Dear friends, stakeholders, and others who are along for the ride!
It’s been one year since the Institute for Religion, Peace and Justice (St. Stephen’s University) launched on June 9, 2017. A lot has happened since then. A new Institute such as ours is confronted with challenges and opportunities, and we’ve been active in 2017/18 in many ways to continue our vision. But perhaps more importantly, we’ve been taking action to set us up well for future years to come.
The Institute for Religion, Peace and Justice wants to position itself as the purveyor of a well-designed, neatly packaged, one-stop curricular destination especially for Christians who want professional development, personal enrichment, or preparation for further studies in peace-related academic fields. These could be anyone from the thoughtful layperson to professional clergy, peace and development workers or aspiring theologians.
In an increasingly polarized political and cultural landscape, IRPJ is trying to become a refuge of intentional hospitality. This is the model we have used and continue to use when carrying out our many activities.
Without further ado, attached are a few of the highlights!
Download THIS JUST IN – IRPJ's annual newsletter (June 2018)
Andrew Klager and Jarrod Saul McKenna's interview of Brian Zahnd is now up and running on iTunes HERE.
For those not on iTunes: CLICK HERE
The Perisson Podcast webpage: www.irpj.org/podcast
“In the kingdom of Christ, it’s not obtaining Caesar’s sword in order to do what we think is good with it. It’s a complete renunciation of it.” —Brian Zahnd
Episode 1: In our first episode, we're joined by Brian Zahnd to discuss his pilgrimage into a life that embraces nonviolence and love of enemies. And we look at the dynamic of inner and outer peace, or how the contemplative life and inner transformation informs our peacemaking actions and the way that we work for justice.
Recorded 8 May 2018
“When we identify ourselves as sinners, we are not speaking ontologically. That is, we are not speaking of our truest selves seated with Christ in the heavenly realms or as those declared righteous by his saving work. Rather, we are speaking existentially of our daily struggle with the passions and the human condition. We are facing into the reality of life in this broken world and our not-yet glorified humanity, posturing ourselves for God's unfailing mercy.” --Sinner Irenaeus
When we say the Jesus Prayer, some Evangelicals balk that we would identify as sinners, since we’ve been forgiven and are now, somehow, ontologically in Christ and identified as ‘saints.’ But clearly we keep on sinning and need to receive daily mercy.
So I am wondering what word you would use to fill in this blank: “When we identify ourselves as sinners, we are not speaking ontologically. We are speaking __________ of our daily struggle with the passions and the human condition. We are speaking not of our truest selves seated with Christ in the heavenly realms or as those declared righteous by his saving work. Rather, we are facing into the reality of life in this world and our not-yet glorified humanity.”
That is, we identify ourselves with the prodigal (Luke 15:11-32), publican (Luke 18:9-14)and the thief on the cross (Luke 23:39-43), awake to our need for mercy and gratefully receiving that mercy from Christ the all-merciful.
They are worth recounting:
These prayers are sometimes downplayed or even scorned for their supposed "worm theology" (which, by the way, the Psalmist puts in the Messiah's mouth in Psalm 22:6). But they are not theological statements to be corrected--they are expressions of the human condition, cries of the stricken conscience, and appeals to the goodness and generosity of a gracious God.
Note: not only did Christ commend these prayers--he actually composed two of them and answered all three of them.
So I think the right word us “existentially” but wanted to run that and the whole sentence by you for quality control.
Continue reading "“Me a Sinner” – A Jesus Prayer Conversation – Brad Jersak and Andrew Klager" »
I’m always fascinated by what physical creation — or, as St. Gregory of Nyssa categorizes it, the sensible created realm — is trying to communicate to us and why it has the form, dimensions, spatiality, dynamics, and materials it has as opposed to other possible alternatives. Why are we limited by time and space, and why did God decide that these constraints should exist?
