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War. What is it good for, eh? Absolutely nothing. Sorry for the gratuitous and somewhat obscure 70s Soul reference, but anybody who hasn’t been living in a small paper bag at the bottom of an abandoned mine-shaft since the printing of the last Christis could be forgiven for being a bit cynical and depressed about world and domestic affairs. It’s not just war that is part of this. Terror and ignorance in Kosovo and other places where humans terrorise others fit into a wider picture that includes the recent bombing campaign (now apparently thwarted, thank God) against homosexuals, blacks and Asians in London. Not to mention the frequent indications of deep seated inter-community hatred in this and every other territory on earth.
Obviously, this makes me, and many others, more convinced that what is needed is action by the community to create a mixed cultural society where all can participate, and we can educate each other about the importance to the community of each other. After all, it’s a legitimate view, part of our true Christian heritage that has been unfairly obscured by circumstance and the acts of fallible man, surely? So we turn to the Bible to attempt to see where this most important need for a new, mixed society comes from. And it gets confusing.
The New Testament seems at first to affirm this deep-seated preconception of mine, but it is not made explicit. Jesus’ teachings — His ministry and mission to the Samaritans, for example — could equally be used to support a model of society where individual communities within the wider group act independently and further their own tradition without too much looking out to each other. This is not even a model of society that is against Christ’s command for explanation to all of what He is about and for. His ministry existed in a world where this was normal. The early church, in between the conversion of non-Christians from their own cultures and their work of mission in the wider world, arguably lived in or moved between communities of the faithful that worked like this. The Old Testament is full of societies run on this principle of tolerance and overall freedom but with little real dialogue between cultural communities that are even more rigidly and legally defined, apart from occasional diplomacy or violence. Even commands from God that instruct the Israelites in love and respect for the non-Jewish tribes and nations do not seem to go any further, as with Deuteronomy 10:18&19, where we are told that He “loves the alien who lives among you, giving him food and clothing. You too must love the alien, for you once lived as aliens in Egypt.”
So, then. We know from the Bible that God loves all people, whether “alien” or familiar to his people, in both racial and cultural terms. We know that His love goes further than ours, and He has taught us, through the example of Jesus, that practical help to those from other communities is an imperative. We might also say that a more open, tolerant and educated society might enable a more compassionate hearing of the Gospel, and aid the Christian community to more fully declare what God is about.
In the “real”, everyday world, we see hatred, exclusion and violence directed against the communities of the racially different, the nationally different, the sexually different and the culturally different. And we know this to be wrong. We see those extremists who claim to be Christians participating in this, quoting Bible verses and calling down divine fire on their hated, “heathen” enemies. Many of us long for an active, compassionate Christianity to kick down those barriers and promote an open, one community society where Christian and non-Christian can talk and educate each other without feeling that they are compromising their conceptions of what they believe and their mission in life. But can we go this far? Since there is no Biblical command to it, should we rather try to promote and act out God’s love in practical terms and not care too much about the wider creation of a new society? Should we go beyond the Bible here? Should we elsewhere? Should we everywhere?
I’m going to stop here. You might agree with me on the point of multiculturalism, but consider the very last sentence going much too far. I don’t “know” in any concrete sense. I have my opinions, but I’m going to keep them to myself for now. But if you, Christis reader, feel strongly either way about what I say here, please do one thing. Get thee to an e-mail machine, or a bit of paper with a pen. Write down a little (or a lot) of what you think, or what you think God is telling you. And send it to Christis (Societies pigeonholes at the SU building, or submissions@christis.org.uk on the funny electronic stuff). How can we as a Christian community develop if we do not communicate with each other?
Ta’ to Dave Skipper for the Deuteronomy 10 quote. Bible quoted from the NEB.
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Last modified: 25th November 2005