“Religion can be a
passion -- the same passion that motivates religious people to do great things
is the same one that [on 9/11] brought all that destruction…. there [is] no
greater and more destructive force on the surface of this earth than the
religious passion.” --from “Faith and
Doubt at Ground Zero”, Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete
If we choose God, when we choose God, which God will it be?
A God of love? A God of hate?
That is the question which has haunted me since the terror
attacks in France last week, which left seventeen innocent people dead, a city
traumatized, a nation terrorized, and a world once again reminded of the
terrible price paid when religion goes evil. When religion inspires violence.
When religion gets so twisted and warped, that “religious” people hate, murder,
and even dare to proclaim that they do so in “the name of God”.
It’s tempting to imagine that this is a modern problem, one
born in the ashes of 9/11, when religious fundamentalism moved a group of
extremists to attack thousands of innocents.
But the question of what kind of God humans worship, know and proclaim
is as old as faith itself. Life itself.
From the moment tens of thousands of years ago when our ancient ancestors
stared up into a night sky at the stars and imagined, hoped, that a power
greater than themselves was somehow behind all of existence, religion has been
used for good and evil in the world. Religion has inspired humankind’s greatest
acts of kindness, mercy and compassion and humanity’s absolute worst acts of
depravity and hatred too.
As a person of faith and a clergyman, one who has staked his
whole life in the service of religion and all the good it can and does do, it is
heart breaking for me to name this truth. The reality that religious faith can
evoke the noblest of human behavior and the most heinous as well. I’m
embarrassed, ashamed and angry that any of my fellow faith adherents—Muslims,
Jews, Christians, whomever—would use the cloak of faith in God to justify
hatred and bloodshed. Would have the
arrogance to cry out “God is great!” while shooting a police officer, killing a
cartoonist, gunning down a shopper in a neighborhood deli, all of which
happened in Paris.
Some hope is emerging from these events. More than 1.5 million French rallied in Paris to proclaim “WE ARE
NOT AFRAID!” in the largest such demonstration in that nation since 1944. They were joined by many political leaders,
including the Prime Minister of Israel and the President of the Palestinian
Authority, representing two peoples locked in a titanic struggle often fueled
by religious intolerance. There’s the story of the Muslim deli employee,
Lassana Bathily, who led his customers to safety, as the terrorists took
hostages. On social media and in the
press, moderate Muslims are speaking out and up and against the terrorists and
their supporters, and they are doing so more forcefully and publicly than
perhaps ever before.
This is where the real reformation and transformation of all
religion has to start, has to continue. From the believers themselves. From the
ones within a given religious faith who refuse to allow their particular faith
in God to be hijacked by fellow adherents, those who through fundamentalism,
extremism, fear and even bloodshed, pretend to love and honor “their” God. The brave, the religious dissenters: they and
they alone, must finally have the courage and the tenacity to take back their
religions. And not just in Islam, but in any religion which uses the power of
faith in God for naked human power, and all to oppress, to hate, to hurt, to
control, to dismiss.
Until this happens, I’m sad to say that I think nothing will
change. God wants things to change, of
this I am absolutely convinced. Yet
finally it is God’s followers who must choose just what kind of God they
believe in.
The world is a very religious place: 84 percent of its
population claims a place in a specific religious tradition. We do not need more religion. We need better
religion, belief systems and practices which make our fragile and beautiful big
blue marble, our God created home, a better place. A safer place. A more loving
place. A tolerant place. A hopeful place
where all—people all faiths, people of no faith—can live together in
peace. It’s that simple. It’s that
difficult.
A God of love. A God of hate. For the religious, this is the choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment