Monday, March 14, 2016
We have seen the True Light! We have received the Heavenly Spirit! We have found the True Faith! Worshiping the Undivided Trinity, Who has saved us.
Every Sunday there
is a line we sing in the liturgy in my church, the words of which are above.
Many readers will twitch when they see them, they seem so arrogant, so
self-assured, so politically incorrect. How can anybody claim to have found the
true faith, to have embraced the true way to live? This smacks of certainty,
monolithic belief, black and white thinking which many of us thought we had left
behind. Isn’t it exactly this kind of thinking which leads to intolerance, fundamentalism,
paternalism and other kinds of evil and dark philosophies?
Ever since the
past century plunged the world into totalitarian regimes we have shied away
from anything that smells of certainty, that seems to claim for itself to be true.
The writings of Jacques Derrida, Lyotard and others have helped to articulate
our instinctual feelings that what is true for you should not necessarily be true
for me; if it were, then some of us would be right and others wrong, and that
is only a step away from oppressing those who err. Enlightened souls have left
such dogmatism behind, allowing each other to believe what we think best.
What that raises,
however, are not only theological or philosophical questions. It puts to us
very bluntly the question how long a society can survive that has as a logo the
question mark of uncertainty? We all know the quote by Martin Luther King “If a
man hasn’t found something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” It captures
the insight that convictions, values held dear, are what motivates people to
sacrifice. If such values evaporate, then so does the ability and willingness to
sacrifice.
I am struck
how many people admire the heroes of World
War II who stood up to Nazi
ideology, both within Germany (such as
Bonhoeffer) and outside, such as Winston Churchill. But those acts of heroism
were dependent on those people thinking there was right and wrong, and wrong
had to be opposed.
I now live in a country
where it is considered evil to voice opinions about the value of life, the boundaries
of marriage and the God-given purpose of sexuality. Even if one has no
intention to legislate that such views need to
be upheld by the government, let
alone to try to change the minds of those who think differently,
such certainty is considered
pernicious and opposed to
democratic values. Even in Christian circles the greatest evil (according to a
recent Barna study) is no longer murder or adultery, but the failure to
recycle.
If confronted with
the question whether there is anything worth fighting and dying for, many
Westerners would say “only our comfort and ease”. This lack of conviction makes
our societies very easy prey to those who are on the other end of the spectrum,
such as fundamentalist Muslims. But even without those external threats, I
believe that it is impossible to pass on any kind of value to a next
generation, if it is no longer politically correct to believe in anything; and
maybe that is why we prefer having dogs to children.
If we look at
history, it was always those forces that shaped a culture which had convictions
and confidence; at its best, Christianity was such a force that changed empires,
not by power, but by martyrdom. At its worst, it abused of political power to
shut down those who believed differently. So I shall dare to continue singing that
line on Sundays, hoping that some of us maintain our convictions and are ready
to die for them.
# posted by tino @ Monday, March 14, 2016 
