God’s Warriors: Christian, Muslim, Jewish. You might think the world has trouble enough from the ungodly without fanatics making war in God’s name. God can’t be pleased.
“God’s Warriors” is the three-part Christiane Amanpour series that’s been running -- and rerunning -- on CNN. Ms. Amanpour is fair and balanced in her treatment of the three extremist groups, not to mention more generous to them that they deserve. Whether it’s the Muslim, Jewish or Christian segment of the investigative series, the “warriors” show themselves to be self-interested posers pretending to do God’s work without the slightest idea of who God really is. But their threatening presence casts its dark shadow on the Middle East and the peace summit now being championed by U.S. Secretary of State Condalezza Rice. Crossing them can be punishable by death.
I’ve watched enough of Ms. Amapour’s series -- it’s hard to stomach for long periods -- to know all three groups share the same problem: they’re dedicated to “God’s word” instead of to God. Each group confuses the “sacred documents” of their particular faith with the infinite wisdom that is the true word of God. And because they fail to seek God’s heart, they misunderstand their documents
I know I’m not going to cure this ill. The problem has corrupted all the Middle Eastern or Semitic religions -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- from the beginning, mostly out of a desire to enforce orthodoxy. The greater the certainty the “word” is absolute revelation, the easier the task of enforcing orthodoxy. And it seems to follow as day does night that “God’s Warriors” emerge from the most constrained and orthodox branches of their respective faiths. The one thing they share is a divine belief that they are right and the other guy isn’t.
The Judeo-Christian religions have been as guilty as our Islamic brothers in substituting devotion to religion for devotion to God. In his sixth chapter the prophet Hosea speaks a truth repeated often in the Hebrew scriptures: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offering.” Jesus repeats this sentiment in the New Testament. Accused of lacking devotion to the Torah in his attitude toward the Sabbath, Jesus says the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Just read the scriptures for God’s sake! You can’t miss it: God intended us for love not war. How sad God must feel to hear a phrase like “God’s Warriors.” Could God’s name possibly be taken more in vain?
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Not Time Yet for a Smile and a Haircut
Reading The Evangelical Crackup, David Kirkpatrick’s Times Magazine article in which he details the waning power of the religious right, stimulated sad memories. I was reminded of the bittersweet end of the Viet Nam War in 1975. Those of us who actively opposed the war were finally getting what we wanted, if not in the way we wanted it. But without “The War” to be against, we were left asking, “who are we?” Most eventually got a haircut and a job, and joined the middle class.
For many progressive Christians the fundamentalists on the religious right provide a powerful bogeyman to rally against. Here are people who are exclusionary in their approach, strident in their style, pessimistic in attitude, with tunnel vision in their choice of issues. Activists in the so-called Mainline Protestant churches have been vigorous in opposition to these fellow Christians because we see them as misrepresenting the faith. Politicians who share or support their views are driven by the interests of their constituents. In that context, their actions are reasonable. But Christians should be driven by God’s bias for justice and compassion.
Kirkpatrick cites the War in Iraq and a general weariness with politics from the pulpit as reasons why ultra-conservatives have been losing ground in the evangelical movement. Even the Southern Baptist Convention has begun to push back against the conservatives who have controlled it since the 1980s, electing a moderate president at its last convention. While the tradition evangelicals tended to see Christianity as a set of theological beliefs coupled with specific moral imperatives (mostly involving sex), the newer leaders are taking a broader approach, according to Kirkpatrick:
“Falwell, Dobson and their generation saw their political activism as essentially defensive, fighting to keep traditional moral codes …. But many younger evangelicals — and some old-timers — take a less fatalistic view. For them, the born-again experience of accepting Jesus is just the beginning. What follows is a long-term process of “spiritual formation” that involves applying his teachings in the here and now. … They talk more about a biblical imperative to … the betterment of their communities and the world. They support traditional charities but also public policies that address health care, race, poverty and the environment.”
Sounds pretty progressive. So you see what I mean about trading protest signs for haircuts? With enemies like these, who needs enemies?
