Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
In verse 34 of the Gospel according to Saint Luke, these words are among the last to be spoken by Jesus of Nazareth as his life ebbed away on the cross at Golgotha. These words place forgiveness at the heart of Christianity, but it is a message unheeded by many who call themselves Christians.
Christmas is a time for Christian celebration, but it should also be a time of reflection, not only on the origins of the religion, but on its key tenets and principles. For any self-respecting believer, this should also include an examination of his or her abilities to live up to these principles. In this regard, these last three months have been a particularly testing time for American Christians.
Vengeance is a very human emotion, especially in the aftermath of the horror of 11 September. But Saint Paul, writing in his Epistle to the Romans, teaches us specifically that we should “repay no one evil for evil… never avenge yourselves… (for) vengeance is mine… sayeth the Lord.” How does a nation that proclaims its Christian beliefs louder than any other in the western world reconcile the teachings of its founder and his apostles with its recent actions, individually and collectively?
Wouldn’t a true follower of Jesus believe that President Bush was usurping God’s authority by promising the US would “devastate” foreign countries who aided terrorism? True Christianity and war are incompatible, and while the seething turmoil of the world means that inevitably nations will fight to protect their interests, is it not the height of hypocrisy to kill in Jesus’ name? If we are going to kill, to “devastate” other nations, might we not at least have the humility to acknowledge publicly that we are deliberately disobeying the teachings of Jesus? No. Instead of praying for forgiveness, we pray for victory, certain and smug in our convictions.
Commentaries abound, locally and nationally, boasting of Christianity’s preeminent place in the pantheon of world religions; its self-assured claim to superiority over all other belief systems (especially its ability to vanquish the benighted pagans of Islam); and America’s claim to be “God’s Country.”
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials have gone on the record that American forces will not take prisoners and would prefer that foreign Taliban fighters be killed. They may retract those statements as events on the ground in Afghanistan unfold faster than Pentagon planners can control, but such sentiments are against the Geneva Convention that governs behavior during wartime, and if carried out would likely qualify America for prosecution for war crimes.
These proclamations are also definitively un-Christian. We and others decry the corruption of Islam by the warped dogma of bin Laden and the Taliban, but the words of our leaders deny and undermine the very values they — and we — claim as sources of value and decency.
This country’s government-sponsored Christian patriotism mocks the Constitution, which demands a separation of church and state. By contrast, I grew up in a country, England, that has a state religion. The Church of England, born from Henry VIII’s self-generated schism with Rome in 1534, is a national institution, with the reigning monarch at its head. The C of E is among the largest landowners in the nation, with large estates and thousands of beautiful churches. But most of them are empty on Sundays. A recent poll showed fewer than five percent of Brits go to church regularly. Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral are much more important as tourist destinations than as places of worship.
Every day from the ages of five till 11, my schoolday included an hour of “divinity.” In over 1000 hours of Bible study, I soon learned that the holy book is a mass of contradictions, exhibiting widely different attitudes to various forms of social behavior. As a small boy learning verses by rote, chanting them to the teacher, I accepted this as one of the mysteries of life. I also accepted the system of rote learning, much like the Islamic children we see on the TV news, rocking back and forth on the floor in the clerical schools of Pakistan and other south Asian and Middle Eastern countries, chanting endless verses from the Quran.
As I grew older, my perplexity increased when faced with Bible stories that seemed to condone wicked behavior. In this regard I was always horrified by the story of Abraham and Isaac. If today we heard of a father who was about to murder his son for some religious belief, then that pervert would be arrested, tried and locked up for decades. Yet Abraham is regarded as one of the pillars of Hebrew religion, and welcomed into Christian belief as a mentor and role model.
In contrast to the violence, viciousness and murder that characterize much of the Old Testament I found the New Testament much more approachable, with its teachings of peace, modesty and gentleness. But the history of Christianity is filled with yet more murder and hatred. People convinced their interpretations of words written 2,000 years ago are the only correct ones have killed and maimed men, women and children who don’t agree with them.
The efforts of thousands of decent men and women who try hard to practice the teachings of Jesus are overwhelmed by the strident hypocrisy of thousands more who claim devoutness without devotion, and those who are obsessed with amassing wealth and material possessions, seemingly never having heard the story of the rich man, the camel and the eye of the needle.
Forgiveness of sin and acknowledgement of human frailty, while central to Catholicism and to a lesser extent Anglicanism, never had much place in the harsh puritan doctrines that formed America’s version of Christianity and which are still prevalent today. We find it hard to forgive. We are trained to compete, not collaborate, to win at all costs. That’s not what Jesus taught.
As we celebrate the symbolic date of his birth, might we not try, belatedly, to learn some wisdom from his words? If America is indeed “God’s country,” it is a remarkably un-Christian one, even with full churches. Was Mary’s boy child born in vain?
This article appears in Dec 19-25, 2001.
