Old Testament – Engaging Peace

Acceptable hate. Allowable hate. Sanctioned hate. Legal hate. Mandated hate. What’s the flavor of the day?

Posted on July 2, 2018July 3, 2018 by kathiemm

Members of Nevada Desert Experience hold a prayer vigil during the Easter period of 1982 at the entrance to the Nevada Test Site. In the public domain. Author: National Nuclear Security Administration / Nevada Site Office.

By Rev. Doe West

I have been giving honest contemplation to sponsored hate throughout my life.

A kickover moment came when I posted something on Facebook about the POTUS using the word “animals” to describe immigrants and received a reply pointing out that he was applying that term very specifically to gang members, not all immigrants.

I get it, but that leads me to more questions:

should we ever allow this level of dehumanizing towards any human being?
Is it okay to dehumanize those who dehumanize others?
What does it do for ourselves, our society, humanity, to make hatred and dehumanization acceptable, even mandated?

Culturally acceptable ways to denigrate any group become signposts for directing our hate–sometimes literally, as in “no Irish,” “no Italians,” “no Chinese,” “no Colored.” People have found countless ways to communicate how and when and whom to hate.

Tragically, religious beliefs cannot be trusted to assure mercy, grace, and love, or lead society to higher ground.

On one hand, Father James Martin, SJ, a Jesuit priest, pulls no punches: “Calling people animals is sinful. Every human being has infinite dignity. Moreover, this is the same kind of language that led to the extermination of Jews (”vermin”) in Germany and of Tutsi (“cockroaches”) in Rwanda. This kind of language cannot be normalized. It is a grave sin.”

On the other hand, the most radicalized right religious of any faith consider anyone they hate to personify sin and to be exterminated in the name of their God.

If God is not a safe covering for peace – if language can be easily swung from tool to weapon – if it all comes down to individual belief and personally comfortable boundaries, who is safe? And who or what becomes a place of hope? Is there no clear rallying cry or unifying moral understanding that we can count on to help us all rise to higher ground together?

Personally, I am holding space for hope, and I am working daily to help shape our culture by my words and actions. Today, I will use the words from the Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian text as I did in the ‘60s, when I worked for peace and justice, and as I continue to do today:

“And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4)

Oracle, Optimist, Ostrich, or Obfuscator? Part 1.

Posted on June 18, 2015March 11, 2021 by kathiemm

Abraham tries to sacrifice Isaak.
Image by Sibeaster, image is in the public domain.

The postulates and prophesies of the impressively credentialed psychologist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, formerly at MIT and now at Harvard, appear to be everywhere. He is a darling of the New York Times and endless variations on his ex cathedra pronouncements concerning a purported global decline in violence echo across the media. Violence, he intones repeatedly, “has been in decline for thousands of years, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in the existence of our species” (emphasis added).

One pillar of Pinker’s argument is that, historically, human beings were much more violent than is generally recognized today. One of his sources, the Old Testament, contains, he tells us, numerous examples of genocide as well as death by stoning to punish “nonviolent infractions, including idolatry, blasphemy, homosexuality, adultery, disrespecting one’s parents, and picking up sticks on the Sabbath.” Early tribes of Hindus, Christians, Muslims, and Chinese were, he said, as murderous as those early Hebrews, and current casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan pale by contrast. It is romanticizing the past and ignorance of history, Pinker argues, that lead people to believe the modern era is unduly violent.

(To see rejections of his historical arguments, click here. )

Mathematically, Pinker supports his thesis by calculating percentages of violent deaths in relation to the global population within a particular era. As Timothy Snyder suggests, “[Ask] yourself: Is it preferable for ten people in a group of 1,000 to die violent deaths or for ten million in a group of one billion? For Pinker, the two scenarios are exactly the same, since in both, an individual person has a 99 percent chance of dying peacefully.” Snyder’s question is critical one. What would your answer be?

What did Terry Jones burn? (Part 1)

Posted on April 11, 2011April 17, 2011 by kathiemm

[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: Today we welcome another contribution by our guest author, Dr. Majed Ashy.]

Book burning illustration — Book Burning by Hartmann Schedel, 1440-1514. Image in public domain; from Wikimedia Commons

Jones burned a book that requires every Muslim to believe, as part of the Islamic faith, that Jesus was the messenger of God and the Messiah, born to Mary as the result of virginal conception, a miraculous event that occurred by the decree of God. Muslims also learn that Jesus spoke while he was only a baby, restored sight to the blind, healed lepers, revived the dead, was resurrected and raised, and will return to earth near the day of judgment to bring justice and defeat the Antichrist.

Jones burned a book that says the following about the Old and New Testaments: “He has sent down to thee the Book containing the truth and fulfilling that which precedes it; and He has sent down the Torah (Law of Moses) and the Gospel (of Jesus) before this, as a guidance to the people”—Qur’an, passage 3:3-4

Jones burned a book that says: “When the angels said, ‘O Mary, God gives thee glad tidings of a son through a word from Him; his name shall be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, honored in this world and in the next, and of those who are granted nearness to God… She said, ‘My Lord, how shall I have a son, when no man has touched me? He said, ‘Such is the way of God. He creates what He pleases.”—Qur’an, passage 3:38-48

Jesus teaches us: “There is a saying, ‘Love your friends and hate your enemies.’ But I say: Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way you will be acting as true sons of your Father in heaven.” (TLB, Matthew 5:43-48).

It is better to talk to each other and learn than to set the books to burn.

Majed Ashy, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Merrimack College and research fellow in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School