I was poking around The Washington Post's Web site when I decided to check out their "On Faith" feature. Ambivalence can probably best describe my feelings about the site -- I think it is too heavily populated by those mainline churches that nobody goes to anymore. When panelists tout their membership in the Jesus Seminar, that too is just a big turnoff.

Having said all that, I was reading this response to the question: "Some political leaders say we need to get out of Iraq now. Others say we are obligated to stay and try to restore civil order and authority. What's the moral position? Is there one?"

If you follow the link, you'll find a pretty darn lame "analysis" by Marcus Borg, the former president of the Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars. Yes, this is the same church that came up this week with Muslim Bishop. (That story is going to have so much use over the coming decades.) Borg suggests that we apologize for removing a homicidal dictator who started two wars, gassed his own people and fed people feet-first through industrial shredders. Borg then believes that, seeing our contrition, the international community will come forward and make everything all right in Iraq.

Apparently apologizing makes the terrorists go away.

What I really was interested in was the responses this would prompt from readers. This one by someone identified only as SOK7 pretty much summarizes my take on the issue:

What is the moral response to someone who believes that turning the other cheek is an invitation to do more harm? What is the moral response to someone who takes delight at the sight of death and destruction? What is the moral response to someone who does not care who his bomb kills?

Your misplaced moral indignation makes it sound like it is American soldiers that are setting off bombs in the crowded marketplaces and at wedding receptions. Your ideological rhetoric makes it sound like America is the problem and that once we are gone that Iraq will become some great utopian bastion of peace and harmony. Are you insane?

Is your argument that if only we had left Saddam Hussein in power that Iraq would be better off? -- the Saddam that used poison gas to exterminate an entire village of Kurdish women and children? -- the same Saddam that started an 8-year war against Iran that killed and maimed tens of thousands of his people? -- the Saddam that ordered the invasion of Kuwait? -- the Saddam that used the U.N. Oil For Food program to rebuild his 5 palaces while he watched his people starve? -- or maybe the Saddam that ordered missiles to be fired at American pilots enforcing the U.N. no-fly zone, not just once, but many times? Are you saying that the Iraqi people were better off under the leadership of a madman – is that your moral position?

America invaded Iraq with the idea of replacing a murderous and unstable dictator with a democracy. So long as this was one of our driving purposes, I think we can claim some moral high-ground. Unfortunately, the Occupation has been so mismanaged by the Bush Administration that it now appears unlikely that what had been a noble goal will ever be fully realized.

One argument why America should leave is that we are tired of paying the price, both monetarily and in blood, of the Occupation. We are frustrated by the lack of progress being made. Being tired and frustrated may be a reality, but there is no ‘morality’ in such an argument.

So with the goal of a democracy unmet, there is only one moral question left to ask, although there are many ways to ask it: If America leaves tomorrow, will the situation in Iraq get better or worse? With no soldiers walking the streets, will the bombings suddenly end or will they double in number? Will the terrorists of Iraq care for its people any better than Saddam did? Will a government of unrestrained Mullahs care for the welfare of every Iraqi more or less than our soldiers do?

And as for Christianity, Cut-and-run sounds amazingly similar to what the two men who preceded the good Samaritan did.

I'm reminded of one time when three friends and I were driving through Avila Beach in a car when we saw a guy beating his girlfriend outside a bar. We slammed on the brakes and all four of us got out -- prepared to stop it. At that same moment, the cops rolled up, so our intercession was unnecessary. I should note that it wasn't just the man and the woman outside this bar -- there were probably about 20 people just standing around watching this occur.

Who was acting in the more moral, Christian fashion? The 20 people watching or the four people moving to intercede -- and prepared to do a certain level of violence, if necessary, (the smallest of the four of us -- two of us were 6'1" and about 250, the third was 6'5" and 210, and the fourth guy was 5'8", 150 -- had grabbed "The Club" just in case) to halt the attack?

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, I've always wondered what Christ would've had the Samaritan do had he arrived as the man was being robbed and beaten. I can't believe the answer would've been to apologize for disturbing him and walking away as the robber finished the job.