Many of the Church fathers and later Christian theologians took for granted the four elements that Empedocles identified as the fundamental components of the cosmos: earth, water, air, and fire. In St. John of Damascus’ ‘Philosophical Chapters,’ he writes, “In general, an element is that first thing from which something is made and to which it is ultimately reducible. In particular, however, an element is that of which a body is made and to which it is reducible — and such are fire, water, air, and earth.”[i] And St. Gregory Palamas tells us in the 14th century that “the four elements out of which the world is fashioned balance one another equally, and that each of the elements has its own sphere, the size of which is proportionate to its density, as Aristotle also thinks.”[ii]
Although this relatively simplistic model has been supplanted by much more complex taxonomies in modern science, they still retain an observable foundational structure that — in the writings of many of the fathers — reveals an eternal truth that answers different questions than those that factual truths might satisfy. They help us contemplate the mysterious when science has dulled us to the mystery of the “natural” world through its materialistic explanations that, although helpful in many important ways, demystify the disturbing peculiarity of existence. The fathers help draw us back to this wonder.
Continue reading "The Church Fathers on Death, Resurrection and the Four Elements — Andrew Klager" »
1. Spread the word about our online university accredited Certificate program and encourage folks you know who might be interested to apply: www.irpj.org/apply2. Try to think of a few people you know who might be interested in supporting IRPJ financially and send this email to them with an encouragement that they give to us on this Giving Tuesday: www.irpj.org/donate3. And please consider giving a donation of any amount to IRPJ yourself on this Giving Tuesday.
Ted Grimsrud recently wrote a response to my edited book, From Suffering to Solidarity: The Historical Seeds of Mennonite Interreligious, Interethnic, and International Peacebuilding, on his blog, 'Thinking Pacifism.' It was a mainly positive response at the outset, remarking that “the peace-focused writings make an excellent contribution” and ultimately recommending the book and concluding that “[t]he writing throughout is clear. The book gives a wide-ranging sense of the present application of Mennonite peace convictions and how this emerging field of peacebuilding has evoked many creative and life-enhancing responses by Mennonites and those influenced by them in ministering to a violent and often quite broken world.”
But after underscoring what was good about the book, his primary critique revolved around the book’s perceived omission of any attention to peace theology, asking, Have Mennonites moved past peace theology?
Now, I don’t want to write a response simply because I think someone’s critique is mistaken and it makes me look bad (although I’m human and this is probably part of the equation). And I don’t make a habit of responding to reviews, but the nature of Ted’s blog and this particular post as a “response” rather than a review suggests that this is an opening for a constructive and respectful conversation. In this sense, I want to write a response to correct some misconceptions, but also to ask for clarification on points I found confusing or potentially misleading. In this sense, as my book is only the beginning of my ongoing research on the uses of history in peacebuilding—especially how a historical infrastructure can help generate empathy—I want to know how I can improve in the future without uncritically meandering down a path that may not have been legitimately cut in the first place.
Click here to receive a sneak peek of From Suffering to Solidarity: The Historical Seeds of Mennonite Interreligious, Interethnic, and International Peacebuilding, edited by Andrew P. Klager. In addition to a promotional flyer, included in this excerpt are the Foreword written by Marc Gopin, Introduction by Andrew Klager, and the first chapter by John Derksen. (Used with Permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers): wipfandstock.com
I was recently invited to share thoughts and respond to questions about my book, A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel, among a theologically mixed group of very perceptive readers.
Prior to the meeting, the facilitator gave me the consideration of a heads up about a question he was planning to ask. He wanted to me to address the problem of why Jesus’ parables sometimes seem to represent God in a rather un-Christlike light—especially as an infuriated and vengeful king who not only destroys, but even tortures those who do not respond to his invitation. Specifically, he asked me to look at the parable of the banquet as told in Matthew 22.
I was aware of the difficulties in that passage and thought to invite three colleagues to weigh in with their collective wisdom, rather than speaking on my own. Namely, Brian Zahnd, Derek Flood and Andrew Klager. I also received behind the scenes input from Pastor Jason Tripp, who I’ll reference later as well. The conversation that followed seemed well worth sharing, so the following represents excerpts from it.
We begin with the text:
Matthew 22 1Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. 3 And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come. 4 Again he sent out other slaves saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast.”’ 5 But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business, 6 and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them. 7 But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. 8 Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.’ 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.
