© 2004, You are expected to contact the author for permission
to reproduce this essay in whole or in part.
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“Sacred Violence - in Christianity and Islam,” - by Tony Harwood-Jones © 2004, You are expected to contact the author for permission |
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6. An Interlude on Truth, and on Violence... We have now come to the core of our essay: Inter-religious Dialogue on Sacred, or justified, violence. Unfortunately, our dialogue isn’t doing very well, not if we say that dialogue involves an openness, a readiness to be taught, by one another. Scarpatti and Ibadiyah are simply making points. Part of the problem is the prejudice of generations. Christians often assume that Islam is a violent and murderous religion. Scarpatti himself ‘set up’ Ibadiyah by the direction of his questions. Although Ibadiyah did complement the gentle side of Jesus, Scarpatti became fixated on the part of his remarks which did not. Ibadiyah was forced to articulate his view of the violent side of Jesus because Scarpatti believed it was there, was repelled by it, and wanted to talk about it. Muslims, for their part, are justly enraged by this bloody stereotype forced on them by the Christians. Conscious of their own respect for God, their love of justice and fair play, and acutely conscious of the blood of Muslims shed at the hands of Christians, they cry ‘foul’ at what seems to be a totally hypocritical accusation. Ibadiyah, therefore, suffers from a prejudice of his own: that Christians preach peace while treacherously oppressing the Muslim. But the root of the breakdown of their dialogue is not prejudice, but doctrine, and its concomitant life-orientation. In fact, it is probably doctrinal divergence which gave rise to the prejudice in the first place. Scarpatti genuinely believes that through Jesus, God has declared a peaceful and loving response to evil to be the highest human virtue. He acknowledges that violence is everywhere in the world, but even in the hands of police and armies, he believes, it is one of the evils of society, and part of the world’s darkness. As a result, he must assume that Muhammad, when he was violent, was in darkness, and his followers, no matter how measured and controlled their violence, are following an ungodly path. Ibadiyah believes that the Qu’ran has corrected the mistakes of Christianity. He admires the love, and mercy, and compassion of Jesus, but he is certain that the Christians, in deifying this prophet, have blasphemously anthropomorphized God. God is not a man. God is greater than anything humanly imaginable. To Ibadiyah, as to any Muslim, it is unthinkable that God could ever be a helpless victim, let alone command us to join him in his helplessness. Taught by the Qu’ran, Ibadiyah believes that God calls us to do away with injustice, not to let it wash over us. The Christian attitude toward violence is, to him, both unjust, and impractical. It is unjust, because, despite preaching against it, and slandering Islam for using it, Christians are violent themselves. It is impractical, because the only way to deal with some injustice is to force it to stop. No one denies that violence is unpleasant, Ibadiyah would say, and only the mentally unstable enjoy it, but it is not in itself evil. If Ibadiyah and Scarpatti can get over the barriers created by their divergent orientation, the resulting dialogue would have far-reaching importance. For their fundamental attitudes represent approaches to violence which are common throughout human society, regardless of religion. But their deep faith, their commitment to high ideals, and their immersion in centuries of careful reflection, may make them better equipped to deal with the issues than are most of the secular advocates of similar positions. In the past hundred years, Western civilization, and North America particularly, have become mesmerised by violence. Part of the interest has been generated by trends in modern psychology. Violence is traumatic. It creates psychological complexes. Spanking little children may be harmful to their psyches. Fifty years ago every child took it for granted that adults, at the slightest provocation, will apply canes, hairbrushes, belts, or rulers to hands or bottoms. Nowadays such adults may expect a lawsuit or even criminal charges! As well, there has been, in recent years, considerable outcry about violence on television, and the manufacture of violent toys and games. And need we mention the current very grave concern about violence in the home? All these North American trends point to an underlying assumption that violence in itself is evil, and must be eradicated; that it is not necessary for the proper conduct of life; and that all matters in life can be more successfully engaged, if violence is steadfastly avoided. The opposite to this position is that, in certain cases, violence may be justified; unpleasant, to be sure, but necessary. From this perspective, it is wrong to stand idly by when someone else is being attacked. When, in December 1989, a mass murderer struck in the University of Montreal, many bystanders were filled with guilt for not themselves doing violence to the attacker, thereby saving some lives. Whole societies, in fact, are based on the assumption that violence itself is not wrong, rather it is unjustly applied violence that is wrong. By this view the application