|
submit
articles |
| Is God on Our Side? Or Is He
on Theirs? John J. Thatamanil The LA Times 25 September 2001 Religious questions, if not commitments, regularly surface in times of duress. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 have led record numbers of people searching for answers to churches, mosques and synagogues. This conflict has been fraught with
religious connotations from its very inception. If, as the evidence seems
to indicate, the perpetrators are Islamic militants, then it is certain
they misunderstood their actions as jihad, a word that in mainstream Islam
refers to the internal struggle humans must wage against their own
resistance to God. On the other hand, President Bush has
spoken of America's new war as a "crusade," an equally
unfortunate choice of words given the horrific evils visited upon on
Muslims by Christians during the Middle Ages under that rubric. The
original name of America's mobilization was "Operation Infinite
Justice," suggesting that this nation is the agent of the Almighty
imposing God's ultimate will on those who have wronged us. Bush, in his speech to the nation,
indicated in a more subtle way that God takes sides. "The course of
this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear,
justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not
neutral between them," he said. The claim that God stands with the just is
rooted in the ancient prophetic tradition shared equally by Muslims,
Christians and Jews. Isaiah, Amos and many other biblical prophets declare
God's unrelenting thirst for justice and his distaste for the fatted
offerings of those who unjustly lord it over the needy. This prophetic
tradition has been vitally enacted in our time by theologians who argue
that God makes a "preferential option for the poor," that God
stands with those who struggle for righteousness, with the despised and
the rejected. For Christian activists, the idea that the
struggle for justice is no mere social program but the very bringing about
of God's kingdom provides confidence in the ultimate inevitability that
right will win out regardless of mighty opposition. This sentiment is evident in Martin Luther
King's famous affirmation that the "long arc of the universe may be
slow to bend but it bends toward justice." President Bush's claim, therefore, seems to
be in continuity with a long, authentic prophetic vision of God. But does God take sides in conflicts
between human nations and groups? What are we to do when both parties
claim God's blessings upon their bellicose programs? What dangers come
from claiming unqualified divine blessing on human causes and conflicts?
Do we not lose our capacities for irony, detachment and self-criticism if
we come to believe that God stands for our cause? Most important, do we not run the risk of
idolatry when we give our important but less than ultimate concerns and
programs divine sanction and ultimacy? For Muslims, idolatry, shirk, is the
gravest of sins. Because the Arabic word, shirk, literally bears the
meaning "association," orthodox Muslims would be the first to
caution all who associate their concerns with those of God. Jewish and Christian thinkers would readily
agree. Having witnessed the distorted self-certainty of an idolatrous
violence that stands prepared to kill and be killed, should Americans not
be more cautious about embracing the very rhetorical mode used by our
enemies as we roll out the full might of our military complex? Especially
against those who live in a nation ravaged by decades of unending strife? The Bible does offer us another vision of
God--a god who calls for justice but whose infinite love cares equally for
the just and the unjust. This rhetorical tradition reminds us that God
cannot be made captive to political or national agendas. According to the
Bible: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your
neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your
Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and the good, and
sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous." This tradition, without erasing the
distinction between good and evil, between righteousness and
unrighteousness, nonetheless reminds us that God cannot be monopolized by
some regardless of the putative justice of their cause. In times of wrenching grief and anger, it
is easy to forget that God's love calls us to check the instinctive furies
released when those we cherish have been destroyed. It becomes too easy to
bless our causes with unqualified divine approbation only to find
ourselves made over in the likeness of those enemies who have injured us.
We even sound like them when we speak of crusades and God's favor, and
when we picture ourselves as instruments visiting "infinite
justice" on evil incarnate. While those who long for peace hold only a
fragile hope that the nation will exercise military restraint, we can at
least vigorously call for rhetorical restraint in order to remind the
nation that God is not at our disposal. John J. Thatamanil, an assistant professor
of religious studies at Millsaps College, Jackson, Miss. Source: |