Peace Quote of the Day - taking Jesus seriously: proving love of God by loving enemies

“The biblical test case for love of God is love of neighbor. The biblical test case for love of neighbor is love of enemy. Failure to love the enemy is failure to love God.” 
- Wayne Northey, in the book Unconditional? The Call of Jesus to Radical Forgiveness, by Brian Zahnd


It seems fairly obvious that if people (starting with Christians) were to take Jesus' teaching seriously, and to "prove" their love of God by loving their neighbors and loving even their enemies, the impact for peace in this world would be incalculable.

Peace Quote of the Day - From "Enemy" to...?

“When we look deeply into our anger, we see that the person we call our enemy is also suffering. As soon as we see that, we have the capacity of accepting and having compassion for him. Jesus called this ‘loving your enemy.’ When we are able to love our enemy, he or she is no longer our enemy. The idea of ‘enemy’ vanishes and is replaced by the notion of someone suffering a great deal who needs our compassion. Loving others is sometimes easier than we might think, but we need to practice it.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, quoted in Johann Arnold, Seeking Peace

Peace Quote of the Day - the violence of love

"I will not tire of declaring that if we really want an effective end to violence we must remove the violence that lies at the root of all violence: structural violence, social injustice, exclusion of citizens from the management of the country, repression. All this is what constitutes the primal cause, from which the rest flows naturally.

"Would that the many bloodstained hands in our land were lifted up to the Lord with horror of their stain to pray that he might cleanse them. But let those who, thanks to God, have clean hands -- the children, the sick, the suffering -- lift up their innocent and suffering hands to the Lord like the people of Israel in Egypt. The Lord will have pity and will say, as he did to Moses in Egypt, 'I have heard my people's cry of wailing.' It is the prayer that God cannot fail to hear.

"The church is calling to sanity, to understanding, to love. It does not believe in violent solutions. The church believes in only one violence, that of Christ, who was nailed to the cross. That is how today's gospel reading shows him, taking upon himself all the violence of hatred and misunderstanding, so that we humans might forgive one another, love one another, feel ourselves brothers and sisters.

"We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves, to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood, the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work."

Archbishop Oscar Romero, the martyred Archbishop of San Salvador

Peace Quote of the Day - Who has the peace of Jesus?

“Here I should point out that despite my own faith in Christ, and despite the vocabulary of this book (which some may find 'churchy'), I do not believe that one must necessarily be a Christian to find the peace of Jesus. True, we cannot ignore Jesus’ statements: ‘He who does not gather with me, scatters’ and ‘He who is not for me is against me.’ Yet what does it mean to be ‘for’ Jesus? Doesn’t he make it clear that it is not religious words or other expressions of piety that matter? He looks for deeds of compassion and mercy – for love. And he says that even a cup of water to a thirsty person will be rewarded ‘in the kingdom of heaven’.”

“Jesus is a person, not a concept or an article of theology, and his truth embraces far more than our limited minds can comprehend. In any case, millions of Buddhists, Muslims, Jews – and agnostics and atheists – practice the love Jesus commands us to live out with more conviction than many so-called Christians. And it is hardly our place to say whether or not they possess peace.”

Johann Arnold, Seeking Peace

I share this quote because Jesus is one who is known for peace. Many of the great peacemakers (e.g., Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr.) have looked to Jesus for inspiration. Sometimes (Gandhi's example not withstanding) Christians talk as if Jesus is ours, as if we "own" Jesus. But do we? Jesus himself said, "blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God"...

Is There No Hope?

June 15, 2010, Bethlehem

Is There No Hope?

Is there no hope, when people have long been struggling with each other

When there is a long and painful history

Of wrongs

Of hurting, taking, attacking, even killing.

When each feels themself a victim

When each calls on God for vindication

When each sees only their own hurt and the others’ wrongs to them

And is unable to acknowledge their own wrongs

Or to ask for forgiveness.

Is there no alternative to a struggle to the death

(“til death do us part” has a different meaning here)

When others take sides

And blindly defend

And encourage the parties not to compromise?

“Jesus is the answer” – but how?

What would Jesus do?

What would he have me do?

Did he change the suffering of the Jewish people in the First Century?

Didn’t they crucify him because he failed to?

Did Jesus bring hope to the Jews and the Romans?