of violence to innocent people for unjust ends is evil and must be stopped, but violence used to stop and immobilize the perpetrators is just, and noble, and a worthy contribution to society. By this view, there is no harm in little Billy wanting to grow up to be a police officer. However, when he tears around the house, firing his toy gun at his sister, he must be told to go outside and find some criminals. And, if he shoots his sister once more, the Big Mamma police are going to grab him, take away his gun, and jail him for the rest of the afternoon! If he provokes his Mother enough, she may throw in a good spanking, although, as a modern parent should, she will spend a day or two feeling guilty about it. This, then, is the issue: Is violence, in itself, “never” justified, or “sometimes” justified? Is it morally wrong, morally neutral, or morally right? North America, being a pluralistic society, is very blurred and vague about the problem. Double standards abound: people who are appalled at violence in the home suggest castration for rapists; people who are “pro life” often favour Capital Punishment. The ethical basis to examine the problem is also lacking. How shall it be argued? On the basis of pragmatism, or hedonism? Do not spank a child, the ill effects are undesirable. Jail sex offenders, it keeps our playgrounds safe. Capital punishment is a good thing: it cuts jail costs, and guarantees there will be no repeat offences. Neither Christianity nor Islam have much patience with such arguments. In both religions a matter must be decided on its intrinsic moral value, not on its consequences, its cost, or its use. And the basis of moral value in anything, as far as both Christianity and Islam are concerned, is whether or not the matter in question is pleasing to God. As we have already stated, both religions assert that God is our primary reality. Both affirm that God makes it known what is pleasing to him. The question for them, therefore, is simply whether violence, in itself, is forbidden by God, or commanded by God; wrong, or right; evil, or sacred? One thing is certain: it cannot be both. Perhaps, if Christianity and Islam were to enter into dialogue with an Oriental religion such as Taoism, they would have to confront the possibility of paradox: that something can both “be” and “not be” at the same time, but within their Western and linear concept of Truth, it is impossible for violence to be both “never” justifiable and “sometimes” justifiable. In fact, even in the Orient, no matter how careful one might be to be absolutely inclusive and paradoxical, the concept that violence is never justifiable cannot be included with the concept that it is sometimes justifiable, for in being so inclusive, the “never” portion of the syllogism is always excluded. The antagonism between Christianity and Islam may, at least partially, be traceable to the impossibility of resolving the syllogism. Violence can not be both intrinsically good and intrinsically evil. The question now before us, therefore, and the question of our dialogue, is: “Does God ever guide us to do violence in His name?”
Since the time of Jesus, Christianity has shown consistent, and to many people confusing, ambivalence in its answer to this question. First of all, Christianity, by its very parentage, is predisposed to favour sacred violence. The ancient Jews believed that God has frequently demanded the shedding of blood in his name. According to their scriptures, God gave them the “Promised Land” by ordering and enabling the extermination of its original inhabitants. When Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho, once the walls had come tumbling down every last inhabitant was slaughtered by God’s express command.26 The first king of the Hebrew people, Saul, is recorded to have gone mad because he disobeyed a direct order from God to exterminate every human being in Amalek.27 Jesus and Violence It was into this bloody tradition that Jesus was born, and there is some evidence that he was himself not entirely non-violent, as Ibadiyah well knew. St. John’s Gospel describes him as driving out the money-changers of the temple with a whip of cords.28 He is reputed to have said to his disciples, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword!”29 And St.Luke tells us that on the night he was betrayed, he checked his followers for weapons, and seemed satisfied that they had some.30 But the vast preponderance of the tradition about Jesus is that he distanced himself from almost all forms of violence. Reaching into his Jewish heritage he found another stream, one of love, as found in the prophet Hosea, and of innocent suffering, as found in the “Servant Songs” of Isaiah.31 Taking the Torah into his own hands, he turned the commandment not to murder into a commandment not even to be angry.32 He turned the law of retaliation, “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”33 into a law of welcoming the injustice: “if you are hit on one cheek, offer the other cheek as well.”34 When asked if there is a limit to the number of times one should forgive someone for the same offence, he gave such a high number that in effect he demanded that forgiveness be limitless.35 And his manner of facing his execution makes it certain that in the most extreme circumstances he was determined to live non-violently. All this must be admitted about Jesus, even without making any claims for his divinity. Despite