“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
- Theodore Parker quoted by Martin Luther King Junior

We had an interesting discussion in this session about whether you can get to peace or get to justice through non-peaceful means. We disagreed in the end. My personal view is that you can’t. I think you have to actively create peace, and you can only do that by being peaceful, not by forcing an end to violence. But people cited the end of World War II and the independence of Bangladesh as examples where perhaps the ends justified the means. It’s complicated, yes. I hope that there are other ways. I think of the Bereaved Families Circle in Israel and Palestine, and the hotline they have created. Anyone can pick up the phone and talk to someone on the other side of the wall. That’s creating peace. Because suddenly the enemy has a voice, and becomes a real person, with hopes, dreams, a family… they become harder to bomb. I think that if we invested as much time, money and energy into this sort of initiative, instead of “peacekeepers” with guns, maybe it would make a difference. But that’s just my opinion. 

Someone in our group commented that if you say you’re against the Israeli bombing of Lebanon to someone who supports it, they automatically assume that you are for the Lebanese bombing of Israel. So not true. Grrrr.  

We also talked about whether you could buy and sell peace. I think we need to sell it. We need to make it attractive, financially as well as in other senses. But that requires a complete turn around of our whole system of value. We have to take into account human value, and environmental value, as well as monetary value. Long term value, and I’m talking generations, not weeks or months, rather than just short term profits. And I don’t know if that is going to happen. Not any time soon. Except it is already happening, in small pockets, all over the world. That gives me hope.  We need to give examples of peace too, make it easy, “Peace and Justice for Dummies”. I think that’s why the victims of injustice can become perpetrators. Because they don’t have good examples to follow.   I guess, as Christians, we have the example of Jesus. I liked Borg’s comment that when we argue about whether Jesus was a spiritual or a political being, we miss the point. He was both. His politics flowed out of his “intoxication with God.”  I think you can have passion for Justice without passion for God, or at least without believing in God. Of course I think that having a passion for justice is of God, from God, is God. But my atheist parents wouldn’t like me telling them they were being Godly. Is it possible to have passion for God without passion for justice? I don’t think so. I think you’d be getting it wrong. But I admit, that’s a fairly arrogant and dangerous attitude. A lot of the people who I think are misguided about God firmly believe that I am the misguided one. 

I think it was Marcus Borg who said that in the USA 1% of the population own 43% of the wealth. Then he went on to say it wasn’t about making the middle class feel guilty about people poorer than them, it was about empowering and educating the entire 99% to be pissed off about the imbalance. I liked that, because I feel so much guilt, and I don’t think it’s a very productive emotion. It can be crippling. Sometimes I feel so guilty about all the bad things I’m doing (like buying sweatshop clothes, not giving every cent I have to charity) I find myself incapable of doing anything good. I just want to crawl back to bed.  

I loved what our group facilitator said, about Rosa Parks, how she did such an ordinary thing but it triggered a huge wave of justice. We have to live our lives as if our every action, however small, like sitting on a bus, could trigger a bigger movement.  

The DVD finished with this beautiful grace from Argentina:  

God bless to us our bread
And give food to all those who are hungry
And hunger for justice to those who are fed.
God bless to us our bread.

Amen

More talk about sin and atonement. I can’t remember who said what, but one of the theologians on the DVD said that Jesus didn’t die for our sins, he died because of our sins. Which got us onto a discussion about the story that many of us learned in our previous church environments: We are all sinful, and Jesus died to pay for our sins. Which is a really manipulative story. Because all of a sudden you start noticing everything you ever do wrong, and feeling guilty about all sorts of things, because you know that somehow by being imperfect, you’ve killed Jesus. Well, that’s how I used to feel.

I left my previous church because I could not make myself believe that my parents were going to go to Hell.

Now I believe that Jesus lived his life to the full, that he stayed true to his beliefs in truth, love and justice, and he was killed because of it. I don’t believe his death some how makes up for anything I do wrong. But I believe the way he lived his life can teach me something about how to live.

One of the other theologians was talking about martyrdom, and people trying to get martyred, throwing themselves to the lions either literally or metaphorically. Anyway, he said “Before there’s something worth dying for, there’s always something worth living for.” Which I thought was cool. Ok, Jesus died for his beliefs. But that’s not the point. The point is that he lived his beliefs.

I think the theme of tonight was that, instead of telling people that they’re imperfect/sinful (and needing to be redeemed by Jesus’ death) we should be telling people that they are loved and accepted.

I have no trouble believing that the rest of the world are loved and accepted. I have big problems with applying that to myself.