He did,

But not the way that I would like (him) to bring hope to the Palestinians and Israelis.

Is there no hope for a “tangible” solution,

for an end to the conflict,

for compromise, reconciliation, justice, peace?

What can we do?

What can we hope for?

Are we not called to call out for peace and justice?

Are we not called to work against wrong, exploitation, the strong hurting the weak?

Are we not called to stand for truth and reconciliation?

So what do we do, what can we do, what is – where is – our hope?

“My hope is in you” –

But what does that mean, today, in the land where Jesus walked?

Peace lessons from my travels in Palestine

From the people I have met on my travels in the land of Jesus, here are a few of my “peace lessons”:

1. We must learn to see all people – including our “enemies” – as human beings created in the image of God, due respect and honor and treatment as such (regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity, etc., and regardless of how they are treating us). The way Sheikh Ghassan put it, to see that “the person in front of me is me with a different language, religion, ethnicity, etc.,” and to “make my enemy into my friend.” The way the Quakers put it is to find “that of God” in all people. The way Jesus put it is that we must learn to love our neighbor and love even our enemy, and “do to others as we would have them do to us.”
2. We must not accept the status quo. We must take action to bring about change.
3. Outsiders must not “take sides.” That creates more problems than it solves.
4. Whether we are inside or outside of a conflict, we must speak out, speak the truth about evil, injustice, etc.
5. We need to develop an understanding of God, of religion, and of people that rises above the ethnocentric “tribalism” of believing that God is for us and our people and against others (and that uses religion/the name of God to justify fighting and killing others).
6. We must develop the strength of character to make difficult moral choices, e.g., to forgive, to not return evil with evil, to resist injustice nonviolently.
7. We need to build relationship with those on the other side of a conflict. We need to share our stories, get to know each other, find what we have in common, embrace our shared humanity, and find ways to work together to end the conflict.

Conversely, walls and checkpoints and occupation and humiliating others; enshrining our own ethnicity and religion and nationality; playing the role of the victim; and justifying actions which serve ourselves and our interests while mistreating others, do not lead to peace.

I have met many courageous and principled people in the midst of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Israeli and Arab, Muslim, Christian and Jew, who are living out these values and practices. They are among my peace heroes, and I pray that their efforts for peace will succeed.

Does Bennett understand the Golden Rule?

In my previous post on the third stage of ethnocentrism, minimization, in Bennett's "Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity," I briefly mentioned that Bennett sees the "Golden Rule" as somehow characterizing this phase (see http://salemshalom.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-ethnocentrism-hinders-peace-part-3.html). (He goes on to say that what he calls the "Platinum Rule" is characteristic of moving into the ethnorelative stages of acceptance and adaptation, learning to "do unto others as they would have you do unto them" - but that's a discussion for a future post.)

The way Bennett discusses the "Golden Rule" may be problematic for people who are used to thinking of Jesus' words as a pinnacle of ethical teaching; and I suppose that some might on that basis reject Bennett as not knowing what he is talking about, if he would suppose that living by Jesus' "Golden Rule" is only a stepping stone toward a deeper and more positive way of relating to others.

Thus I raise the question, does Bennett understand the "Golden Rule"?

To quote Jesus' words,

"Therefore, whatever you want people to do for you, do the same for them, because this summarizes the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 7:12)

I would argue that Bennett does not rightly characterize the essence of Jesus' teaching here. He does rightly point out that often (and in the stage of minimization in dealing with culturally different others), we ere by doing to others as if they were us, and thus falling short of treating them in the most fully loving way.

But Jesus' intent, I believe, is that our "doing to others as we want them to do for us" would imply, that we understand them and thus do to them as they want us to do to them - for this is what we would all want, is it not? I want people to understand me, to know me, to show me respect in the way that is meaningful to me, etc. And thus, to follow Jesus' teaching, I should seek to relate to others in the depth of knowing them as they are (and not projecting myself onto them, assuming that they are like me).

Thus, although I think Bennett misrepresents the heart of the Golden Rule, I believe his model (the DMIS) and teaching stands, and in fact resonates with, I would even say is built upon, the teaching of Jesus (though I don't think Bennett ever actually refers to Jesus).