But before we go too far in writing off the religious right, let’s remember the power they still wield in the popular media. Yes, Falwell is gone and much of his generation of clergy is aging, but Dr. Dobson and his Focus on the Family organization still dominates Christian radio. Despite the ascendancy of more moderate conservatives like Bill Hybels of the Willow Creek Association and Purpose Driven Life author Rick Warren, many evangelicals feel the movement is simply suffering a mild downturn--inevitable after riding so high for so long. Kirkpatrick writes, “Conservative Christian leaders in Washington acknowledge a ‘leftward drift’ among evangelicals, quoting Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and the movement’s chief advocate in Washington. He (Perkins) told me he believed that Hybels and many of his admirers had, in effect, fallen away from orthodox evangelical theology. Perkins compared the phenomenon to the century-old division in American Protestantism between the liberal mainline and the orthodox evangelical churches. ‘It is almost like another split coming within the evangelicals,’ he said.”
What many of the conservative evangelicals resist admitting is that may of us on the left--Jim Wallis being a good example--consider ourselves evangelical in the original sense of the word: advocates of the good news of Jesus Christ. Maybe if we could agree on that definition, we could heal all the splits and march en masse to the salons and barber shops.
For many progressive Christians the fundamentalists on the religious right provide a powerful bogeyman to rally against. Here are people who are exclusionary in their approach, strident in their style, pessimistic in attitude, with tunnel vision in their choice of issues. Activists in the so-called Mainline Protestant churches have been vigorous in opposition to these fellow Christians because we see them as misrepresenting the faith. Politicians who share or support their views are driven by the interests of their constituents. In that context, their actions are reasonable. But Christians should be driven by God’s bias for justice and compassion.
Kirkpatrick cites the War in Iraq and a general weariness with politics from the pulpit as reasons why ultra-conservatives have been losing ground in the evangelical movement. Even the Southern Baptist Convention has begun to push back against the conservatives who have controlled it since the 1980s, electing a moderate president at its last convention. While the tradition evangelicals tended to see Christianity as a set of theological beliefs coupled with specific moral imperatives (mostly involving sex), the newer leaders are taking a broader approach, according to Kirkpatrick:
“Falwell, Dobson and their generation saw their political activism as essentially defensive, fighting to keep traditional moral codes …. But many younger evangelicals — and some old-timers — take a less fatalistic view. For them, the born-again experience of accepting Jesus is just the beginning. What follows is a long-term process of “spiritual formation” that involves applying his teachings in the here and now. … They talk more about a biblical imperative to … the betterment of their communities and the world. They support traditional charities but also public policies that address health care, race, poverty and the environment.”
Sounds pretty progressive. So you see what I mean about trading protest signs for haircuts? With enemies like these, who needs enemies?
But before we go too far in writing off the religious right, let’s remember the power they still wield in the popular media. Yes, Falwell is gone and much of his generation of clergy is aging, but Dr. Dobson and his Focus on the Family organization still dominates Christian radio. Despite the ascendancy of more moderate conservatives like Bill Hybels of the Willow Creek Association and Purpose Driven Life author Rick Warren, many evangelicals feel the movement is simply suffering a mild downturn--inevitable after riding so high for so long. Kirkpatrick writes, “Conservative Christian leaders in Washington acknowledge a ‘leftward drift’ among evangelicals, quoting Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and the movement’s chief advocate in Washington. He (Perkins) told me he believed that Hybels and many of his admirers had, in effect, fallen away from orthodox evangelical theology. Perkins compared the phenomenon to the century-old division in American Protestantism between the liberal mainline and the orthodox evangelical churches. ‘It is almost like another split coming within the evangelicals,’ he said.”
What many of the conservative evangelicals resist admitting is that may of us on the left--Jim Wallis being a good example--consider ourselves evangelical in the original sense of the word: advocates of the good news of Jesus Christ. Maybe if we could agree on that definition, we could heal all the splits and march en masse to the salons and barber shops.
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