When
Religion Becomes Evil
IV. The End Justifies Any Means
Craig Anderson
Mark 2:23-28 March 30, 2003
This is a season of sermons filled with irony. It would be hard to have it otherwise, because the connecting thread during Lent is to consider how religion, which has noble goals and lofty ends, becomes evil. It is ironic when good intentions go bad.
Today’s ironic illustration comes from Hinduism. I know that it’s all becoming a blur by now, but do you remember the incident in India 12 months ago, when a passenger train was set afire and many people were killed? Charles Kimball fills in the details. There were 58 deaths on the train. The fire was set by Muslim vendors on a station platform. But those vendors in turn, had been harassed by dozens of zealous Hindus who were returning from a sacred site where a disputed temple was being built. In ensuing days, revenge was exacted, and more than 600 Muslims were killed in 30 Indian villages and towns. Within three months, the situation had grown so inflamed, that Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan had over a million troops lined along their common border, rattling nuclear sabers.
Isn’t this just more violence in the name of religion? Where’s the irony? Wait! Wait! Remember, violence and religion are not supposed to be synonymous! Indeed as Kimball tells it:
Within the Hindu tradition, there is no structured hierarchy or single sacred text or designated day of worship each week. The tradition by definition, is tolerant and respectful of diversity. And Hindus believe that the Divine essence animating creation is no different from the Divine essence in every living thing.
So again, we want to ask with Charles Kimball, how does religion become evil? Today’s answer is one about means and ends and the confusion of the two. How does a tradition which champions diversity and “by definition is tolerant,” create zealots who are just the opposite? Yet another irony, but one worth pondering. What are the ends of religion and how do means and ends get confused with one another?
The profound insight and contribution of Hinduism is to see a “divine essence in every living thing.” No world religion is more diverse. There are literally believed to be a million forms of the divine in Hinduism, a million gods. The great genius of Hindus has been to embrace this enormous diversity, and to tolerate many different forms of spirituality. So how does an intolerant splinter group coming back from a sacred shrine, end up provoking a catastrophic fight at a train station? It is a long story. But in this case, Kimball wants to argue that this group lost sight of the larger ends of their faith, toleration of diversity and reverence for life, and instead held up a means as their ultimate end. Temples are important in religion. In every tradition certain spaces become associated with the sacred. But sanctuaries and mosques are means, not ends. They are secondary not primary. Sacred spaces are not holy in and of themselves: they house the holy; they point toward the holy, but they are means not ends. That idea got lost a year ago in India. Indeed that thread is lost everyday around the world, and human beings confuse lesser things with ultimate things. Lowly symbols are elevated into what are mistakenly believed to be lofty realities which people protect and defend, and the troubles begin.
Take our reading today from Mark. The aphorism at the heart of this passage, the witty two line couplet which Jesus offers as a retort to the Pharisees, is about means and ends, and not confusing one with the other. “Orally brilliant,” is how scholars describe Jesus. If you or I had even thought of his retort, it would have been after the Pharisees were long gone. In their presence, I would have sputtered something about “Uh gee, we were hungry. We’ll reimburse the farmer. We’ll start carrying trail mix for when we get the munchies...” Maybe later, down the road, I would have given myself a dope slap and thought, why didn’t I say, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath?”
Then again, it was not simply that Jesus was fast on his feet with a two-liner, but that the two liner packs a punch. Jesus’ words were often simple, illustrations drawn from the everyday world of lilies in the field and birds in the air; but often those simple words are sharp, brilliant, cutting to the quick. Implicit in Jesus’ simple words is a highly nuanced argument. Volumes have been written on these issues. Don’t confuse means and ends. The sabbath is important in its own right, but it is not ultimate. What comes first in religion? A Hindu might answer, “reverence for life.” Muslims and Jews might assert that “there is only one God.” A Christian could talk about “loving God and loving one’s neighbor.” So if a neighbor happens through a grain-field and is hungry, do arcane rules about the sabbath come first, or is our neighbor’s need more important? Is ritual primary? Or love? Are temples of prime significance, or the divine realities they point toward? Should we first defend our turf at any cost, or is it more important to revere the holy essence in every creature?
