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Robert F. Keeler, a Newsday religion journalist, wrote an article for
the book Spiritual Questions for the Twenty-First Century [2002]. He
entitled it: "We Just Don't Get It." Shocked at seeing escalating
violence in the Middle East, no end in sight for Iraq and
Afghanistan, I want to use excerpts from his article for today's
reflection:
We don't get nonviolence. The only people on earth who do not see
Christ and his teachings as nonviolent are Christians. Mohandas
Gandhi asked: "What will it take to make all Christians return to the
nonviolence of the gospel?"
Jesus pronounced these difficult words about nonviolence: "Love your
enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you,
pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek,
offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not
withhold even your shirt." The earliest Christians heard those words
and reflected on the actions of Jesus, actions that clearly rejected
violence.
The turning point was the year 312 when Constantine won a war under
the banner of the Cross and made Christianity an official state
religion. From that time on, Christians have willingly served in
Caesar's legions.
Biblical scholar Walter Wink says that a proper translation of Jesus'
teaching would be, "Do not strike back at evil (or, one who has done
you evil) in kind. Do not give blow for blow. Do not retaliate
against violence with violence." Jesus saw that the cycle of violence
is endless, creating generation after generation of reflexive enmity
and insatiable bloodletting, but solving nothing.
We do not speak out unequivocally against violence as the first
generation of Christians did. Rather, we accept state-sponsored
violence as the inevitable way of the world - in execution chambers,
in the skies over Iraq and Kosovo, in the perpetuation of obscenely
high military budgets that strangle spending on the real needs of
people. We need to make it as unthinkable for a Christian to enlist
in the armed forces or serve as a military chaplain as to work in an
abortion clinic.
[Saturday, about 5000 Christians gathered at Parliament Hill in
Ottawa, Canada's capital, to pray for political change:
reconsideration of gay marriage, a private member's bill that would
outlaw abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, the Tory government's
efforts to raise the age of sexual consent to 16 from 14. Their
daylong prayer session "to see morality restored in Canada" did not
include the immorality bombing of civilians, destruction of
infrastructure, power plants, and airports; of subsidies and tariffs
that prevent Third World countries from selling their products and
keep them in poverty; the blasphemous sin of making water a commodity
to create profits for transnational water companies and the
destruction of the environment, global warming, land and water
contamination in mining for gold, diamonds, uranium, oil and gas.]
We need prophetic voices who are willing to call us back to the
insight of the earliest Christians, that following Jesus means
embracing nonviolence. We Christians are supposed to be a
countercultural force, a counter to the pervasive violence of our
society.
Cecily
