THOSE NASTY BITS
Re: Dealing with the nasty bits in scripture, June p. 30.
It may be that in addition to Bishop Pryse’s willingness to “accept and learn” from “nasty bits in scripture,” he still grimaces, as I do, when he hears violent biblical passages in church and responds: “The Word of the Lord!”
It may be that we Christians, together with Jews and Muslims, also wince when we fail to challenge our sacred texts, saturated with God’s violence and even death against the human family he created in her own image. It may be that male presumptions of violence and power have always been projected onto God in order to justify our male-driven bloodshed in the name of our Deity and in “his” stead.
It may even be that Jesus desperately cringed within himself when, in the synagogue he heard these same nasty narratives read from the Hebrew Scriptures and so he told us to “love our enemies and turn them the other cheek.” It may be that taking Jesus at his word forces us to take the radical power of his non-violence seriously and make a stand against violence, war and legalized murder by the globally baptized—something almost no church is willing to do.
Finally, it may also be, that serving Caesar in his armies ever since the fourth century, when Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official state religion and defender of the Empire, that we Christians no longer shudder. After 17 centuries, can we even conceive of peaceful alternatives to the violence and endless wars of men as our necessary self-projections onto God?
—Rev. Dr. Peter Mikelic, Toronto
Loading ...