opinion

RAUB: Is God our partner in war?

“A mouth that prays, a hand that kills.” – Eastern proverb

We are more and more aware of religion being associated with and promoting violence. Violent Muslim extremists attacked publishers in France. Then, some mosques were destroyed. And so it goes. Year after year, century after century, the name of religion is used to paint wide swaths of blood-red violence.

Pope Francis says, “Authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.” But Islamic zealots misuse the Koran to justify their heinous acts.

And sadly, we Christians often allow Muslims’ misuse of their holy text to be an excuse for us to misuse ours.

The majority of America is Christian, so we must put our house in order before we demand that Jews and Muslims clean up theirs.

How often throughout history have Christians promoted violence, mostly against fellow Christians? Is there a corollary between religion and intolerance, between Bible and Koran reading and violence? “Good church-goers” supported the Inquisition, the Crusades, anti-Semitism and slavery – and all are antithetical to the love of Christ.

Repeatedly, religion has not only lived next to violence, it has supported violence against the outsider, against those who are different, against those who don’t look, worship or talk as they “should.” It is clearly illustrated in European history, but is it also clear in the annals of America?

Have the Indians, African-Americans, Jews, Italians, Hispanics, Catholics and immigrants for two centuries felt the wrath of the religious establishment? American Christians massacred the “heathen Redskins.” The “Know-Nothing” or “American” political party of the mid-1800s fought to restrict Catholic immigration.

Believers never doubt that their enemies are also God’s enemies, and that God is always on their side. Thus, they don’t seem to recognize that asking God’s help to kill is an oxymoron – and problematic, to say the least.

As a young man, I started to doubt religious dogma, wondering, “Is Jesus always on the side of a white, middle-class American Catholic like me?” I quickly learned, though, that such thinking ended in trouble. It was safer to naively say, “God is on our side.”

In one way, nonbelievers are more honest than believers: They don’t drag God into their fights. They don’t try to manipulate God, as we “believers” do – those of us who worship God then ask His help to kill people.

On Christmas Day in a monastery in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge, two Masses were conducted simultaneously on opposite sides of the church. A German priest said Mass for the German soldiers, and 30 yards away an American priest said Mass for his soldiers. The next day, all those Christian soldiers were killing each other.

Did those prayers from opposing sides put God in a bind? Does the side that prays the hardest win? Many believers are convinced that is so.

Maybe, though, God does not wish to be anyone’s partner in crime or war. Perhaps God has nothing to do with war whatsoever. Some may call that blasphemy, but it is well to remember that just about everything Christ did was in opposition to religious and civil establishment – and thus was blasphemous.

Beatrice Webb, an English economist and social reformer of the early 1900s, criticized war’s “disgusting misuse of religion to stimulate nationalism.” Nationalism relentlessly employs religion in its cause – if you go to the root of almost any war, you are likely to find religion. Ask the Israelis and the Palestinians, whose present-day political fight goes all the way back through Esau and Jacob to Ishmael and Isaac.

Is it any wonder that there are some very good living agnostics and atheists who refuse to believe in the God of violence?

It would be better for all if we believers put more effort into living our faith than into attacking another’s. But it is easier, sadly, to attack another than it is to live charitably.

It is very likely that religious violence will continue, with each side “killing for God.” And as Kurt Vonnegut, author of “Slaughterhouse Five,” sadly and wisely said, “And so it goes.”

John Raub resides in Clarksville. This column is adapted from his 2014 book, “Francis, Repair My Church,” published by Wipf and Stock, Eugene, Oregon.