When Religion Becomes Evil
III. Establishing the ‘Ideal’ Time
Craig Anderson
Luke
17:20-30 March 23, 2003
The Dome of the Rock dominates
Jerusalem. It is one of the three most
important holy sites of Islam, and one can see it from virtually anywhere in or
near the old city of Jerusalem. The
dome itself is covered with gold leaf, and the structure is clad in exquisite
white ceramic tiles inscribed with deep blue Arabic characters. The total effect is stunning.
I had no conception of how closely
intertwined the holy sites of Judaism and Islam in Jerusalem are, until I saw
them with my own eyes on the incredible trip the church gave me and my family
four years ago. I had heard of
Jerusalem’s “Western Wall,” knew that devout Jews gathered there to pray, and
even knew the wall was all that remained of the foundations of Israel’s second
temple destroyed by the Romans in 72 CE.
But until I began to read the guidebooks and then saw the scene, I’m not
sure that I realized that the foundations, the Western Wall, formed the base
upon which the Dome of the Rock sits.
So Islam’s sacred shrine sits
precisely where Israel’s temple once sat, which of course takes us to the heart
of one of the Middle East’s most enduring problems. The Jews dream of a day when their temple will be rebuilt. Indeed there is a shop in Jerusalem
dedicated to producing new vestments for that temple, (not the same shop where
our new table covering came from, but still I’m sure, a nice shop!) There is, furthermore, a school in Jerusalem
dedicated to training priests for that temple, training which requires 15 years
of preparation. But putting those
preparations aside for a moment, how does one build a new Jewish temple where
the Dome of the Rock and the neighboring al-Aqsa Mosque sit?
So far there have been twelve groups
who believed they had the solution to that problem and fortunately all were
stopped before they could destroy the holy Islamic shrines. Security at the Temple Mount therefore, is
incredibly tight and the most highly visible in a city where heavily armed
troops are already common-place. If you
wonder about the most recent source of unrest in Palestine and Israel, look no
further than the incendiary visit a few short years ago of Ariel Sharon to the
Temple Mount, accompanied by a legion of armed security personnel. He was about as welcome there as a Taliban
leader would be at ground-zero. It was
a provocative act and arrogant in the extreme.
To understand such arrogance,
whether of Sharon or the Taliban for that matter, we turn again to Charles
Kimball’s book, When Religion Becomes Evil. Kimball’s chapter title is a bit misleading as he speaks about
“establishing the ‘ideal’ time, when in fact he is talking about religious
groups which envision establishing the rule of God, not only in an ideal time,
but in particular places as well. Take
for example, rebuilding Israel’s temple for a third time. What may seem like a major impediment to us,
the existence of holy Islamic structures, is a mere trifle to true
believers. There are zealots who see the
rebuilding of the temple as a first step in a cataclysmic series of events which
will result in the reign of God being established on earth. For some orthodox Jews, the messiah can’t
come until the temple is rebuilt. For
many devout Christians, the messiah, Jesus Christ can’t return, until the
temple is built again. While I’m guessing
that these groups haven’t spent much time comparing notes about the identity of
the coming one, and undoubtedly have very different ideas, they cooperate
nevertheless in raising funds, and looking for ways, menacing and destructive
ones if necessary, to get the construction job done.
You can imagine the fervor which was
building in Jerusalem as the new millennium approached, and how nervous
security forces were that a radical group might attack the Temple Mount at the
turn of the 21st century. Indeed
cells of devout Christian believers were expelled from the holy city in the
last months of 1999 as a precaution.
Establishing the reign of God on
earth is a dream which many different traditions and religious communities have
articulated. Not all of these dreams
turn evil, not even most of them. But
this dream has become virulent in a variety of times and circumstances. We are at this moment very much preoccupied
with the consequences of an attempt to establish God’s rule on earth by
force. The Taliban, late of
Afghanistan, had as their goal to establish a righteous string of Islamic
nations around the world, governed according to what they perceived to be the
tenets of Islam. They formed a mutual
admiration society with another disaffected, quasi-religious leader in the form
of Osama bin Laden, and now the world literally quakes from the outcome of
their alliance.
But we Christians must be sure not
to sneer over such misguided efforts, because our own history is rife with
similar examples right down to today, and our nation. While this church grafted itself onto the congregationalist
movement rather late in the game, if we trace that graft to its roots in what
are called “the holy commonwealths of New England,” we ourselves become
descendants of a religious people who saw their mission as comprising (quote)
“a decisive phase in the final chapter of God’s plan for his Church in this
world.” (Sydney Ahlstrom, A
Religious History of the American People.)
That history is so ancient that we are probably okay with it, until I
remind you that our ancestors were so sure of their rule in God’s name, that
they found every reason to banish Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams to the
wilderness in Rhode Island, for holding religious convictions which were not in
keeping with majority opinion -- a majority of the men that is -- men who were
landowners, and upstanding members of the church, which meant saints who could
describe their own religious encounters with God and subsequent conversions in
convincing detail. Suffice to say,
most, if not all of us, would not have qualified for their exclusive little
club.
