20 November 04
Instruments of Peace
So: how do we change a culture? How do we change the hearts—not the minds—of people who say “I voted for Bush because he’s a Christian and I think he’d provide a more moral response to our problems”? (Never mind that Kerry is a devout Catholic, or that Bush when governor of Texas presided over a huge number of executions for which he granted no pardons, not even for a woman who converted to Evangelical Christianity, similar to his—he mocked her—and has subsequently presided over the deaths of well over 100,000 Iraqis and well over 1,000 Americans? This seems not to register with a large number of folks who voted for Bush. Gandhi once said that the only people who don’t understand Christianity is a religion of nonviolence are the Christians).
Michael Nagler is worried that the majority of Americans will only wake up when they realize we are no longer a democracy, at which time it will be too late to do much about it without risking our lives. According to his schema, nonviolent response goes in three phases: the first, where you are in a position to try and interact with your opponent rationally; the second, where you are in a position to win over their hearts, since they won’t listen to your arguments (the example he gave was of a Gestapo agent finding two Jews in hiding and letting them go after their small son played with his buttons, he having a son of similar age); the third, where you’re prepared to die for what you believe in. And sometimes do, like the “Saint of Auschwitz” Kolbe who volunteered to die for someone else, yet thousands of people subsequently claim he saved their lives, because the only thing keeping you alive there was your will to live, or like the Hindu women in a village who hid their Muslim sisters under threat of a pogrom and who declared to the rabble at the door that they’d have to kill them first before they got inside—and everyone lived.
Nagler thinks that for us, the first phase is long past: when 12 million people worldwide march in protest of the Iraq war and it gets termed a “focus group,” it’s clear we have no way rationally to alter the mind of this president or his cronies. But we are still in a place where we can appeal to the hearts of those who profess Christianity and voted for Bush. Our march into the third phase will be bloody and difficult, which is why there is urgency now in the second.
Nagler’s spiritual teacher was Sri Eknath Easwaran whose meditation practice was termed, under pressure, “passage meditation.” The idea is to take a passage written by someone in a state of heightened consciousness and memorize it, absorbing the words into our being until they touch and merge with our person. It was an interesting morning, with the half hour devoted to this practice punctuated by the drums over at the Farmer’s Market across the street. (I tried, and failed, to bring to mind the complete prayer of St. Francis, so I fell back on the Lord’s Prayer, which I must have started about twenty-five times over the course of the half hour.) We emerged to find ourselves in front of the Labrador Rescue Society. Keep walking, I told Numenius…
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I think Ghandi is absolutely right about Christianity and non-violence. However I suspect it is true that Islam is also at its core a religion of non-violence and many Christians don’t understand that either.
It is because religion is such a powerful force that it is embraced by people who are more interested in its power than anything else. Fundamentalist Christianity is especially useful to such people because it is unquestioning.
I am sure Bush has a heart, but I suspect he has diligently trained himself not to use it. He belongs to the ideology that giving in to feelings of compassion is a sign of weakness and the only way to acheive great things is by being strong and powerful. Almost the opposite of Ghandi.
Democracy seems now to be a myth being lived out in a determinedly psychotic way in the western world these days. I think. If Nagler’s right then it’s a shame that people (Americans, Europeans) will wake up to this myth when they see how it is affecting them directly and not at the time it is affecting others elsewhere. Anyway, peace protesters and other anti-war protesters do risk their lives trying to protect the rights and wellbeing of others and western society.
Geoff: I’m sure you’re right about the notions most Christians have about Islam. And I’m sure Bush has a heart too (whether he has a mind is another question), but he certainly surrounds himself with mind-not-heart people. A friend mentioned yesterday she thought Bush behaved like a dry alcoholic—“The man is a dry drunk with alcoholic behavior… denial, surrounds himself with enablers, takes responsibility for NOTHING, secretive. He substituted one addiction for another-religion/exercise?- and never really recovered from his alcoholism.”
Butuki: Agree with you about the exclusivity, but not sure it’s inherent in Christianity or any other monotheism—at least not at its core. It’s become so, of course.
CdV: I’m holding out for democracy not quite being a myth— yet. Nagler said demonstrations and peace marches are no longer enough. Risking our lives means really being at risk. (Don’t know about you but when I was marching in San Francisco it felt like a big party, not remotely frightening.) He said we needed to be spiritually ready to start taking this on, and that most of us progressives have trusted too much to the political process—and have neglected our spiritual selves.
Great comments, everyone, thanks.
Conjuring up the Christian Church is not the answer. Much as I find fulfillment in Christ’s teachings, the whole institute of the Church has seriously undermined its very credibility. And there are way too many people whose beliefs are just as relevent, but who are being inherently discounted by the very nature of Christian exclusivity, for Christian beliefs to take the moral center of the worldwide debate. Using Christianity to stake the moral center can only push away those who don’t believe in Christianity, while at the same time restricting the moral debate to the idea that truth and redemption can only be found in acceptance of the Christ. Even if we throw away all the baggage that the Church has accumulated over the centuries Christianity cannot provide an answer for all. And it is an answer that all of us can accept and relate to that we need.
I believe that the only common denominator we have is the Earth itself. Our debate and moral center should somehow start here. And this requires a whole new way of seeing ourselves and the world.
Part of the problem with looking for a solution within Christianity is that, as Butuki, points out, the mainline variants of the institution have been so weakened. They’re too busy fighting the homosexuality battle amongst themselves to be of much use.
But there are values issues that progressive can latch on—if only they can find a charismatic leader capable of elucidating them in a compelling way. Virtues like tolerace. And the moral dimensions of economic questions.