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How Can Life Go On?

30/1/2017

This week we have been observing Holocaust Memorial Day. It’s a civic observance and not a religious one in that the Jewish community will have their own remembrance day called Yom HaShoah later in April. The day remembers all those murdered by the Nazis – disabled people, homosexuals, Roma and other minorities in the hope that such atrocities might never happen again. But genocides have happened again in Rwanda, Cambodia and Darfur which is still going on today. These atrocities and the devastations we see on our television sets caused by war and terrorist activities reveal to us the depths of human cruelty and hate. What is frightening is that if one human being can do it then all human beings can do it. I’ve come to believe that this evil is not something separate from me but is something that I’m implicated in just because of the interconnectedness of all humanity. If we are truly brothers and sisters and share the same humanity then we are involved. If we refuse to divide the world into them and us then we are as much part of the terror and evil as we are of the good. This means approaching Holocaust Memorial Day with a certain humility and shame that our humanity can stoop to such depths.

This of course is only one side of Holocaust Remembrance because in the midst of that horror there are stories of generosity and heroism and we are as implicated in those as we are in the other. If it’s possible for us to engage in terrible acts of violence and cruelty, it’s also possible for us to display great acts of heroic generosity and charity. One of the surprising things about the stories we hear from survivors and we even see in those who have survived war is the indomitable spirit of human beings. I can hear stories and see events which I think would destroy me but people go on living against the odds and make a life for themselves. And that potential is within me too. There’s no doubt the effects of these atrocities must affect people psychologically and spiritually but many manage to live and make something of themselves, coming to terms with what has happened. Some of the survivors I know have spent their lives telling their story in spite sometimes of the pain this has caused them in the hope that such horror will not happen again.

Genocides don’t happen all at once. Attitudes such as zenophobia create a seed bed in which hatred of others can flourish, something that seems to be growing all over the world and of which the daily news makes us so aware. The Holocaust Educational Trust points to indicators that can form the path to genocide. Early steps are a lack of respect for diversity, dividing the world into them and us, stereotyping ‘them’, excluding ‘them’ and dehumanising others through the use of language such as cockroaches in Rwanda, vermin in Nazi camps. And this can happen subtly and quietly so that we can be unaware of how conditioned we are becoming until violence and hatred erupts. Frighteningly I hear this kind of language today and am very aware of it in the media, particularly social media. It’s so important to be aware of it, to listen to our own language, to be careful not to divide the world into them and us, to be respectful of others, to allow them their differences and to rejoice in diversity.

The theme for this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day was; ‘How Can Life Go On?’ How can we continue to live when so many others have died, how are people to survive in the light of such unimaginable suffering, how can life be rebuilt after such trauma? Author and survivor of the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel has said:

'For the survivor death is not the problem. Death was an everyday occurrence. We learned to live with Death. The problem is to adjust to life, to living. You must teach us about living.'(1)

These are important questions which face survivors of genocides but I think they can resonate with all of us who long for a world of peace and harmony. I’m sure we all have a feeling of hopelessness as we view on our television screens the violence and atrocities perpetrated not just in the Middle East or parts of Africa and Asia but also on European soil. How can I live comfortable at home, speaking out about justice, doing my best to make the world a better place in my own small way while all this suffering is happening all around and I have personally experienced nothing of it? I have to believe that my own small efforts to make the world a better place, to help people appreciate difference, to give them opportunities to learn about other faiths and encounter others can contribute to the wellbeing of the human race and hopefully set free a good energy into our world. I’m reminded, as I often am, of the image of the iceberg. The hatred and hostility of others is the tip of the iceberg, the attitudes to diversity and strangers create a climate that keeps the iceberg alive, so to speak. To change the climate and temperature of the ocean is could lead to the iceberg melting. I’m hopeful that all our efforts for justice, interreligious dialogue, peace, reconciliation can contribute to the general atmosphere which will reduce the overt signs of hatred and violence.

I hope, believe and trust that this is so. To do otherwise would be to despair.

