Asking
people what religion they belong to is usually about the worst way to figure
out what they truly believe. The best way to figure out what they truly believe
is to hit them in the face and watch what they do next. Judging by this, it’s
clear that nearly all adherents to the world’s great monotheistic religions
really do believe the same thing after all.
Whether they profess Christianity, Islam, or Judaism, a million natural
experiments going on as we speak in Gaza, Mosul, and Washington D.C. reveal
that pretty much everyone agrees: retaliation is where it’s at.
Maybe
the CliffsNotes informed drone of classic liberalism had it right all along;
maybe the world’s major religions really are all the same. The irony, of
course, is that this mantra, still earnestly chanted by progressive
secularists, that the religions are really all the same, is intended to promote
functional unity even if many theological differences still remain. The reality
is that, in fact, we already have achieved functional unity—Christians,
Muslims, and Jews all agree on hitting back when they’ve been hit.
Their
chosen methods of retaliation might differ slightly. But whether a suicide
bombing or a drone strike, everyone seems pretty well agreed that this is
basically how the world works. In the name of peace, I’m inclined to shout,
“Can’t we all just argue?” Just once, couldn’t one of the great monotheistic religions
finally disagree that an eye for an eye is the only way forward? Maybe with
some digging around one of those great religions could even find some obscure mandate
from their leader to turn the other cheek when slugged? That would stir things
up. When RPGs and M-16s have simply become the ambient noise of our lives, a
single instant of silent refusal would be absolutely deafening.
Fear
not, secularists. Judging by their actions, your dream of functional unity is
still in tact. The faithful of the world’s major monotheistic religions really
do believe the same thing: if someone hits you, hit them back.
That’s
the ethic across the board. If we dig a little deeper, they all seem to share a
core metaphysic as well (their official teachings not withstanding). When I was
a kid, this way of seeing the world was proudly stated to me by a trusted
Christian elder as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The world
is made up of two kinds of people,” he said, “those who litter and those who
clean it up.”
The
theological term for this kind of worldview is “dualism”—the idea that there
are two forces, good or light vs. evil or darkness, and they are forever facing
off. Dualism is officially a heresy in all great monotheistic faiths. But no
one cares. Christians, Muslims, and Jews have all bought into it hook, line,
and sinker. It’s just too darned convenient as an explanation for everything. Bad
things happen because that other part
of humanity over there is bad.
Of
course, this kind of dualism all sounds very absurd to the more thoughtful
among us. But even the thoughtful become fast dualists when they’re afraid. My
intellectual mockery of simple-minded dualism is no match for the fear that
wells up in my gut as I scroll the week’s news feed. In my unconscious mind,
the fear that I associate with the alien clothing styles and harsh vocal
rhythms of some terrorist leader’s video ever so subtly becomes an overlay for
a whole anonymous swathe of the world’s population. I’ll of course justify
myself and speak in calm disinterested tones. I might even have you convinced
that my inner violence is of a completely different kind than theirs, perhaps
even an admirable kind. “Well, that monster is a cold blooded killer. I’m only
interested in the justice of God and protecting the victims.” Nonetheless,
at this point, a sort of irony has taken place. The world has become exactly as
dualistic as I’d suspected it was. The darkness has been born in my very own
soul.
…
One
day, many millennia ago, person A struck down person B. Maybe he was jealous of
the plot of land that person B had, or disagreed with person B over the
sacredness of a given tree, or grew paranoid that person B was looking at him
the wrong way. It doesn’t really matter why. What matters is that striking him
down was an offense that family B could not abide. If this was the sort of
thing that could be expected of family A, then like any pack of rabid dogs,
they needed to be put down. Of course, tribe A would not take this lying down. So
they fought back. Tribe B expected nothing less of those tree worshippers. So
back and forth they went.
When
Jesus was being arrested in the garden, Peter took out a sword and tried the
“stand your ground” method. Jesus scolded him.
In
some sense, it’s easy to defend yourself if you can make yourself hate your
attacker. Peter made that mental shift, no problem, in the very second that he
saw Judas’ two-timing face. But not Jesus. What do you do when you are being
attacked and yet you will that not a hair on the head of your attacker should
perish?
You
die.
In
the moment that Jesus refused to fight back, he opened up a new possibility in
human history, a new choice which God validated three days after his death.
We’ll call this the way of the cross.
Of
course, our societies reflexively feel threatened by “the way of the cross.”
Predictably, someone will stand up at this point and say, “Here in the real
world,” apparently,
not the one in which Jesus lived, “having no means of punishing or retaliating
will only allow free reign for the violent to do as they please. Just forgiving
and turning the other cheek willy-nilly will cause the world to spin out of
control into a violent chaos.”
After
several millennia of this, the irony is still lost on this person that the
world already has spun out of control and not because people keep turning the
other cheek.
So
we continue to expect a take no prisoners messiah who will come down hard on
that bad half of humanity, the litterers.
What we have now is one who chose to die instead. And that has always been an unpopular sort of messiah.
