Articles

Finding Peace on Earth

Sunday, December 24, 2006

By David C. Bloom
Special to The Seattle Times

As the war continues in Iraq, I wonder what, if anything, Christmas has to say to us.

Christians around the world, including in the Middle East, celebrate the birth of the Christ child: Emmanuel — "God with us," "the Prince of Peace," the one whose coming was announced as "good will to all."

Where on this Christmas Eve is peace and goodwill in the land that is increasingly beleaguered by what can well be described as intertribal warfare, the conflict between two Muslim groups with distinct historic identities, each claiming to have the truth on its side?

The conflicts in the Middle East — Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, Hezbollah and Christians in Lebanon, Israelis and Palestinians in Israel — are symptomatic of the warfare that has plagued humankind for centuries.

Throughout history, religious, ethnic and political groups have claimed right-eousness for themselves and condemned those outside of their clan as infidels or evildoers or, worse, less than human. The wars and rumors of wars that Jesus warned us about have often been rooted in this kind of interreligious or interethnic conflict, too frequently descending into bloody cycles of revenge and retribution, with seemingly no way out.

Before nations and before cities, there were tribes, the earliest way that humans organized into small societies for mutual protection, sustenance and the preservation of culture. There was a strong feeling of identity with and loyalty to one's tribe. These were primarily hunter/gatherer societies, not warring bands for the most part.

The perpetuation of a form of tribalism into modern societies has become far more problematic and is at the root of much of the strife in our world today. In one way or another, conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, Hutu and Tutsi tribes in Rwanda, Crips and Bloods on the streets of American cities, and Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq embody the worst features of tribalism, including a strong cultural or ethnic identity that separates oneself as a member of one group from the members of another.

There is a human tendency to extol our tribe's virtues and to demonize the other tribe: We claim that we are the righteous and they are the evildoers, despite the potential for both good and evil in all of us. We thus justify war against those who are perceived as our enemies, instead of using our differences as a point of contact and dialogue.

Jamal Rahman, a Sufi Muslim who leads the Seattle Interfaith Church, says the Quran teaches that God intentionally made us different:

"God created diversity; God could have made all of us one single community, but God chose to give us different languages, different colors, different books, different prophets. He made us into nations and tribes and men and women for one reason only — that you might get to know one another."

Rahman reminds us of Gandhi's teaching, that if somebody commits a wrong or a violence against us, he would say, "Please, I beg you do not criticize this person's religion; better point out to this person verses and insights of beauty from this person's own religion. Help this person to become a better Jew, a better Muslim, a better Christian. That is a model to peace."

Tavis Smiley, the public radio and television host, was in Seattle recently promoting his autobiography, in which his early experience in the African-American church is prominent. "Each of us wants the same thing: love, respect and a little attention," he said. "The most profound lesson I've learned is that love wins, (but) the notion of love has disappeared in our public discourse.

"We celebrate Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, but how can we separate them from their message? At the center of their message was love. ... It is the most powerful and transformative force we know. Whatever we do, we must find a way to love our friends, our family, our neighbors, our enemies, humanity. ... Love wins!"

In our society, we don't take love seriously. We have come to think of love as a sign of weakness. Ironically, Jesus, King and Gandhi — and many others — gave their lives as martyrs for love. Though often viewed as naïve or unrealistic in our "tough-minded" world, they were committed to the philosophy of nonviolence, even at the cost of their own lives.

Yet, through love and nonviolence, a democratic India was born, African-Americans were freed from the bondage of racial segregation in the American South and apartheid was ended in South Africa without the bloodbath that had been widely predicted.

Betty Williams, who received the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work against violence in Northern Ireland, said in her acceptance speech, "We are deeply, passionately dedicated to the cause of nonviolence, to the force of truth and love, to soul-force. To those who say that we are naïve, utopianidealists, we say that we are the only realists, and that those who continue to support militarism in our time are supporting the progress towards total self-destruction of the human race."

King once said of the conflicts that divide people, "Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. ... The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

It is the season of the Prince of Peace. When Jesus was dying on the cross, his last words were not, "Avenge me." Instead Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

How do we break the cycle? We have examples like this one: The three surviving members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, whose fourth member had been murdered during their abduction in Iraq, said they would not testify against their captors if it leads to the death penalty.

"Justice is about restoring relationships that have been broken," they said.

The three unconditionally forgave their former captors and asked leniency for them, noting that punishment derives "from the same mindset that is behind the escalating spiral of violence that we see in Iraq that is being fueled by the governments in Washington and London."

(The U.S. role in the war, incidentally, is projected to be costing between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, debt to be passed on to our children and their children. How does a country said to be the most Christian nation in the world, with a president who claims Jesus is his favorite philosopher, square its practices with the teachings of Jesus, who, in the Sermon on the Mount, said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also"?)

Rabbi Ted Falcon of Bet Alef Meditative Synagogue says that, ultimately, our response to violence — intertribal and other — must be spiritual: "The spiritual perspective is that we are sharing one life; we are each manifestations of a single Being, and how I awaken myself and others beyond my exclusivity to our inclusivity is the essential work of our time."

Love, compassion and reconciliation, when lived in this season and throughout the year, honor the birth of "God with us."

These form a common good recognized by all of the world's faith traditions and, when practiced, point all people from cycles of violence to paths of peace.

Our separations, be they into tribes in conflict or neighbors at odds or nations at war, tell us how little we value the arrival of God's son, the Prince of Peace. The good news of Christmas is that it is not too late to be made new, to love and to reconcile, one by one — nation, neighbor, and tribe — so that in the end, "Love wins!"

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David C. Bloom

The Rev. David C. Bloom is a retired American Baptist minister and former director of the Rauschenbusch Center for Spirit and Action. He is on the adjunct faculty of Antioch University-Seattle.