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A Pernicious Doctrine

22/1/2017

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I recently came across a quotation from a book by Brian McLaren that pulled me up short. I like Brian McLaren’s work. He comes from an evangelical background but is respectful of other faiths and religions. He encourages a deep understanding of Christianity that is open and generous to others. I’ve not yet read his latest book ‘The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion Is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian’ but the quotation shocked me though it didn’t really contain any new information. Here’s the quotation taken from pp.76-77

A lineage of evil . . . stretches from Constantine [in 313] to Pope Nicholas [V] to Columbus to contemporary American and European politics: the tradition of racial and religious privilege and supremacy—specifically white and Christian privilege and supremacy. . . . About forty years before 1492, Pope Nicholas V issued an official document called Romanus Pontifex . . . which serves as the basis for what is commonly called the Doctrine of Discovery, the teaching that whatever Christians “discover,” they can take and use as they wish. . . . Christian global mission is defined as to “invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue” non-Christians around the world, and to steal “all movable and immovable goods” and to “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery”—and not only them, but their descendants. And notice the stunning use of the word convert: “to convert them to his and their use and profit.”

Why was I so shocked? Part of my interfaith journey has been to recognise and face up to the dark side of religion, especially my own. I am very aware of how Christianity spread on the back of colonialism, how the Church was implicated in politics, how religion was used as a unifying force in what was called the Holy Roman Empire, how Christianity and Catholicism were imposed on other cultures. So what was new in this quotation? Well, I think it was the Papal Bull – a name given to an authoritative edict from the Pope that stated so clearly the teaching that Christians can take and use as they wish anything they discover, including people whom they have converted. I had to read the edict ‘Romanus Pontifex’ issued by Pope Nicholas V in 1455 for myself and its language is shocking. It’s primarily a political document confirming the King of Portugal’s right to trade and colonise certain lands in Africa and forbidding other Christian nations from infringing these rights. And this was not a one off. A Papal Bull in 1436 gave the same rights to Castile over the Guanches people of the Canary Islands. Another in 1452 instructed the Portuguese Crown “to invade, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ, to put them into perpetual slavery, and to take away all their possessions and property.” And another in 1493 gave Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain “full and free power, authority, and jurisdiction of every kind,” over almost all of the Americas.

All this can be summed up, I now understand, in what has come to be known as the Doctrine of Discovery – the right of Christian colonisers to the land and resources of pagan peoples, the right to kill them or enslave them if they did not convert. This is 15th century thinking but it formed the basis of the United States attitude to the North American Indians in the 19thcy and still governs US Indian Law today. I have to constantly remind myself that the human race is not very far along its evolutionary path. I’ve often heard it said that if we were to compare the life span of our universe with a calendar year, human beings only appear at three minutes to midnight on 31st December. We may be advanced technologically but in some ways we are not at all advanced in living with one another and respecting difference.

It’s not too difficult to see the sentiments of the Doctrine of Discovery at work in the world today: my truth is the only truth and yours can be ignored or even obliterated. If you do not accept my truth you have no right to a voice or to life and therefore can be killed. Deep within nations – and perhaps within individuals – there seems to be a desire for expansionism, an adventurous spirit and ambition which allows invasion of others’ space, a fear of the other which leads to enormous expenditure of time and resources on defence, a restriction of the rights of fellow citizens who do not follow the state religion, leading sometimes to their marginalisation, expulsion and even death. This is true all over the world and all religions are implicated, especially if they are allied with the State as the Catholic Church was for so much of its history.

Later today I am going to an Interfaith Peace and Reconciliation Service as part of Scotland’s Holocaust Memorial Day events. This is an opportunity to face up to the dark side of our faiths and our humanity and to acknowledge our desire for peace. It will also witness to the fact that it’s possible for faith communities to live together, to respect one another’s differences and to treat one another as brothers and sisters. I’ll be very aware of the Doctrine of Discovery as I participate in this service but also grateful that things are changing in some small way, believing that our attempts at furthering good interfaith relations can bear fruit and do take the human family further along that road of evolution towards peaceful co-existence. This is what interreligious dialogue is all about.

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The Silence of God

12/1/2017

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The silence of God can be frightening and deafening. Perhaps it’s the reason people don’t like silence. This is particularly so in the face of great suffering and evil. Shusako Endo’s book ‘Silence’, now made into a major film by Martin Scorsese, deals with this very problem. The film is profound, an experience which lingers on well after the film is over and the silence of the audience as the credits rolled was evidence, I think, how moved they were by it.

