In the name of God?

Aug 23, 2024

Sunday  Observer- Anil Netto
Many of us do all kinds of things based on our religious motivations.

When we were young, we attended catechism. Now that we are older, we try and fulfil our religious obligations faithfully.

Sometimes, we may get worked up over perceived religious or personal slights. But then we fall short in responding to what is happening around us, no matter where we are in the world. This happens no matter what our religious faith.

We neglect the poor and the marginalised. When hospitals and schools are underfunded and neglected, we remain silent. We fail to call for greater food security. Some children even go to school without breakfast.

We allow bulldozers to flatten forests, driving out native communities without a squeak. We look the other way when migrants and refugees are bullied and exploited while others grow rich on the back of their toil.

I use the word we because we are complicit if we remain silent in the face of injustice, oppression and ecological destruction.

We fail to see the connection between these injustices and God — who in all the major faiths — is described as filled with compassion and mercy.

Compassion for whom? For those who are suffering or treated unjustly. And for Creation, which is groaning under the weight of “development” (for whom?).

Some even lead their nations to wars and occupy other nations. Others in distant lands profit from such wars and stoked-up tensions through the production of arms and weapons of mass destruction.

The devout may even use the scriptures to justify such wars. Or they twist religion to justify the mistreatment of minorities or anyone different from them.

Many of the imperialists and oppressors believe in the moral superiority of their beliefs. They may even think of the ‘other’ as lesser humans or subhumans. This makes it easier to victimise the latter and could lead to genocide. This was what happened in Hitler’s Germany and is now happening in places like Gaza and Myanmar.

The perpetrators may even think that God is pleased with their actions or that they are doing these lesser beings a favour by bringing ‘civilisation’ and ‘development’ to them.

This was the prevailing attitude during the dark days of colonialism, when colonial powers held the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other.

Perhaps the worst thing that happened under Emperor Constantine in the Fourth Century was that he marked the Christian symbol of the cross on his soldiers' shields. This paved the way for centuries of war in God's name.

Contrast this with Jesus telling Peter to put his sword away when the temple authorities came to arrest Jesus!

The manipulation of religion by worldly powers says much about their understanding of God or the divine.

Theirs is a wrathful God who takes sides. God is on their side, solely based on religious affiliation or even ethnic considerations or because of their positions in power.

So they presume to act “in the name of God”, no matter how sinful their actions are. After all, in their eyes, they are the chosen ones of God. Think of how those who upheld the apartheid system in South Africa would attend church services faithfully while remaining blind to the gross injustice and discrimination against their fellow human beings. Did they really think that God condoned such blatant injustice?

If we stop to ponder, God is described in many religions as a God of justice, compassion, love, benevolence and mercy. He has deep love and compassion for those who are poor, suffering and oppressed. These attributes take precedence over all else.

Jesus was constantly reaching out to the ‘other’ – the Roman centurion, the Samaritan woman by the well. He even exhorted a rich young man to sell all his possessions and give to the poor.

Jesus probably knew how the young man had grown rich so fast. In those times (and ours too!), you are not likely to get fabulously wealthy unless others lose their land, fishing waters and farms (where they earn a living) or are exploited through low wages and long working hours.

At least, the young man realised his accumulation of wealth (and probably the way he had accumulated that wealth) was incompatible with the demands of the kingdom that Jesus heralded. And he walked away, the Gospel demands too hard for him to fulfil.

Perhaps the problem lies in the way we have personalised or “privatised” our respective faiths. We talk of personal salvation and of being saved, of fulfilling our personal religious obligations. We focus on our personal sins and overlook the social sins plaguing the world — often because of our indifference. But our indifference to the plight of Creation is also a personal sin!

We forget the stakes are higher than our own personal needs. That there is a higher demand to build the kingdom in a world darkened by oppression and greed.

God so loved the world that he sent Jesus to redeem it. He loved the world - everyone, everything in it.

How it must hurt Him to see any part of that Creation being desecrated by greed or destroyed by blind hatred and oppression of another group. Perhaps that wound is infinitely more grievous than anything we can fathom.

Perhaps that was the pain of rejection that Jesus felt most on the cross. Not the Father’s rejection of Jesus' plea to let this cup pass, not the multiple wounds on his body, though that must have been excruciating.

That excruciating pain had come from the world's rejection of the love and compassion of the One who had sent him – and for Jesus, that must have been the deepest cut of all.

So let us not destroy or defile his Creation. Not in His name. Instead, let’s work to rebuild our broken world in the kingdom that Jesus set in motion.

(Anil Netto is a freelance writer and activist based in Penang. He believes we are all called to build the kingdom of God in this world.)