11 “But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, 12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”
How Christians should perceive the early 4th-century Roman emperor, Constantine—his role and legacy, whether harmful or beneficial—is a vexing question, one that has admittedly caused for me, as an Orthodox Christian and historian of Christianity, much disillusionment.
Despite my Orthodoxy, speaking as a semi-Yoderian / Hauerwasian (though “recovering” to a large degree) who spends his life trying to be historically responsible and nuanced, we have to first remember that perfection isn’t the criterion of Sainthood; if this were the case, we’d have no Saints. While many Saints are recognized as such because they exhibited genuinely imitable piety and humility, often one of the faithful is recognized as a Saint simply because of one standout accomplishment or extraordinary act. All their faults and destructive behaviour—whether Constantine’s or another Saint’s—should be and certainly are acknowledged and condemned by the Orthodox Church despite their Sainthood. These acts ought not to be sanitized, trivialized, or euphemistically labeled as mere “flaws”: many of the acts that Constantine carried out in his own lifetime and the usurpation of the standards of the kingdom of God (poverty and peacemaking) in favour of the priorities of the state (wealth-building and security through violence) were horrific and have had downright destructive, seemingly irrevocable consequences.
I personally know Orthodox monks who would not consider Constantine a Saint, which is our prerogative too; often we place too much emphasis on what’s “official,” the propriety of public designations within Orthodoxy that gloss over the very real and horrific—even if historically contextual—actions that Constantine (as with other Saints) sanctioned in his own lifetime. Orthodox Christians love to rail against Arius—oddly reciting with glee that St. Nicholas of Myra punched him in the ear at the Council of Nicea (an act he was ashamed of and for which he later asked forgiveness despite our whimsical celebration of it)—but somehow our veneration of Constantine isn’t tempered by the fact that he was baptized on his deathbed (!) by Eusebius of Nicomedia—the bishop who read the opening statement of the Nicene Council in defense of Arius and one of only two bishops present to possibly refuse to sign the final Creed. What this says about the orthodoxy of Constantine—during whose reign Arianism wasn’t entirely abandoned and whose son, Constantius II, embraced Arianism—will likely never be adequately resolved.
Even still, it is essential that we adopt a historical maturity and sensitivity to the age, a sincere ability to put ourselves in certain past situations, to truly “enter into” history—apart from today’s technology, “20/20” hindsight (at least to us, while a future generation will no doubt condemn us with their 20/20 hindsight, and so it goes…), modern cultural and moral sensitivities, convenience of the information age, the fact that we have the luxury of volumes exposing the life of Constantine that we don’t have of some today whom we still nevertheless respect—by acknowledging what it was like for Christians before Constantine and after Constantine. When all Christian bishops can gather in one place for the first time after centuries of brutal persecution to labour on behalf of theological uniformity, and they kiss each other’s wounds where ears were sliced off and limbs were severed, the one responsible for such a dramatic reversal might reasonably elicit our gratitude and acknowledgement; to do otherwise, stems—in my view—from a subconscious (i.e., often unintentional) privileged elitism. There were too many positive changes that went along with this shift to get into here, but suffice it to say, he is “Equal-to-the-Apostles” not because of his piety (which was lacking, to say the least) but because of his major role in the Christianization of large swaths of humanity (i.e., much like the vocation of an Apostle—despite their own faults too, even the denial of Christ, in-fighting, etc.). Nothing more, nothing less.
But the bottom line is this: whether one condemns or adores (or is non-committal toward) Constantine usually depends on the target of one’s attention; if we look for the speck in others’ eyes, we will fail to recognize that Constantine’s plank is my plank. As we pray before ingesting the Holy Gifts, “…You are truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first.” If I truly believe this, I should reasonably expect someone to write a book called, “Defending Andrew.” My criticisms of Constantine in the paragraphs above reflect what I also need to repent of and change; I have been angry with my brother as well, an internal impulse without which murder would not be possible, as Christ teaches us (Mt. 5:21–22). As I’ve said many times before, Constantine didn’t just live 1,700 years ago; I am Constantine too.