The story is of two young Jesuits who go to Japan to find their teacher Fr Ferreira. They cannot believe the news that he has betrayed his faith, become Buddhist and is working with the Japanese government. This man has been their teacher, their inspiration and model of what it means to be a good Jesuit. They go off to Japan sure that the information is wrong and wanting to support what had been a flourishing Christian community before the 17th century’s edicts ordering all foreigners and their influence, especially their religion, out of the country and isolating Japan from the rest of the world for 200 years. At the time of the film the Christian community is in hiding, being faithful to their beliefs and willing to suffer for them. The two young missionaries tend some of these small communities, amazed at how they have kept the faith, before they are tracked down, captured and tortured.

Several themes are explored in the book and the film – ones which continue to raise their heads in today’s interfaith journey. I had heard from a friend who translated ‘Silence’ into English, that Endo constantly struggled with the question of how easily Christianity fitted the Japanese character and mind. Certainly there’s a common refrain in Silence that ‘Japan is a swamp in which Christianity cannot flourish’. This would not have been the case in the previous century when the Jesuit mission had flourished in the country and Christianity was seen to be beneficial for foreign trade. But did it sit happily in the Japanese way of life? All religions have their own cultural expression and it is often difficult to separate what is religious and what is cultural. How far Catholicism can adopt other cultural expressions has been controversial over the centuries. In the17th century the Church opposed it but now it’s accepted in what we call acculturation and I have experienced Catholic liturgies which have used Hindu and Buddhist rituals which were very moving. However for some religions conversion means adopting their culture and language and I’ve always felt I would have difficulty taking on and sitting comfortably in other cultural expressions even if I were to accept the faith.

The major theme of the book and the film are the fearful and horrific tortures and executions meted out on Christians unwilling to give up their faith by refusing to stand on metal pictures of Jesus on the Cross. To die quickly for one’s faith is heroic but to suffer awful punishments is something else. What was it that gave these faithful Japanese the courage and strength to be true to their beliefs and faith in the face of these terrible punishments? One thing seemed to be the promise of Paradise – a better reward and a better life – something we’re used to hearing with regard to Muslim suicide bombers. What does suffering matter if the reward is eternal life with God? I must say there is nothing of the martyr in me and I think I would be denying my faith very quickly when faced with horrific torture. Of course none of us know how we would react in such circumstances but I’d hope, I think, that it would be an external act with no real conviction and at one point in the film one of the Jesuits does tell the Christians being tortured to do just that – apostasise, stand on the tablet of Jesus on the Cross, save yourself and your village. Some do take this way out but others are faithful to the end –their integrity intact.

We say in the Christian tradition that there is no greater love that anyone can have than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. This is true but I wonder if there is not an even greater love and that is to watch other people suffer and die, be discriminated against, to have one’s heart broken and be powerless to do anything about it – to live with unrequited love, misunderstandings in relationships, powerlessness to help or solve another’s problem. This can be like a living death, protracted over time. And this is the pain of the young Jesuit looking on at the torture of others. Where is God amid the struggle to apostasise, to deny one’s truth and firmly held faith, not to save one’s own skin, though torture would make that understandable but to save others from terrible torture and execution. Where is God in all of this? Why does God not speak, not act? This is the dilemma of the central character in the film as he struggles with his faith and the consequences of his fidelity or his betrayal. Why does God not help? How can he continue to live while others have died and sacrificed themselves for their faith? How can he bear the shame and the guilt? What meaning will there be in his future life?

The film does not answer these questions but it takes us into the struggle of Fr Sebastiao and his final denial of his faith, believing that at last God had spoken and told him to do so. Whether he found peace in this decision is not clear. While, thank God, we are not faced with such suffering and terror, many of us will understand the silence of God in the face of contemporary world events and past events such as the Holocaust that we’ll be remembering at the end of this month. How often do we not wish and long for an answer that would take away our sense of powerlessness and helplessness in the face of evil, injustice and suffering and how hard it is sometimes to live with the silence of God?

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Old Clothes and Porridge

6/1/2017

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There’s a saying in my part of the world after the holiday period ‘back to old clothes and porridge’. That’s how it feels now that we’re firmly into 2017. Once the jollifications of New Year are over it’s very obvious that nothing has changed as far as the world is concerned. As I get older the change of the year means very little. It’s only one more minute, one more day that takes us into a new year which is only a human way of calculating time with no basis in reality. But beginnings contain possibilities and, for a moment, hope that things might get better, either in our own lives through those resolutions that on the whole don’t last long or in the world.

