There exists a very interesting holiday here in England on the 5th of November called Guy Fawkes Night that commemorates the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
If you want more information you can read this, but here's a short summary. King James I was the Protestant King of England, and Catholics felt that they were being treated unfairly. A group of extremists planned to rectify the situation by exploding 2.5 tons of gunpowder underneath the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament, killing everyone in the immediate vicinity. This was intended to ignite (no pun intended) a revolt in the Midlands.
No one knows exactly how the Protestants discovered the plot, but they arrested Guy Fawkes, who was acting as the suicide bomber, in the early morning of the fateful day. After lengthy torture he revealed the names of his co-conspirators, all of whom were hanged, drawn and quartered; a process which is so gruesome I'm not going to describe it here.
There's a strong push here to undergo willful amnesia about the origin of this "celebration," to rename it as "Fireworks Night" and reduce it to an excuse to satiate our collective pyromania. But I want to go the other direction: not to reduce it, but to enlarge it, and to reflect on it as an example of a more general phenomenon.
"By this sign, conquer." And ever since, people have been using the power of the cross to establish the power of Rome. Not that the problem is unique to Christianity of course. Islam has proven a fertile ground, and Judaism has been on both sides of the phenomenon more times than anyone can count. Hopefully the critique of my own tradition is enough to acquit me of insensitivity towards any other in this area.
Secularists have picked up on this phenomenon, of course, and they like to call it The Problem of Religion. The Problem, they say, is that when people become really convinced of spiritual principles, they can be motivated to commit acts that the rest of the non-fanatical world can easily recognize as immoral and unjust. The Solution, then, is straightforward: if you have religious beliefs, keep them to yourself. You can think whatever you want, as long as you promise not to let your thoughts influence your actions. The intended result of this Solution is that society will be guided by Reason instead of Religion, or more precisely, Human Thought instead of Divine Revelation. Surely, they say, it is religion which convinces people to commit these acts, and if they were left to their own devices, they would recognize how wrong they were! Interestingly enough, this attitude is also adopted by Christians in light of modern terrorism. Surely, they say, Islam is the problem.
Are they right? Is religion the culprit that turns ordinary people into perpetrators of heinous acts? I'm not so sure.
First, Secularism itself is not exempt from the Problem. If the French Revolution teaches us anything, it's that Reason produces its own fanaticism. Consider also the Nazi Regime. It would appear that a Darwinian philosophy is as dangerous as any religion.
It seems then that religion is not the source of the problem.
This is a very freeing realization: Muslims do not have to be condemned for belonging to a "violent religion," because adherents of all religions are violent. Christians do not have to be ashamed of their faith in secular societies, because Secularism is no more likely to lead to a less fanatical society. And atheists and agnostics can stop being afraid of their religious neighbors, because it is not religion that makes people violent.
It is also an extremely disconcerting realization: If not religion, then what? Religion, like any institution, is easy to blame, because it is easy to label. It seems that any system of thought or philosophy one could choose to subscribe to has been used to justify evil. Is there any escape? Wherever we go, we will find ourselves sharing our bed with a villain.
If we can't find the solution in external factors, we must conclude that evil comes from within.
There is substantial evidence to support this claim. In the right context, most "normal" people will participate in persecution and genocide - without religion, without any philosophical manifesto. Nothing but the right opportunity.
What lessons can we take from this example of 400-year old "Christian" terrorism? Only that evil doesn't operate according to our labels and generalizations. Evil does not reside in the Middle East, and so it can't be conquered by Western democracy. It doesn't reside in Hollywood, and so it can't be conquered by the Bible Belt. It doesn't reside in Religion, and so it can't be overcome by Secularism. It resides in the individual, and therefore it can only be conquered by the individual. Let's stop rooting out extremism in other people, and start rooting it out of ourselves.
Comments? Extensions? Contradictions? Post it as a comment...
6 comments:
...human beings,all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it.....they do not in fact behave in that way. This is the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in. C.S.Lewis
sb
So, I'm reading this book called "The Spirit of the Disciplines" by Dallas Willard and the last chapter talks about evil and the power structures of the world. And I thought it was cool because it was talking about how evil in society can't exist without evil in individuals, but evil in individuals is spurred on by society's values. And individuals are also spurred on by others, kinda like a bunch of water molecules in the ocean pusing against each other to create a wave. Some quotes I thought you might like: "The impersonal power structures in the world are, though independent of any one person's will and experience, nevertheless dependent for their force upon the general readiness of normal people to do evil." and "War is not an isolated phenomenon but rides upon the coattails of cultural, economic, racial, and even religious practices, ideas and attitudes that have their life in the social context. The are the sparks that ignite the raging holocaust of war."
Oops that last one was Kyle, sorry.
Nice quotes, Kyle. The last quote resonates with what I've been thinking about foreign policy, i.e. that it makes no sense to protest a war without a protest of cultural values. It makes no sense to put all the blame on an administration, like the Dems are trying to do by saying "they lied to us!" and the Reps best response is "oops, my bad." Maybe we should be less concerned about changing the administration, and more concerned about changing cultural values, in other words, the social context.
Fallen man is incapable of doing good in and of himself. It follows that all of his institutions, including religions, and cultural values will have this fallen nature. The Bible says specifically that "there is no one righteous, not even one" and "there is no one who does good, not even one". (Romans 3) Left to himself, natural man does what is natural to him: murder, theft, falsehoods, adultery, etc., etc. No matter how much cultural values change though history, our basic fallen nature inherited from Adam and Eve does not change. Even mature Christians fight the battle between the old and new natures every day, and it is not easy even for those who know Christ and love him. Changing cultural values changes nothing about man's wickedness--it merely gives him new things to be proud or contempuous of. God alone is capable of changing our nature, and alone is sovereign over all that has and will occur on this earth. As Christians, our work is to repent, submit, and do that which God has commanded us to do: Love God, love our neighbor, keep the commandments, preach the word, make disciples. This is the only way in which any meaningful change can occur in this world.
Hello anonymous poster, (whom I suspect is my mom) ;)
"Fallen man is incapable of doing good in and of himself."
That's a tricky statement. Interpreted one way, it could mean that only Christians can do good things. I don't think most Christians would agree with that. There are two gaping ambiguities: 1) what actions constitute "good"? and 2) what does it mean to do something "in and of [one]self?" Those two incredibly vague terms render the statement meaningless to me.
The Bible contains many examples of "Godless" people (in the Old Testament, pagan worshippers) doing good things. Pharoah's daughter rescuing Moses, Rahab hiding the spies, etc. In the latter case, one could say she was a convert, but (I don't think, someone correct me if I'm wrong) there's no mention of it. If we define "good" as "doing God's will," then there are a lot more examples, including the pagan kings who sent Israel into exile! God even describes them as "annointed," which puts them in the same class as Messiah Jesus and the prophets. And they definitely didn't fear God.
Also, what does it mean to do something "in and of [one]self?" Is such a thing even possible? In Scripture there are examples of people speaking "in the Spirit," or under a special influence of God, but that doesn't mean that the rest of humanity's actions are done in an autonomous fashion, and at any rate, "good" actions aren't confined to the first category.
I think the above statement is based more on Enlightenment ideas of personal autonomy then any Scriptural truth. As for the Bible quotes, I think the first is highly dependant on the definition of "righteousness," (for which we need to look at Scripture and not our first instinct, which once again is post-Enlightenment) and the second is taken out of its context.
The last thought, though, is as good as it gets: "Love God, love our neighbor, keep the commandments, preach the word, make disciples. This is the only way in which any meaningful change can occur in this world."
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