his culture, the rabbi of Nazareth was easily as non-violent as Mahatma Ghandi. But once we admit the Christian claim that in him “all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell,”36 the intensity of his pacific side is redoubled. The radically non-violent instructions of the Sermon on the Mount become the commandments of God. His courageous death upon the cross becomes a portrait of the nature of God. Peaceful non-resistance to evil, to aggression, and to injustice, becomes, by the example of the divine Messiah, a universal moral imperative. The Earliest Christians and Violence Certainly that is how the earliest disciples and builders of the church saw it. St. Paul tells people to give their enemy food and drink and “overcome evil with good.”37 St. Peter tells slaves to take undeserved beatings quietly, modelling themselves on Christ’s acceptance of his death.38 The phrase, “take up your cross and follow me”39 may or may not have originated with Jesus, but it is certain evidence that his earliest followers saw his non-violence as applying to themselves as well as to him. There is simply no Prescription within either the New Testament or primitive Christianity for any sort of justified human violence. When Jesus was on trial before Pontius Pilate, St. John tells us that he made this statement: “My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over...”40 Fighting is here defined as something done by the adherents of this world. However those who adhere to Christ belong to a different world where fighting is not required. The first, and most obvious way, to interpret this, is that a follower of Jesus may well have to live in this world, but is not permitted to operate under the rules of this world. Fighting is forbidden to an adherent of Christ. All forms of violent employment in this world are, by consequence, also forbidden. There is some evidence, in fact, that prior to 178 C.E., soldiers and police could not belong to the church.41 And even after people in these occupations began being admitted, violence was still thought of as so offensive to God that someone who had killed in the course of duty was required to remain excommunicate for three years.42 Although early Christians taught that God forbids human violence, they never doubted that God himself had the right to shed blood. St. Paul forbids his hearers ever to avenge themselves, “For,” he says, “it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’”43 St. Luke writes into his Gospel the marvellous poem, often called The Magnificat, which rings with praise of God’s justice, and proclaims that God shows “strength with his arm” and puts down the mighty from their thrones.44 Neither the New Testament nor the early church, however, is clear about just how God is going to accomplish the avenging of wrong or the pulling down of the mighty, at least not while ordinary history goes on. At the end of time, yes, the statements are unanimous that everything will be set right by the direct act of God. But what about now? Will the victim of injustice have to wait until Judgement Day? The early Christian witness has no clear answer. We are to understand that God can do it, and that God will do it, even now. How, it does not say. But there is a hint: In the letter to the Romans, St. Paul tells his readers to be good citizens. He suggests that the government is God’s agent to maintain peace and justice. The ruler, he says, “is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer.”45 This appears to mean that the government, or individuals with legitimate power, acting according to the rules of this world, are actually agents of God, doing violence to right wrongs, and to avenge the innocent! It is almost as if God is expected to use non-Christian violence as a means of bringing about justice for Christians; as if the church could practice its own non-violence because law and order was being maintained by the violence of someone else! The fledgling church could assume all this because it had begun among people who had no political power, and never expected to have any. In their formative period, while their scriptures were still being assembled, questions of public policy, of war and peace, of the prevention of crime and the maintenance of justice, just weren’t addressed. But as their religion spread, more and more police and soldiers, more and more politicians and civil servants, came among them, and there was simply no precedent, no guidance from the Lord, for how a person who bore responsibility for the public safety should behave. The question had to be answered. What would Jesus say about the decisions of a Christian government? A new approach to the remarks which Jesus had made before Pilate, began to emerge. “My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight....”46 Could it be that this was not a blanket prohibition of fighting? Could it be that Jesus forbids fighting to individuals, for religious reasons, but permits fighting to governments for public reasons? Eventually church thinkers began to answer “yes,” and a kind of duality began to emerge: between church and state, sacred and secular, body and soul. Christians began to live in two worlds at once, each with its own set of rules. They were citizens of heaven, where violence was forbidden, and citizens of the Roman Empire, where violence in the public interest was permitted. 
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