For Catholics January 1st is dedicated to praying for peace and for the past fifty years the Popes have published a letter calling for peace in the world. This year Pope Francis’ was the fiftieth such letter and commentators tell us there was a distinct difference in this letter from previous ones. This, according to John Dear, is the first statement on non-violence, in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Martin Luther King Jr, in history.

The letter is called “Non-violence – A Style of Politics for Peace”. In it the Pope calls on individuals and governments to make nonviolence a way of life and prays that all of us might cultivate nonviolence in our most personal thoughts and values. That is a great challenge, I think, to all of us and makes me wonder how nonviolent I am in my thoughts, words and deeds. There are so many ways to be violent. Is speaking with passion and conviction violent? Is taking sides and speaking out forcibly in a situation of injustice violent? Is speaking our truth when it disagrees with another violent? Is anger always violent? ? Is standing up for one’s rights in the face of discrimination, prejudice and oppression violent? What kind of world would it be if none of these things happened? Surely it’s because of these stances that we are more aware of equality, justice, human rights than in the past.

There’s a false kind of peace just as there’s a false kind of religion and the peace the Pope is talking about is not passivity. There is after all the peace of the cemetery, there is the peace of avoidance, of failing to face squarely injustices and disturbances within ourselves and in relationships, there’s the peace of ignoring the violence and conflict that is all around us, there’s the peace of comfort and complacency, there’s the peace of uniformity, the peace of power and control. There’s a real temptation to be an ostrich and hide our heads in the sand and I know a number of people who do this because the state of the world is all too much for them but this is a mask, a mere semblance of peace. Of course there’s also the temptation to be the opposite - a roaring lion, exclaiming about the injustices and the state of the world, getting angry at it all and spreading negativity even in our work for justice.

This is not true peace and not the kind of peace Pope Francis is talking about. The pope does not shirk from what he calls “a horrifying world war fought piecemeal” and the evils that result from it. He states quite categorically that violence is not the cure for our broken world and that countering violence with violence is no answer but only leads to an increase in suffering. But it must be faced I think and its existence not just acknowledged but also grieved over. Perhaps peace in our world begins with tears and compassion for its brokenness, a recognition of our contribution to the violence that is around us at a national level, if not an individual one. We decry the wars in the Middle East but my country is the second largest exporter or arms in the world. I’m implicated in it all simply by being a citizen. People are fighting for an identity and recognition that they believe has been denied them through western imperialism and colonialism. Religions too have contributed to violence through exclusivist teachings and forced conversions. It seems to me that it’s only in facing this that we can have the freedom to be peacemakers and protest positively with non-violence, compassion and real concern about the injustices, philosophies and attitudes that create a ‘them and us’ situation. Religions in their different ways tell us that all human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, are brothers and sisters to be treated with dignity and respect and loved as we would want to be loved. This is another foundation for peace and one which the scientific community with its recognition of the interrelatedness of all things shares.

We do have examples of people who have worked for peace with vision, commitment and an absence of violence. Pope Francis mentions these in his letter – Mahatma Gandhi and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan in the liberation of India, Dr Martin Luther King Jr in combating racial discrimination, Leymah Gbowee and the thousands of Liberian women, who organized pray-ins and nonviolent protest that resulted in high-level peace talks that ended the second civil war in Liberia. These are the heroes in the work of non-violence but what about the rest of us who cannot do such great things and long to be peacemakers in our own small way? The Pope gives us an answer. He quotes Mother Teresa who on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 said that if in our families we just get together and love one another “we will be able to overcome all the evil that is in the world……. for the force of arms is deceptive. While weapons traffickers do their work, there are poor peacemakers who give their lives to help one person, then another and another and another.”

In these small ways we can all help build the Kingdom of God and know that in doing so we are not alone but part of a great gathering of people who long for peace in our world and try to further it one step at a time, one day at a time quietly and hiddenly but no less effective for that

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How Can Life Go On?

A Pernicious Doctrine

The Silence of God

​Old Clothes and Porridge

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Old Clothes and Porridge

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