Forest, Jim. Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 2014. ISBN: 978-1-62698-090-7
I first met Jim Forest -- author of Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment (Orbis, 2014) -- about five years ago when he made the trek from Holland to the south coast of British Columbia to, among other speaking gigs, give an intimate talk on St. Ephrem's Lenten Prayer at my small Orthodox parish then meeting in a converted barn. While giving him a ride from the church to the place he was staying that night, our conversation veered into Eastern Orthodoxy's somewhat underestimated inclusive embrace despite its miscalculated reputation of cold exclusivism -- even if falling victim to this unfortunate reputation at times. From this initial encounter, I was instantly impressed by the judicious and calm manner in which Jim reflected on, in this case, a somewhat thorny ecclesiological issue that reflects the need for more peacemakers to engender ecumenical hospitality.
The inspiring talk he gave at an Orthodox Peace Fellowship conference I organized in Abbotsford, BC in the summer of 2012 only reaffirmed his stoic humility. And the open arms of Orthodoxy that we had discussed a couple years earlier was echoed by Jim's hospitality when he opened his cozy and welcoming home in the historic heart of Alkmaar, Holland to my friend and I while en route to Egypt for a research project on interreligious peacebuilding between Muslims and Coptic Christians. Over the years, I have witnessed -- even if mostly from a distance -- and come to admire Jim's ability to speak calmly, though no less confidently, in hostile arenas and on contentious issues. This is the avoidance of making enemies when speaking on the topic of loving our enemies -- however demanding and imperfect such attempts may be for anyone dipping their toe in such vexed exchanges and themes.
Like Jim Forest himself, Loving Our Enemies exudes gentle wisdom. Ever the engaging and vivid storyteller, Forest weaves together profound anecdotes and quote-worthy insights to ennoble the cessation of enmity and cultivation of reconciliation in this latest offering. For my money, the chapter "Holy Disobedience" is worth the price of admission alone. The book avoids highfalutin jargon and the reader won't get bogged down by esoteric theological terminology, making this a very accessible and fluid read befitting a lay audience -- which a book on this perennially sidelined topic should be. Much deserved, Loving Our Enemies is also the Gold Medal winner in the theology category of the 2015 Illumination Book Awards.
This is the myth that underlies our violence against the Other—our so-called “enemies”:
One of the motivations of violence against the Other is portraying oneself—or “our side”—as completely “good” and one’s enemies—or “their side”—as completely “evil.” We do it all the time—as individuals, as cultures, as races, as religions, as nations. This dual portrayal gives “our side” the permission to kill, incarcerate, torture, and oppress since our actions will automatically be deemed righteous, commendable, and sensible, as we are the “good” guys and therefore any actions we take—however objectively deplorable—are automatically considered “good.” And our enemies can be killed, eliminated, incarcerate, oppressed, and tortured as inanimate objects to be eliminated in the implementation of our ideologies and interests because they have no good in them and are therefore completely evil and thus worthy and deserving of their death, torture, incarceration, and oppression. Since there is nothing good in them (i.e., our completely evil “enemies”), no good will be destroyed when our enemies are killed, tortured, or otherwise oppressed.
The antidote to this crude, unthinking, facile, and toxic bifurcation is the prerequisite transfiguration for loving our enemies and building peace intuitively and (super)naturally. The resolution is therefore ontological rather than a forced and contrived imitation—good or bad. And part of what this transfiguration looks like is recognizing the good in our enemies and the evil in ourselves—that, as the gulag surviver, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, remarked, the dividing line between good and evil doesn’t run between separate human beings or identity groups, but down the middle of every human heart; this requires stillness (hesychesis) and attentiveness (nepsis) to the vices and passions in ourselves and a commensurate life of repentance, all of which induces our transfiguration—the partaking of the divine nature (2 Pt. 1:4), the same “stuff” as the Prince of Peace—that capacitates us for treating the Other in the same way that the Transfigured One treated the Other—i.e., the prostitutes, the Samaritans, the publicans, the Roman occupiers.
A desire for retribution is the response to our perception of complete evil in the Other; a desire for restoration is the response to our recognition of at least some good in all human beings—“the true light, which enlightens everyone” (Jn. 1:9)—that can still yet be unearthed, prioritized, and cultivated.