My point here is that one can hold to Jesus' teaching as the pinnacle of ethical teaching, and embrace Bennett's model. For me, at least, they are compatible. And to "do unto others as I would have them do unto me" is to be led in the direction of ethnorelativism, growing in understanding and accepting others as they are. Which, I will argue in coming posts, is a significant movement in the direction of seeking to build peace.

Can People of Faith Rise Above Tribalism? (Reflections on the occasion of the remembrance of 9/11)

In a post on the site “Not the Religious Type,” the author refers to a recent NY Times editorial by Stanley Fish.  In his editorial, Fish points out the double standard used to discuss violent acts by or against members of a religious community, and concludes the following:

“The formula is simple and foolproof (although those who deploy it so facilely seem to think we are all fools): If the bad act is committed by a member of a group you wish to demonize, attribute it to a community or a religion and not to the individual. But if the bad act is committed by someone whose profile, interests and agendas are uncomfortably close to your own, detach the malefactor from everything that is going on or is in the air (he came from nowhere) and characterize him as a one-off, non-generalizable, sui generis phenomenon.”

What is going on here, I think, is something which we humans easily and naturally slip into, a kind of “tribalism” whereby we assume the best of those who are part of our people, and read their actions in light of our own best values (and with a generous dose of excusing and explaining away bad behavior), but assume the worst of those who are part of a different group, especially during times of conflict and tension between the communities.

(In terms of a model developed by Bennett – his “Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity” – which explains how people progress in their experience of cultural difference, this would fall into the second phase, “Defense,” in which people have a negative experience of difference, and tend to generalize and polarize and talk in “us”/“them” terms, where the “us” is generalized positively and the “them” is generalized negatively.)

The ability to assume the best of our people and the worst of others is rooted, I think, in lack of self-awareness in the first instance (glossing over how bad “we” are and can be) and ignorance of the others in the second instance. When we don’t know people from the “different” group, it is easy to assume the worst of them.

As a Christian, I believe that Jesus would encourage us to be bigger than our tribal allegiances. (As a human being, I would hope that any religious faith would encourage those who follow it, in this same direction.) In illustration of his most important teaching, that the two great commandments are to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves, he told a parable of a despised Samaritan (who his Jewish listeners would have nothing to do with, and through whose territory they would not even pass) helping a wounded Jew who was abandoned by the road side. And Jesus not only passed through Samaria, he stopped and conversed with a Samaritan woman, someone who would have been looked at by Jewish men as a non-person. By his teachings and by his example, Jesus showed us that God’s perspective on humanity is different than the tribalism we so easily embrace.

My question is, can we – not just Christians, but people of any faith – rise above our tribalism (which is worse when wrapped up with religion – which happens with people of all religions) and learn to relate to other human beings who are not members of our “tribe,” as if they were people also created in the image of God? And can we defuse the generalizing and polarizing, and work toward a more accurate understanding of those of other groups, that can only come as we enter into relationship with those others?

The question, it seems, is whether our faith can be a force for peace, or whether it will be a force in the opposite direction.

Seeking peace through reclaiming Compassion

I first noticed the "Charter for Compassion" at the Quaker Meeting House in Ramallah (see http://charterforcompassion.org/share/the-charter/):

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

I think this is a beautiful document, a necessary and timely project. And I find myself wondering whether conservatives (those who are deeply committed) of the various religions of the world might somehow be against this? Maybe I’m wrong (I hope so). I have the feeling that evangelical Christians, for example, might react against the idea of agreeing and working with those who signed, who represent various Christian and other religious groups (i.e., “how can we work with liberals and people of different religious faiths? What do we have in common?”); and might be suspicious that the language is not their (evangelical) language, and therefore might be a “watering down” or compromising of their convictions.

I find myself wondering, as a follower of Jesus, what he would think of it. Would he embrace these ideas, this document, the principle of joining hands with others (of any religion or none) to work for compassion, for justice, equity and respect? When I put it this way, it seems so obvious. So why would some of us who associate with Jesus by taking the name “Christian,” react negatively to this initiative? 

Why would religious convictions lead some people to initiate and embrace this kind of initiative, and lead others (in the same religions) to be suspicious or reject it?

Peace Quote of the Day

"So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God." (Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 5:23-24)

Given Jesus' other teachings, e.g., the Parable of the Good Samaritan, it's fairly likely that by "someone" he meant, "anyone," of your own people or another people. And this seems a particularly good word for religious people, who often find ways to be religious, but have broken relationships with others (or perhaps, even worse, to use religion to hurt people).

