It seems every day that we
are confronted with news of horrible acts of terror and destruction perpetrated
by people who claim to follow God.
For months now groups like ISIS and Boko Haram have captured global
attention with their sadistic version of Islam that has led them to brutally
execute and enslave people of various groups, even other Muslims. But it’s not just Islamic extremists
who are engaging in violence in the name of God. I just read a heartbreaking article today about Christianmilitias in the Central African Republic who are engaging in brutal acts
against Muslims to the extent that there are now 50,000 Muslims who are fleeing
the country rather than face being hacked up with machetes by Christians.
Here in America
Evangelicals are more and more frequently calling for the U.S. to wage war
against ISIS. This week I watched
a video clip from Pastor Robert Jefress, Dallas First Baptist, who somehow
twisted the teachings of Jesus on being salt and light into a justification of
why we need to go to war in the name of Jesus.
While I agree with the
desire to protect the innocent and to stand up to evil, I am very disturbed by
how easily American Christians are willing to appeal to Jesus as a
justification to use violence against other religious groups. It seems to me that as much as American
Evangelicals may hate what ISIS is doing, their answer as to how to deal with
ISIS is simply to answer violence with violence, hate with hate, and destruction
with destruction, and all of this from the moral high ground that God is on OUR
side. Though this way of
responding to tyrannical groups may make sense in terms of national defense, this
position cannot be defended by way of the example or teachings of Jesus.
As New Testament Scholar
Richard Hays has noted,
“From Matthew to Revelation
we find a consistent witness against violence and a calling to the community to
follow the example of Jesus in accepting suffering rather than inflicting it …
Nowhere does the New Testament provide any positive model of Jesus or his
followers employing violence in defense of justice.”
I am becoming more and more
convinced that much of what is called Christianity in modern America is little
more than tribalism, nationalism, and patriotism covered in a “Christian”
veneer. This type of Christianity
doesn’t show forth the good news of the gospel rooted in enemy love,
forgiveness, peacemaking and reconciliation but instead keeps recycling the
same old story of retributive violence.
N.T. Wright has noted that
humans become like the god(s) they worship. When I look at religiously motivated violence whether
Christian, Jewish, or Islamic I see that under the surface they all have in
common a vision a violent, retributive God who is “on our side” against others. It takes nothing to believe in a
violent and retributive god who is on our side. Why? Because he looks just like us!
But Jesus reveals the God who
is utterly different than anything we could come up with. In Jesus we see "God with
us", the God who will step into our world and get his hands dirty, the one
who taught us to love our enemies, to seek peace, to show mercy and compassion
to the sick, poor, and those living on the margins of society. In the cross of
Christ we see the overthrow of the vindictive and violent picture of God as
Jesus prays with his dying breath "Father forgive them, they don't even
know what they are doing." As
the author of Hebrews wrote, “[We come to] Jesus the
mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better
word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24.) The blood of Abel is at the
foundation of civilization crying out for vengeance but the blood of Christ,
the Lamb slain at the foundation of the world, announces forgiveness. This is the good news!
Isn’t it interesting that the most
prolific writer in the New Testament was a former religious, fundamentalist
terrorist? Before his encounter with Jesus, Paul had terrorized the early
church through persecution and even lethal force. Imagine Paul’s shock when he bumped into Jesus on the Road
to Damascus, realizing that rather than fighting for God he was actually
fighting God himself. Paul would
never again see violence as a legitimate way to live out his faith because the
image of God behind his worship had been radically changed. Paul went on to spend of much of the
rest of his life being persecuted and imprisoned for his faith in Jesus, but
even in persecution he did not resist or fight back but rather followed the
example of Jesus to the very end.
The question of how to deal with ISIS is
a tricky one, especially for those of us who follow Christ and live here in the
west with no fear of persecution. While I do not know what we should do
concerning ISIS, I do know religiously motivated violence from Christians will
not bring about the righteousness of God.