SOME folks believe that it was God’s will that Spain occupied Guam and brought Christianity to its shores. It should follow then that Spain and its leaders were doing God’s will. During that same era, the Portuguese landed on Goa, India and presumably were doing God’s will as well since they brought that same version of Christianity.
But disciple Thomas, the doubting one, already landed in southwest India hundreds of years before the Portuguese did, and brought the gospel of Jesus Christ with him as he was instructed to after the resurrection of Christ. You know, to make “fishers of men.” So the question is why is it God’s will for Portugal to head into India when Christianity was already taking root? Maybe the Portuguese, like the Spaniards, were conquering/occupying nations for the crown but in the name of Christianity (whatever version)? You know, like the Americans and the British occupying nations in the Middle East for scurrilous reason for. The spice of the 21st century: oil. Of course, in the name of Christianity and for the crown, in this case, national security. To spice things up.
On Guam presently, there is a wide gap between the haves and the have-nots unlike during the historical past. And you can see that not just in the cries and pleas of the Nasion Chamoru but also feel it among the silent majority of all races. At the same time, you can see the powerful, the elite, not wanting to any federal taxes, (hence no movement on statehood) when they already don’t pay squat in property taxes, some pay zero on GRT and have benefited from President Bush’s massive top-heavy income capital gains and dividend tax cuts. Without these funding sources, you will get a vanishing middle class, more on some sort of assistance, and more crime. Which is what we have now. It is like living during Spanish-occupied time when we can have a better life if we were incorporated into the union and all outstanding grievances stand a much better chance of getting heard and addressed.
Now that might be God’s will and we better move soon before that power decides to supplant the United States in God’s name.

MATT PHILIPS
Mangilao, Guam