But lest you think these are
problems long ago and far away, let me remind you of the phenomena of religious
parties today who control substantial time on our nation’s airways, and
subscribe to the opinion, as Pat Robertson for one articulates it, that in
America:
Satan has established certain strongholds. He goes after areas of our society which are
crucial. He has gone after the
education system and has been very successful in capturing it. He has gone after our legal profession and
has been successful, through the ACLU and others, in capturing large portions
of the legal system. He’s gone after
the government and moved it away from the free enterprise system we’ve known
and turned it into a socialist welfare state.
In
Charles Kimball’s view, “The literature and rhetoric of such groups reveal a
nostalgia for an ideal time that has been lost.” They issue “warnings about the danger awaiting this nation if it
continues to turn its back on God.
Sharing a religious conviction that the ideal has been lost,” these
deconstructionists, as they call themselves, seek “to remove political and
institutional barriers in order to impose the rule of God’s law.”
You begin to see the problem. If a religious group is certain that the
time has arrived to establish divine rule, and if furthermore they are
convinced they have been called to implement that rule, the time for negotiation
and compromise is over. From the
confines of one of these religious enclaves, it is difficult to imagine that
God’s rule is subject to debate or refinement.
God after all is God, and surely any plan of God will be perfect in
every way, with no need for debate or discussion. In such a perfect system, it’s God’s way or the highway. So the Taliban knew for a certainty that
girls were not to be educated, and the Puritans were convinced that the
religious convictions of individuals had to conform to those of the church, or
the offender was to be sent off to Providence, Buddy Cianci, and the mob.
Imposing God’s rule is tricky if not
impossible in a pluralistic world. How
does one protect the rights of individuals to believe as their consciences
guide them, if it’s God’s way or the highway?
Kimball points out the difficulties Israel has been embroiled in, ever
since it recognized the bind of trying to practice democracy and still have
their state remain Jewish. Twenty years
ago it was realized that growing numbers of Arab-Israeli’s with full
citizenship, imperiled the Jewish majority.
What has Israel done? Radical
groups of settlers have responded by confiscating Arab households and lands,
and driving those folk out of Israel into the territories.
Neither have Islamic majorities been
successful at establishing Islamic states and governments. For one thing, there are enough different
forms of Islam that no consensus has yet emerged about what a true Islamic
state looks like. Kimball notes that
Pakistan is one example of an Islamic nation, but the results are not
encouraging. Indeed, he sees more hope
in Iran, where a democratically elected parliament has made some inroads in
moderating fundamentalist Islamic rule.
But again the final result is not yet in.
While we might sympathize with calls
for renewal and reform from Muslims who live under despotic regimes, with
enormous wealth in the hands of a few, and with despair and poverty for so many
of the rest, still we are not comforted to see unbending forms of Islamic rule
imposed upon any nation or people.
While we might share disgust over the abuses of power, privilege and
wealth in our own nation, abuses which have inflated CEO salaries into realms
once reserved for emperors, with serfs and retainers cooking the books in
backrooms, still it seems a stretch to say that the only solution is to impose
Christian values from on high. As a
Christian, I am not compelled by a vision for a Christian America promoted by
other members of our wider religious community.
So what is our world to do? There are myriad problems, and multiple
social crises and breakdowns, needing redress.
How do we draw upon our religious traditions and the truths they hold,
while at the same time resist beating others into submission with our narrow solutions? Predictably both Charles Kimball and I are
short on answers. It is one thing to
name the problems, another to propose solutions. But at the least, as Kimball says, “People of faith and good will
must continually wrestle with the most appropriate and constructive ways to
structure institutions in light of fundamental principles and changing
circumstances.” The challenge facing us
today is to address both legitimate needs for social reform, and to respect the
pluralistic views present in every nation.
Needless to say, in light of this week’s events, that’s not easy, though
it is evermore an imperative. To give
Kimball the final word:
Efforts to establish an “ideal” time as discussed,
clearly doesn’t work. Those who
narrowly define ideal temporal structures of the state and determine that they
are God’s agents to establish God’s rule are dangerous. Religion is easily corrupted in this
context. Beware of people and groups
whose political blueprint is based on a mandate from heaven that depends on
human beings to implement.
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
A question which has vexed
Biblical scholars is whether Jesus believed that the end of the world was
near. John the Baptist certainly
did. Paul also felt the signs were
unambiguously clear. The Book of
Revelation describes the final days in highly vivid and symbolic terms. But where did Jesus come down on this
issue?
As usual this problem is complicated
by the many layers of interpretation which must be peeled back from the Gospel
stories to get the original kernels of what Jesus may actually have said. While there are passages where Jesus seems
to display the prevailing attitudes of his day, there are others where he is
strangely at odds with conventional wisdom.
In those passages, one of which I am
about to read, Jesus is more subtle than his bombastic and threatening
companions on the pages of the New Testament.
Over against their warnings that the world was “about to come to an
abrupt end,” some scholars conclude that Jesus offered an alternative
vision.
In his view perhaps, world change
had already occurred, but in subtle ways. God’s activity was not to be shown in
near-future cataclysmic destruction, but in “difficult to discern,” but
nevertheless transformative ways in the present. Going against the grain of conventional wisdom, that God was
coming soon as avenging judge, Jesus may have suggested that God is already
present in our midst, acting like leaven in a lump, sprouting like a mustard
seed, hidden like treasure in a field; subtly inspiring human beings to act more
humanely, to love and serve their neighbors, to press for justice throughout
the land.
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