Windswept – March 2015
Posted on March 1, 2015 by spiritofjoy No comments
Read the full March 2015 newsletter
The Way of the Cross
“When I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride.” — Isaac Watts
Religion was in the news again last month, and most of what was reported was not good. A mosque near Bethlehem in Israel was set on fire. A man was sentenced to die in Saudi Arabia because he renounced his faith in Islam. Global harassment of Jews has reached a seven-year high. At the time of this writing, Islamic State (ISIS) militants had abducted at least 220 Christians from Assyrian Christian villages in northeastern Syria.
The actions of ISIS have become a weekly, if not daily, horror show. We find it impossible to imagine that any religion, no matter how twisted, could motivate its adherents to commit such violence. The truth is, Graeme Wood points out in an essay in the March issue of The Atlantic, what ISIS is doing does make sense once you understand its theology. What ISIS does may look “nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to…bringing about the apocalypse.” The vast majority of Muslims in the world do not share their beliefs. But Wood says we cannot combat ISIS without understanding the faith that motivates its terror.
Theology matters. We Christians are deceived if we
imagine that only Muslims need explain episodes in
its past and present when groups of people claiming to
share a common faith brutalized the neighbor. Any
religious community that believes itself to be in sole
possession of all Truth is a community that will be
tempted to enforce its supposed superiority by any
means necessary. Which is an important reason
Christians are called again and again back to the cross of Christ.
The key signature of our Lutheran Christian theology is that God reveals God’s self, not in geopolitical might or some other form of mastery over unbelievers, but in humility and unconditional love that takes our Lord to the cross. Our foundational claim, writes Douglas John Hall, “is that the cross of the Christ hides—and reveals—the decision of God…to absorb in his own person the compulsions of the alienated human spirit to kill, and so to create ‘a new spirit within us,’ a spirit that has passed through death to life….” This is the way of followers of the crucified One named Jesus. — JE