Andrew P. Klager
INTRODUCTION
THE PURPOSE OF THE present volume is to introduce readers to a compassionate eschatology from the vantage point of various theological attitudes and traditions. What follows, then, is an outline of the eschatological themes that comprise an Orthodox Christian perspective.
As we navigate through an Orthodox conception of the hope endowed to all creation when Christ “trampled down death by death,” and which is assimilated by the Church through ascetic struggle, participation in the liturgical theodrama, and veneration of icons that depict and embody the Eschaton, the sentiment that “compassion” is a worthy foil through which to apprehend an Orthodox eschatology is justified.
With the conviction that a dialogue on the validity of a compassionate eschatology should depend not only on the outcome of theological conjecture and syllogism, but must also include a historical precedent, especially from the Church fathers, to circumscribe and frame this dialogue, the present essay will also appeal frequently to St. Gregory of Nyssa’s celebrated philosophical and ascetic treatise, De vita Moysis,1 as a highly apposite patristic voice to guide our investigation.
It has become whimsically aphoristic for Orthodox Christians to answer theological inquiries, and especially the more difficult ones, with, “It is ultimately a mystery!” But, this is true of its eschatology perhaps more than for any other theological issue. While the ecclesial schisms that have characterized much of Christianity’s history over matters of Christology, Triadology, and the like are at least comprehensible on a primal level, it is utterly unfathomable the many more recent schisms that have compounded as a result of squabbles over events that have not yet even occurred!2 An Orthodox articulation of eschatology is therefore unique in its reticence, refusing to speculate beyond the creedal affirmation that Christ “is coming in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end,” which motivates his Bride to “look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”
Footnotes:
1. For all English references, I will be using Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, translated by Ferguson and Mahlerbe (hereafter simply Vit. Moys.). Since this essay is appearing in a book whose audience is concerned more with Christian eschatology than with Gregory of Nyssa himself, all references to the original Greek will not be to the usual Gregorii Nysseni Opera, on which the English translation is based, but will instead be to the much more accessible: Migne, Patrologiae Graeca (hereafter PG).
2. See Ware, Orthodox Way, 133f.
Fr. Thomas Hopko’s famous 55 maxims contain four that I’ve particularly clung to over the years: “We don’t judge anyone for anything”; “Don’t try to convince anyone of anything”; “Give advice to others only when asked or obligated to do so,” and “Be simple, hidden, quiet and small.” Needless to say, I fail at all of them all of the time (and am right now). The following, however, is a reflection on these maxims for when I discover myself embroiled in exchanges that show the potential to turn heated real quickly.
I've noticed the habit among some Christians to justify their unkind words and scathing condemnation of others by pointing to a favourite verse—Matthew 3:7, when Jesus calls the approaching Pharisees and Sadducees a "brood of vipers." It is, however, not enough to point to Jesus as our example in such a wholesale manner; the more responsible thing to do is instead isolate what he commanded us to obey as the subjects of his yet unfulfilled prayer in John 17—that "as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us"—and therein acknowledge that there's an imbalance in authority to speak so confidently. In this sense, Jesus didn’t tell us to imitate his brashness and confident criticisms when confronting untruth. Truth is not written or spoken, but embodied and ontological. To this end, Jesus has only commanded us to take up the cross upon which he was also enthroned.
St. Peter didn’t write, “For to this you have been called, because Christ was also unkind to everyone and exhibited a confidence that only God Incarnate could pull off, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps,” but instead remarked, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pt. 2:21). The Beatific Ladder celebrates poverty of spirit, meekness, mercy, purity of heart, and peacemaking because Jesus knew that our own frailty, confusion, and immaturity requires this of others and ourselves.
