Perhaps the most difficult argument to deflate these days is that Islam is, by its nature, essentially violent/militant. I hear this so regularly from Americans that I have to wonder if it's not a matter of selective memory (Americans, in case we've forgotten, can be pretty violent and militant, too). But it's perhaps the most difficult argument to reject precisely because there are images flashed at us on a regular basis (twenty-four hour news cycles will do that to a person) like this:
The problem here, of course, is that the folks making this argument are Americans first, and Christians second. Which is to say, they've forgotten the Apocalypse of John from the end of the New Testament.
What I hear most often from American Christians who see these images: It just doesn't seem right! Those twenty-one orange-clad Egyptian Copts herded out on the beaches of Libya to be beheaded by practitioners of a repugnant ideology ... and it's impossible to count the number of those who have been exterminated in Iraq and Syria. What a waste of life! And all of it filmed and posted to the internet to slake the curious eyes of a watching world. As someone said to me recently: "Their deaths is nothing like their Master's death. These are helpless lambs, defenseless. They die at the hands and whims of men driven by a demonic faith".
It seems odd, to me, that American Christians can't handle these images.
It means we've forgotten the Scriptures and the traditions that formed them.
Take the Gospel of John, for example.
Jesus, there, is recorded as having said: "I have come that they might have life and have it to abundance". "Whoever hears my word and believes in me has eternal life." "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live." This is the guy whom "Jesus loved", the one to whom Jesus entrusted his own mother.
A guy who wasn't unfamiliar with suffering and pain. Because he's the guy who also wrote the Apocalypse of John -- if tradition is to be believed.
Why's that important?
The Apocalypse of John calls us to be willing to die in pursuit of Jesus' Kingdom. It sounds overwhelming when you first read it, but the Apocalypse of John celebrates that life discussed in the Gospel of John. But it does so in a way that removes it from all sentimentality. This isn't a picture about angels with harps on clouds. No, it's bloody. There are lives on the line -- our lives.
What we Christians need, then, is a vision reorientation.
And that's what apostles like John do for us. John -- both the Gospel and the Apocalypse -- calls us to embrace the true life Jesus offers to us by following him, even to death.
Maybe, just maybe, instead of trying to squeeze the Bible into the most accommodating reading for our lifestyle as Americans, we Christians should do exactly what Jesus did. We're being called to squeeze ourselves into a conformity as Americans that means we'd much rather pick up the sword and fight than die for the Kingdom.
That's our problem. ISIS is proffering death, sure, but it's the same proffering of death that America is foisting on unwary Christians -- just of a different type. We're trying to squeeze ourselves and our attachments and preferences into a mold that has very little in common with being American.
So how do we Christians make sense of the deaths of 21 Coptic brothers and sisters? By taking up the sword and cutting off their heads (if not literally then at least metaphorically by dropping bombs)? Sure seems to be the way some of us want to respond.
If there's one thing I know about Coptic Christianity, it's that they've never forgotten how to be martyrs for Jesus. Icons press the images of departed saints into the minds and hearts of young Egyptian Christians every day.
And there's the rub. Lots of us in America -- particularly Protestants -- have grown up without those icons.
Those icons are the Gospel in living color. They tell the story of the "great cloud of witnesses".
Those icons are eternal art, because the Church keeps these saints alive in worship and prayer.
So, believe it or not, martyrs are alive and well in the Church in Egypt. Even if we've seen their heads chopped off on videos on YouTube.
These deaths are "senseless" only if we let them become meaningless. But I see their deaths as invitations to point to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a death to the world in all its temptations -- whether its ISIS or America. I see their deaths as "living sacrifices". I see their deaths as a public affirmation that we belong to another Kingdom and we'll only be home once that Kingdom has come on the earth as it is in heaven.
Make no doubt about it, the Bible is weird. But it's true. The vision of the Apocalypse still speaks in the Middle East these days.
The problem here, of course, is that the folks making this argument are Americans first, and Christians second. Which is to say, they've forgotten the Apocalypse of John from the end of the New Testament.
What I hear most often from American Christians who see these images: It just doesn't seem right! Those twenty-one orange-clad Egyptian Copts herded out on the beaches of Libya to be beheaded by practitioners of a repugnant ideology ... and it's impossible to count the number of those who have been exterminated in Iraq and Syria. What a waste of life! And all of it filmed and posted to the internet to slake the curious eyes of a watching world. As someone said to me recently: "Their deaths is nothing like their Master's death. These are helpless lambs, defenseless. They die at the hands and whims of men driven by a demonic faith".
It seems odd, to me, that American Christians can't handle these images.
It means we've forgotten the Scriptures and the traditions that formed them.
Take the Gospel of John, for example.
Jesus, there, is recorded as having said: "I have come that they might have life and have it to abundance". "Whoever hears my word and believes in me has eternal life." "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live." This is the guy whom "Jesus loved", the one to whom Jesus entrusted his own mother.
A guy who wasn't unfamiliar with suffering and pain. Because he's the guy who also wrote the Apocalypse of John -- if tradition is to be believed.
Why's that important?
The Apocalypse of John calls us to be willing to die in pursuit of Jesus' Kingdom. It sounds overwhelming when you first read it, but the Apocalypse of John celebrates that life discussed in the Gospel of John. But it does so in a way that removes it from all sentimentality. This isn't a picture about angels with harps on clouds. No, it's bloody. There are lives on the line -- our lives.
What we Christians need, then, is a vision reorientation.
And that's what apostles like John do for us. John -- both the Gospel and the Apocalypse -- calls us to embrace the true life Jesus offers to us by following him, even to death.
Maybe, just maybe, instead of trying to squeeze the Bible into the most accommodating reading for our lifestyle as Americans, we Christians should do exactly what Jesus did. We're being called to squeeze ourselves into a conformity as Americans that means we'd much rather pick up the sword and fight than die for the Kingdom.
That's our problem. ISIS is proffering death, sure, but it's the same proffering of death that America is foisting on unwary Christians -- just of a different type. We're trying to squeeze ourselves and our attachments and preferences into a mold that has very little in common with being American.
So how do we Christians make sense of the deaths of 21 Coptic brothers and sisters? By taking up the sword and cutting off their heads (if not literally then at least metaphorically by dropping bombs)? Sure seems to be the way some of us want to respond.
If there's one thing I know about Coptic Christianity, it's that they've never forgotten how to be martyrs for Jesus. Icons press the images of departed saints into the minds and hearts of young Egyptian Christians every day.
And there's the rub. Lots of us in America -- particularly Protestants -- have grown up without those icons.
Those icons are the Gospel in living color. They tell the story of the "great cloud of witnesses".
Those icons are eternal art, because the Church keeps these saints alive in worship and prayer.
So, believe it or not, martyrs are alive and well in the Church in Egypt. Even if we've seen their heads chopped off on videos on YouTube.
These deaths are "senseless" only if we let them become meaningless. But I see their deaths as invitations to point to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a death to the world in all its temptations -- whether its ISIS or America. I see their deaths as "living sacrifices". I see their deaths as a public affirmation that we belong to another Kingdom and we'll only be home once that Kingdom has come on the earth as it is in heaven.
Make no doubt about it, the Bible is weird. But it's true. The vision of the Apocalypse still speaks in the Middle East these days.
And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the
word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.