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After a year of conversations on facebook, I was still amazed at the response the simple status update received. Feel free to check it out here: http://bit.ly/auO0bH Reflecting on responses, the following points are worth of mentioning: 1) There is no emotion like religious emotion. Wars over the centuries have demonstrated that religions are frequently front and center in every war. Religious emotion is a product of two things as I see it. First, it is an indicator that people genuinely care. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t get so upset.
 However, there is also a more sinister reason religious emotion is so hot, namely it is a reflection of insecurity. In almost any form of debate when someone’s argument is weak they will resort to speaking harshly, even shouting, or otherwise spewing forth emotion to distract from the weakness of their argument. The same is true in religious contexts. When people are insecure in their beliefs or faith, they cover it with emotion. This is largely a subconscious act. Generally the insecure actor is unaware of his/her constant need to cover for his/her insecurity. 2) Who is we and who are they? One astute facebook friend asked me at one point who was meant by “we” in my question. When I tweeted it, I was actually thinking of “we” as everyone not in Nigeria. But I have noticed periodically that there is a certain sloppiness in defining “us” and in defining “them.” We are the Christians. They are the Muslims. We are Americans. They are Arabs. Not only do these “us-them” categories continue to reinforce stereotypes and maintain barriers, but hey are also frequently inaccurate. A few years ago while teaching a class on Arabs at Asbury Seminary, a student brought up how they (Arabs) are killing us (Christians) in Nigeria. Actually, there are no Arabs (perhaps a few) in Nigeria. There are Muslims but this is not synonymous with Arabs, who are a people group, and of which quite a few are actually Christians! This misunderstanding had caused the student and undoubtedly many others to extend the terror acts of a few Middle Easterners to the situation in Nigeria. The reality is that these are exceptionally different situations and the situation in Nigeria is more akin to inter-tribal warfare than anything else. Sadly enough in Nigeria, Christians have also murdered hundreds of Muslims. Even sadder, I have even heard Nigerian church leaders say that Christians should arm themselves like a militia. But is that really the answer? 3) Who kills us? Every single people group I’ve ever visited in every single country I’ve visited (and I’ve been to over 70 countries) has another group that they stigmatize, don’t like and more often, hate. What the groups do not tend to recognize is that they are more generally killed, persecuted, cheated, lied to, etc…by people within their own group. This is true for Christians as well. Who is the number one killer of Christians worldwide?....(drum roll)….Answer: Other Christians. Last year, I wanted to travel with a Rwandan friend to Congo. Rwanda is a “Christian” country where roughly a million Christians were murdered by other Christians in 1994. Congo is also a Christian country, where four million Christians have been murdered by other Christians in the last decade. Unfortunately, my contacts in Congo told me to not come with my Rwandan friend, pointing out that Rwandans are generally hated and are frequently hunted down and murdered in Congo. This is true in the US as well. Christian militia groups like the KKK hunted down other Christians and killed them. “Christian” Timothy McVeigh killed scores of Christians in Oklahoma City. Eric Rudolf, acting on his understanding of his Christian faith, planted a bomb in Olympic Park. The list goes on. Granted followers of Christ will not look on these deviations as valid expressions of our faith. The same debate rages inside Islam. The point is: Christians kill Christians more than anyone else does. 4) The New Way When Jesus came and proclaimed himself to be the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6), he gave us all a radically new way of living life and responding to the hostile acts of others. The teachings of Jesus are legendary: turn the other cheek, love your enemy, etc… They are so commonplace in church circles that I’m afraid they’ve become like canned food, something that is always in the cupboard but something we infrequently use or even really know what it is. Have we really considered what it means to turn the other cheek and to love our “enemy”? Generally speaking, I don’t think we have. After 9-11, I remember watching a well-known Evangelical church leader say that we should respond with everything in our military arsenal. I was saddened that he didn’t say something like prayer. Shortly thereafter I emailed over a thousand people and asked them to join me in praying for the redemption and forgiveness of Al-Qaeda operatives. I was surprised at some of the hostility displayed by otherwise loving Christians to the very idea of loving these enemies through prayer. A year or so ago, I was in Pennsylvania and saw the location where a mad man locked up and tied up Amish children and shot the little girlsin the back of the head. The Amish responded to the senseless and heinous act of violence by raising the site, lest it cause them bitterness, committed these children to the Lord and chose to love their “enemy” by forgiving the man (who committed suicide) and choosing to financially support his widow and children. When I’ve told that story to other Christians, they frequently try to explain why this was not a necessary step on behalf of the Amish. Or they resort to referring to the Amish as a cult. Or some other line of commentary that prevents them from ever having to practice turning the other cheek like the Amish did. Recently, I was at a conference and an anti-nuclear activist suggested that if there was a nuclear attack on US soil, that 95% of Christians would push for a retaliatory nuclear attack. I’m afraid he’s right. Do we look at persecution as an opportunity to live the new way of Christ, turning the other cheek, loving our enemy or do we seek to justify a violence-based response. Muslims are killing Christians in Nigeria. Will we respond like Christ or like humans?
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Comments
Just a note for accuracy's sake: 168 people died in McVeigh's Oklahoma City bombing. Even if they were all Christians (and I don't think they were targeted for this reason), that would not equal the "hundreds" you've cited here. One other common aspect of religious killings and wars, at least historically, according to Baylor scholar Rodney Stark, is that reported numbers are often grossly exaggerated (sometimes innocently). Let's do our best not to contribute to that trend.
Jeff: Thanks for your comment.
My point here is that people tend to kill people because that's what people do. And people tend to kill people from within their own socio-cultural demographic than outside of it. That was my point with McVeigh. I didn't suggest he targeted those people because they were Christians but that according to socio-cultural categories he was a "Christian" who killed a lot of people, the most of whom would also self-identify as "Christian."
It does not surprise me that religious killings are grossly exaggerated, precisely because people are very rarely killed explicitly for their religious faith. In general the religious faith is one of many reasons (ethnicity, tribe, other side of the river, etc...) the people group is viewed as different and/or dangerous.
The call I'm making is that if we respond reflexively, we'll respond like humans generally have, do, and will do. However, if we respond reflectively, then perhaps we have a chance of pouring water on the fire and understanding the power of the way of Christ...
Mark
Of course, the question that really gets begged here is, who is a Christian? A lot of people who want to blame religious violence for all things (Chris Hitchens, et al) have argued that Hitler and Stalin were acting as "Christians," too. But there are, we know, those who call themselves Christian to identify themselves with Christ, and those who call themselves Christian for reasons altogether different. Were Hitler and Stalin Christians? Perhaps in a religion sense, but certainly not in the sense that they were interested in bearing the name of Christ. Sitting across the table from one another, I'm sure we'd agree that religion kills, but Christ does not. And for that reason we really wouldn't say that Hitler, Stalin, McVeigh and others are "in Christ's camp." That's why I'm a least a little bit hesitant to let those who would lump us with these guys do so by playing along with their criticism just because it's out there.
All that said, the points you make are quite strong. And wholesale killings, especially when faiths are apparently at such murderous odds, are still among the great tragedies of our time.
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