When Jesus said, “You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one” (Jn. 8:15), he was underscoring that we are all limited by the same finite constraints that confuse our judgment, and that he alone is unique in possessing a judgment that emanates from perfect oneness with the Father—judgment as divine Light (Jn. 3:17–19). This is a confidence that we should not trick ourselves into thinking we can have. When Jesus said, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged” (Mt. 7:1), he was trying to warn us that our judgment of others will only kick-start a cycle of judgment, that his divine Light will expose this cycle of judgment that we initiated and are trapped within (Jn.3:19–21), that we need to look at ourselves only and our own need for repentance, as we are all in the same boat—not one above another—but that Jesus’ perfect humility and kenotic co-suffering love means that he is unique in his ability to step outside this boat and walk on the water in which I know I will sink.
Jesus is God and I am not. We are all in the same boat, but hell is a solitary place where I alone reside.
In John 3:19-21, Christ overtly identifies the nature of divine judgment:
"And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God” (Jn. 3:19–21).
So, Christ's judgment is overtly identified as divine Light. This is why Orthodoxy doesn't hold to a dualistic view of the afterlife, wherein we are sent to one of two physical locations—heaven or hell. Instead, heaven or hell is our subjective experience at our posthumous encounter with Christ (or divine Light, à la the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor), who is—of course—immutable. If God is immutable, he cannot change from divine love in an anthropomorphized manner (i.e., as we understand it through familiar social analogies in our finite state). Fr. Thomas Hopko puts it this way:
"[I]t is precisely the presence of God’s mercy and love which cause the torment of the wicked. God does not punish; he forgives. . . . In a word, God has mercy on all, whether all like it or not. If we like it, it is paradise; if we do not, it is hell. Every knee will bend before the Lord. Everything will be subject to Him. God in Christ will indeed be 'all and in all,' with boundless mercy and unconditional pardon. But not all will rejoice in God’s gift of forgiveness, and that choice will be judgment, the self-inflicted source of their sorrow and pain" (Foreword in Sergei Bulgakov, 'The Orthodox Church,' xiii).
So, understanding the judgment of Christ as Light (which is what he himself identifies it as) is key here. For example, St. Gregory of Nyssa (c.335–395) explains this subjective phenomenon from the plague of darkness in Exodus, even while the Hebrews still experienced this darkness as Light:
"It was not some constraining power from above that caused the one to be found in darkness and the other in light, but we men have in ourselves, in our own nature and by our own choice, the causes of light or darkness, since we place ourselves in whichever sphere we wish to be” ('The Life of Moses,' 2.80).
So, God does not change nor have shifting mood swings and is therefore categorically not actively meting out his wrath as we popularly and anthropomorphically understand it. Instead, he is immutably divine love, mercy, and forgiveness, and the experience of wrath is one of self-condemnation and incompatibility with divine Light, much like when Christ, in his compassion, said to Paul on the road to Damascus, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads [spikes]" (Acts 26:14). The act of persecuting Jesus therefore has the experience of "wrath" built into it, but it is self-inflicted since God is immutably love—the divine Light.
To answer my title right off the bat, I don’t really know. This piece won’t solve anything, but I think I’m in good company in this regard. The following might, however, help us change the way we think to avoid making the situation worse and perhaps move in a more positive direction.
I was originally going to write a piece on why I don’t post stories about persecuted Christians on social media, but I’ve decided that it would be inappropriate to do so given the real-life horrors in northern Iraq. If I couldn’t read my piece to the parents of a raped and beheaded child, I shouldn’t be writing it. “Holier-than-thou” pieces are stupid anyway.
Christians are asking what we should do in the face of such barbaric violence as that which ISIS has meted out against the Yazidis, Shi’a Muslims, Assyrian Christians, Kurds, and those Sunni Muslims whom they regard as kuffār (unbelievers) because they have entered a state of jahiliyya (the reemergence of the ignorance that preceded Islam, this time due to Western influence).
Now, I realize that I’m writing this from an elitist position in a peaceful society far removed from the brutality that has drenched the sands of northern Iraq in innocent blood. I get that. If you believe that I shouldn’t be writing about this situation because my relative comfort will inevitably render the following unrealistic and trite, I’ll understand. It’s not easy to keep emotions in check, to think straight while helplessly viewing images of unspeakable brutality through brimming eyes. I don’t think that anything I write below is easy to do. It certainly isn’t easy for me.
So, what are we supposed do?
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