Posted on 08/14/2003 5:50:38 AM PDT by RJCogburn
I disagree on a couple points. First, I distinguish between Christians and the state. I realize the two often mix and it's sometimes hard to see the lines between the two, particularly in eras in which religion and politics were mixed as a matter of course. It is still possible to separate the political from the religious, even though the religious was usually cited for the political. That the persecution to which you refer had some unfortunate religious connections is overshadowed by the fact that it had a lot more to do with politics than religion. Compare it to the hijacking of Islam by the fundamentalists and terrorists, if you think Islam is fundamentally different from what they preach.
Second, St Paul's Epistle to the Romans (chapter 9) recites a quote from the prophet Hosea: "I will call them 'my people' who are not my people," etc. This strikes at the heart of a point overlooked in today's American churches muddled with dispensationalist opinions. God's chosen people worship the crucified and risen Christ; those who worship the Father without the Son know not the Father who sent the Son (John 8:31 ff). We're not to boast against the branches, but neither should we comfort them in their obstinance and disbelief.
It is Christianity upon which the Nazis drew when implementing the policies which resulted in the genocide of Europe's Jews.
No, the Nazis drew upon and fomented a popular base hatred of a minority group. Hitler and his colleagues were not good Lutherans set on doing God's will. They were very evil and misguided people, some of whom were drawn to the occult or atheism. William Shirer's book makes the claim that Lutheranism prepared Germany for the Nazis. Critics of Shirer, who was not an historian but a journalist, have pointed out that just was not the case. Those critics are many, and many of them are Jewish. Shirer's book, rather than an academic one, filled a popular niche; many people are more familiar with the journalist than the historians.
I can assure you that if I were presented with a choice between converting to Christianity and death the latter would be the option that I would embrace very willingly.
Fortunately we live in an era and culture where such choices are rare and very seriously frowned upon; it's unconscionable that other cultures in this same era don't share our tolerance. Remember, though, Christ was crucified after taking a similar stand when given an ultimatum. No one showed Him any mercy -- not the state, not the religious leaders (who just so happened to be Jewish). Nearly all his disciples, too, were persecuted and put to death by the state and/or religious leaders (who just so happened to be Jewish).
The list of Christian martyrs is nearly as long as the list of victims of church-state violence. I believe we can and should shun life and death ultimata when it comes to matters of personal conscience; insincere conversions are as meaningful as non-conversions. I also wish we could look at the past for what it really was, not merely for how it's popularly (mis)represented. In the big picture, no one's hands are clean.
I regard that as bad news about someone. If one cannot be a good friend, one is lacking in many other qualities as well. The habit of using and discarding people is often seen, and to my mind it is very dismal. I am probably a bit over-aware of this because I work in a university, and "cultivating useful people", in the guise of friendship, then moving on from them, is very prevalent in academia. It leads to some becoming exceptionally bitter, neurotic characters in middle age. They have lost the ability to give of themselves and enjoy companionship.
One moral writer who had some interesting things to say about status-seeking and false friendship was C.S. Lewis. He was a very committed Christian, and I think that he would have written similiarly from any other faith perspective. I think that he wrote especially on this matter, rather than other moral failings, was because he was an academic. No doubt, he saw a lot of false friendship, and also felt the temptations to follow such false lures.
Thompson was a heroin addict (back then it was called laudanum) who straightened out his life by giving it to Christ.
He also wrote an excellent poem entitled In No Strange Land about how close God is to us at all times. Here it is:
O world invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air—
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumb’d conceiving soars!—
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shutter’d doors.
The angels keep their ancient places;—
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
’Tis ye, ’tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many-splendour’d thing.
But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry,—clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!
The Young Neophyte
Who knows what days I answer for to-day?
Giving the bud I give the flower. I bow
This yet unfaded and a faded brow;
Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray.
Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way,
Give one repose to pain I know not now,
One check to joy that comes, I guess not how.
I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey.
O rash! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat.
I fold to-day at altars far apart
Hands trembling with what toils? In their retreat
I seal my love to-be, my folded art.
I light the tapers at my head and feet,
And lay the crucifix on this silent heart.
I think she was the finest poet of Edwardian England - but I think she is completely neglected today because of the intensity of her religious commitment.
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Perfect.
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