For the last couple of years, there’s been a sense that a raging evil force is at work in the world and it’s on a rampage. With the rise of ISIS or ISIL, terrorists have become more daring in how far they are willing to go to defeat their foes and recruit members.
The most recent dastardly act was the beheading of twenty-one Egyptian Christians on the beach of Tripoli where their blood flowed into the Mediterranean Sea as the waves lapped the shore. This was not only a political statement challenging Europe but also a bold statement concerning the blood of the martyrs.
While Indian Life publishes news stories dealing with hot topics that affect our world as well as the North American Indigenous community, weighing in on political issues and those dealing with controversial topics is something that we try to avoid. However when U.S. President Barack Obama spoke at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. last month, some of what he said did not sit well with many who call themselves Christians. We felt it’s time to respond.At this time when many around the world are anxious and worried over Islamist terrorism, Obama noted pointedly that his fellow Christians, who make up a large majority of Americans, should perhaps not be the ones who cast the first stone.
“Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history,” the president told the group, speaking of the tension between the compassionate and murderous acts religion can inspire. “And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”
Here’s where we differ from the president. While these evil acts which he referred to were incredibly wicked and often done in a religious spirit and sometimes by people who called themselves Christians, there is no way that their actions can be equated with the brutality of ISIL and Boko Haram.
Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Commission, called Obama’s comments “a wrongheaded moral comparison.” Moore went on to say that what we need more is a “moral framework from this administration and a clear strategy for defeating ISIS,” he said.
Joshua DuBois, who headed the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships under President Obama and has served as an informal spiritual adviser, said the president is conscious of the fact that Islam is a misunderstood concept for much of the general public.
“The president knows many American Muslims,” DuBois said. “Unfortunately, a lot of folks in our country don’t have close relationships with Muslims. The only time they’re hearing about Islam is in the context of the foreign policy crisis or what’s happening with ISIS.”
As a result, Dubois believes many Americans have an increasingly hostile view of Muslims.
The same could be said of Native Americans.
Strangely missing from the president’s brief speech was the mention of the atrocities carried out against Native Americans, often in the name of religion and with the support of the government. This includes Residential Schools and massacres including Sand Creek, Wounded Knee, and the incredible suffering inflicted on the original citizens of this land on those forced marches across thousands of miles known as the “Trail of Tears”.
One would think that President Obama would have been well acquainted with the suffering of Aboriginal Peoples since he seems to have gone out of his way to “get to know them” during his presidency. But sadly, Indigenous People were not mentioned.
But there is a feeling that perhaps First Nations peoples were kept out of this speech because it was not one that this particular audience would have been able to identify with.
Lack of knowledge leads to misunderstanding and misunderstanding leads to hateful and ignorant assumptions.
Maclean’s Magazine published a special report about racism in Canada and highlighted the city of Winnipeg as “Canada’s most racist city.” This report came on the heels of two emotionally-charged incidents—one the murder of a teenager and a brutal assault on two Native teenagers.
Winnipeg’s new mayor tried to put the best face on this unfortunate claim, but the truth of the matter is that racism is like a cancer that is eating at the framework of our society. To say that racism is the problem of only a certain people group would be a totally misguided statement.
Truth be told, there is a touch of racism in every person. Racism is sin and since none of us is without sin, then we all are stained.
Religious leaders in Jesus’ day brought an adulterous woman to Him. They said to Him, “Rabbi, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act,” arguing that since she broke the law, she needed to be punished.
Jesus’ response? “He who is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
His words convicted their souls and one by one they left. Jesus told the woman, “No one condemned you and neither do I. Go on your way but from now on, sin no more” (John 8:3-11).
In the midst of our sin-filled world, evil exists all around us. And even the most religious people are capable of the most evil acts against their fellow human beings. There are more than enough examples of that in history.
Let’s strive to do as Jesus said: “From now on, sin no more.”
