nothings."

Later, Jim Elliot wrote, "The armchair American, untrained in brutality, will find palpable the honeyed lie of the False Prophet. Neo-Orthodoxy will be the rage; church union the patriotism, God the common topic of conversation, but not Paul’s orthodoxy, nor Christ’s church, nor my God. The people imagine a vain thing!"

About three days later Jim writes, "World Government, World Council of Churches, unification of ideals—these are the signs of the End. Social, religious, political and technical unification, men will find. But where will they find a Moral Integrator, a common denominator for Good and Evil? There is no unification of these, or understanding of them apart from the consideration of the Christian God."

So I ask where are the voices whose passion for Christ burns in their hearts? I hear the voices of regular people opposing a mosque being built on the site of the now-destroyed World Trade Center. I heard the voices of those who speak without regard to political correctness. They are the voices of truth and wisdom, those voices who find no unification between good and evil.

The concept is simple, and Jesus said it best in the Gospel of John, "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." Faith binds a man to what he knows in his heart.

Sharon Slaughter

Cobbs Creek, Va.