The point today is that religion becomes evil when it confuses means and ends. What are the chief ends of religion? It is hard to summarize an answer or exhaust the subject. Huston Smith, one of the foremost students of world religions, says that religion matters “because it opens us to a universe filled with purpose and beauty.” Likewise, Joseph Campbell argues that “the messages communicated through the mythological traditions of the world -- from tribal cultures to the great world religions -- are all about being alive, the thrilling mystery of existence. They teach us how to live a meaningful and moral life as an individual and in community.” Something has gone dreadfully wrong therefore, when senseless violence destroys beautiful lives, degrades human existence, and shatters moral structures.
Charles Kimball illustrates the confusion of means and ends in religion through a host of examples ranging from the Inquisition, to the terrible abuses of the caste system in India, to Christian persecution of the Jews through the centuries. Indeed, with respect to our sorry history of anti-semitism, Kimball says that a Rabbi friend of his once said to him, “Charles, you have to realize that two thousand years of Christian ‘love’ is almost more than we Jews can bear.” I could recite some of these illustrations. But you know, it was when I first read this book, and got to page 150 that I began to wonder why I’m in this religion game at all! One illustration of religiously motivated inhumane behavior piled upon another gets awfully depressing. And now with my second reading coming in the midst of a war with religious overtones and sub-currents, I find myself in this moment reluctant to subject us to any more sorrow and sadness. This doesn’t mean that I’m abandoning Charles Kimball’s project, but I do want to focus for a few minutes on signs of hope which he identifies.
While it is true that there are still many places in India where widows are reduced to abject poverty, because according to ancient custom they are no longer entitled to any of their husbands’ resources after his death... the caste system this custom is derived from is slowly disappearing largely thanks to one man, Mohandas Gandhi. In Kimball’s words,
When historians of the future look back on the extraordinary events of the twentieth century, they will have much to say about one of its most towering figures, a poor, frail Indian man named Gandhi. His writings and life deserve to be studied and discussed much more widely than they are today. Why? Gandhi articulated clear ends; he had definite goals for his many pursuits. But he refused to allow these ends to be in conflict with their means. Above all else, he affirmed the guiding principle of nonviolent “soul-force” or satyagraha. He was committed to treating others, even the British and some Muslims who opposed him, with love and compassion, trusting that God’s truth would prevail.
We don’t study Gandhi’s words and deeds as much as they deserve, but in a generation just past, leaders of America’s civil rights movement certainly did. Howard Thurman was denied admission to Boston University School of Theology, so instead he went to another seminary which did admit African Americans. Thurman was inspired by the Hindu, Gandhi, and later introduced a student of his to the concepts of non-violent soul-force; that student, Martin Luther King Jr. refused to believe or accept that segregation was a means to the end of the freedom of his people. As we know well, non-violent resistance became the chief instrument of the civil rights movement. Indeed later in his life, King pointed to his trip to visit Gandhi in India, as one of the most important events in his life and work.
Change is possible. The caste system in India lasted 2500 years, until Gandhi showed that those means did not respect the end of recognizing a sacred essence in every living being. Slavery, segregation, and racial discrimination ruled in the land of the free, until Howard Thurman and Dr. King lead their people and our nation to the more hopeful path we are still trying to progress along today. Suffice to say, that all three of these men were profoundly religious, and that the means and ends of their religious and social endeavors matched one another. It can be done. Violence does not have to be synonymous with religion! Indeed, non-violent tactics and strategies, are much better signs that the highest ends of our religious traditions are being respected, observed, and pursued. There have been great witnesses to hope who were inspired by religion in our time. Perhaps we should study, discuss and emulate their lives much more widely than we do today, and in the process guard against religion becoming evil.
This Lenten sermon series relies on:
Charles Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil, Harper Collins Publishers, Inc. New York, 2002.
“Charles Kimball is a professor of religion and chair of the department of religion at Wake Forest University. An ordained Baptist minister who received his Th.D from Harvard University in comparative religion with specialization in Islamic studies, Dr. Kimball is the author of three books about religion in the Middle East.” ...from the book jacket
Would you like to raise a question or make a comment (even a provocative one)? If so, e-mail Craig Anderson at craig@brooksidechurch.org