Another "man from Galilee"

"God is Love. God does not kill."

These are the words that Father Elias Chacour writes whenever he signs a book.

I first encountered Abuna Chacour (now Archbishop of the Melkite church in Israel, which is the largest church in the land) in Tunisia, around 1994, when some friends working with Suha Arafat and the PLO leadership in Tunis arranged for him to visit - his first trip to an Arab country, and the first time that Tunisia had been visited by an Israeli citizen.

Abuna Chacour, for those who do not know, is a Palestinian Christian whose family was driven from their home in 1948 (when he was 8 years old), but stayed within what became Israel, and so ended up as Israeli citizens (the so-called "Israeli Arabs"). You can read his stories in Blood Brothers, We Belong to the Land, and Hope Beyond Despair, so I won't relate them all here.

Meeting Abuna Chacour back in Tunisia was one of my first notable memories of having my boundaries of what it means to be "Christian" messed with. I am from a background and community of "evangelical" Christians (that's a story for another time). Father Chacour is Melkite, i.e., eastern (non-Roman) Catholic, and not "evangelical." But in meeting him, I remember being struck (and have been each of the 4 times I have met him) with the fact that he clearly knows Jesus (a central concern of "evangelical" Christians) if anyone does, and that his life clearly displays the presence and the values of Jesus. (Meeting him, then, was a step in my growing from an ethnocentric to what Bennet calls an ethnorelative perspective on what it means to be "Christian" - but again, that's another story, for a different post.)

Father Chacour is one of my heroes. He is a hero to me because he knows and loves and serves and displays Jesus, my number one "hero" and life model. He talks about when his family had to leave their home when he was eight years old, how they spent two weeks camping out in the fields, and how he has wonderful memories as a young boy of "hanging out" in the trees with Jesus (it was interesting to me that he spoke of having a "personal" relationship with Jesus, which is a key evangelical concept). In relating to others, he makes the statement (rooted in his faith) that we don't need tolerance, we need welcoming acceptance (this resonates with Miroslav Volf's emphasis in Exclusion and Embrace). And he says, the closer you draw to Jesus, the more you open your arms wide to welcome and embrace others, like Jesus (with his arms spread wide) on the cross.

He is also a hero because he fights injustice, day by day, in small and big ways. He fights injustice by building when the Israeli government will not give him building permits (his whole ministry through the Mar Elias schools has been one long sequence of acts of what you might call "civil disobedience," in this regard). He fights injustice by speaking the truth to power, in Israel and elsewhere (he once traveled uninvited and unknown to the home of Secretary of State James Baker, to ask for help in facing an unjust action of the Israeli government). He fights injustice by seeing every human being, man or woman, Israeli or Palestinian (or any other nationality), Muslim, Jew or Christian, and including soldiers who are not treating him kindly, as individuals born as babies (nothing more), created in God's image, and worthy of respect and kindness and all other virtues, simply because of that.

Father Chacour still comes across as a simple "man from Galilee," a man with humble village roots. But he speaks with authority, an authority rooted in how he lives his life.

In contrast to people who construct barriers, who build walls around their own community (religious, ethnic, national, racial, or otherwise), and who use aspects of identity to feed an "us" vs. "them" mentality, he takes down (or does not recognize) barriers and boundaries. He is deeply connected to Jesus, and to his own religious community (the Melkites), but he does not oppose or speak badly of other Christian groups, or of Muslims, or of Jews, or of Israelis. He is an example to me of someone who is truly "for" all people, for humanity. He is a great example, in this, of being rooted in one's own community and identity, one's context, and yet not being exclusive or parochial in it.

Two final words from Abuna Chacour, along these lines. Speaking to us as an international group, he emphasized that we, all of us, both in regard to the injustices of the Israeli government against the Palestinian people (both Israeli Arabs, who are treated as second class citizens within Israel, and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories), and in regard to the rest of the world, need the courage to stand against privilige for any group against any other. And he emphasized that he as an Israeli Arab needs for us to be friends with the Jewish people, to be for them. And to be friends with the Palestinians as well. In a sentiment echoed by many of the people we met with, he urged us not to take sides, but to be for all people.

If we could find a way to do that, to be for all people, the world would be a far different and better place.