Sunday, December 20, 2009
WE DIDN'T KNOW WHO YOU WAS
*Sweet little Jesus boy,
Born a long time ago.
Sweet little Holy Child,
We didn’t know who you was.
*Written in 1934 after the style of an African-American spiritual.
**I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet,
The words repeat,
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
………………………
And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’
**Longfellow’s work before, then during the Civil War.
From that very first Christmas until today, we have puzzled over the apparent contradiction between the Christmas message and the realities of life. A coherent set of beliefs is difficult to attain or maintain through the course of history, or even through the course of one life.
Perhaps our dilemma comes from the truth imbedded in that simple, but beautiful spiritual – “We didn’t know who you was!” It seems less difficult to see contradictions in looking backwards into history. It is a shame that it is so difficult to see these in our own contemporary societal practices.
The followers of Christ have often found it difficult to understand who he was. Right up to the date of his crucifixion, most followers expected him to become an earthly ruler. When he did not free Israel from the Romans, the populace that had strewed palm branches in his path earlier then turned against him in anger.
The eight bloody Christian crusades (1096 to 1270) against the Moslems in the Holy Land are often viewed as misplaced ardor for the cause. But still some apparently see the need for another movement of this nature in our own time. They see it to be in God’s prophecy, and thus in time a fulfillment of God’s will. It is strange also that those other followers of “One God” have undertaken the Jihad, or Holy War, against Christians and Jews. Historically, religious ardor has tended to breed hatred and violence.
The Church itself has not been beyond using cruelty, torture, and killing to maintain what it thought to be purity in its doctrine, as they believed God would have willed. The period called the Spanish Inquisitions (roughly from 1450 to 1800) is perhaps the most noteworthy of what we think of as institutionalized evil, practiced in the name of keeping the church clean and pure before God. Surely that period must have been based upon a misinterpretation of the meaning of the Christmas advent.
In 1431 the 19-year old maiden called Joan of Arc was condemned by an ecclesiastical court and burned at the stake by the English. Shortly after, a pope reversed that decision for political reasons and declared her status as a martyr. She was beatified in 1902.
At the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther found the established church to be corrupt and out of order with the teachings of New Testament Christianity. He posted his tenets in 1517, and he then led a movement to reform religion and the church to bring back original principles. That effort unloosed a period of bloody strife throughout Europe, and the start of the Protestant movement.
William Tyndale, the “English Apostle” of the Reformation and translator of the first English Bible to be printed by a Guttenberg press, was burned at the stake by emissaries of the established Anglican Church, perhaps with encouragement of Henry VIII. Other accused heretics against the faith met that same end.
Our Puritans in early New England were not exempt from this hostility toward dissent, as shown by their driving out the Baptist, Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island. Religious fanaticism, augmented by kindred superstition, led to the Salem witch trials and the cruel execution of several accused women.
With tremendous foresight, and as a result of apprehensions by various religious sects in different colonies, this nation incorporated into its basic constitutional law the principles of religious freedom and separation of church and state. The Puritans of Massachusetts, the Baptists of Rhode Island, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Catholics in Maryland, and the Hugenots in Georgia would not have had it any other way.
Although there may have been hostilities and conflicts through the years, until recently there has been little open, marked, and serious expressions of doctrinal hostility. The politicization of our churches has led to deep and emotional religious and political divisions among our people. In some instances armed conflict is threatened and violence has flared. Religion and politics do not mix well.
We have seen murders committed in our churches by religious zealots with a particular emotional belief, unfortunately with the support of thousands of fanatics with a similar belief. We have seen seemingly devout religious people zealously supporting militaristic, even hate-based political causes, and just as zealously opposing those societal causes which directly reflect the teachings of the Master, i.e. tending the sick and elderly, concern for prisoners, seeing to the welfare of widows and children, and helping the poor.
We wonder if a corollary to the Master’s teaching, “When you do it for the least of these, you do it for me,” might be “When you refuse to do it for the least of these, you are denying me.”
Faced with such confrontational dilemmas, maybe our best answer really is, “We didn’t know who you was!”
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
Born a long time ago.
Sweet little Holy Child,
We didn’t know who you was.
*Written in 1934 after the style of an African-American spiritual.
**I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet,
The words repeat,
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
………………………
And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’
**Longfellow’s work before, then during the Civil War.
From that very first Christmas until today, we have puzzled over the apparent contradiction between the Christmas message and the realities of life. A coherent set of beliefs is difficult to attain or maintain through the course of history, or even through the course of one life.
Perhaps our dilemma comes from the truth imbedded in that simple, but beautiful spiritual – “We didn’t know who you was!” It seems less difficult to see contradictions in looking backwards into history. It is a shame that it is so difficult to see these in our own contemporary societal practices.
The followers of Christ have often found it difficult to understand who he was. Right up to the date of his crucifixion, most followers expected him to become an earthly ruler. When he did not free Israel from the Romans, the populace that had strewed palm branches in his path earlier then turned against him in anger.
The eight bloody Christian crusades (1096 to 1270) against the Moslems in the Holy Land are often viewed as misplaced ardor for the cause. But still some apparently see the need for another movement of this nature in our own time. They see it to be in God’s prophecy, and thus in time a fulfillment of God’s will. It is strange also that those other followers of “One God” have undertaken the Jihad, or Holy War, against Christians and Jews. Historically, religious ardor has tended to breed hatred and violence.
The Church itself has not been beyond using cruelty, torture, and killing to maintain what it thought to be purity in its doctrine, as they believed God would have willed. The period called the Spanish Inquisitions (roughly from 1450 to 1800) is perhaps the most noteworthy of what we think of as institutionalized evil, practiced in the name of keeping the church clean and pure before God. Surely that period must have been based upon a misinterpretation of the meaning of the Christmas advent.
In 1431 the 19-year old maiden called Joan of Arc was condemned by an ecclesiastical court and burned at the stake by the English. Shortly after, a pope reversed that decision for political reasons and declared her status as a martyr. She was beatified in 1902.
At the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther found the established church to be corrupt and out of order with the teachings of New Testament Christianity. He posted his tenets in 1517, and he then led a movement to reform religion and the church to bring back original principles. That effort unloosed a period of bloody strife throughout Europe, and the start of the Protestant movement.
William Tyndale, the “English Apostle” of the Reformation and translator of the first English Bible to be printed by a Guttenberg press, was burned at the stake by emissaries of the established Anglican Church, perhaps with encouragement of Henry VIII. Other accused heretics against the faith met that same end.
Our Puritans in early New England were not exempt from this hostility toward dissent, as shown by their driving out the Baptist, Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island. Religious fanaticism, augmented by kindred superstition, led to the Salem witch trials and the cruel execution of several accused women.
With tremendous foresight, and as a result of apprehensions by various religious sects in different colonies, this nation incorporated into its basic constitutional law the principles of religious freedom and separation of church and state. The Puritans of Massachusetts, the Baptists of Rhode Island, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Catholics in Maryland, and the Hugenots in Georgia would not have had it any other way.
Although there may have been hostilities and conflicts through the years, until recently there has been little open, marked, and serious expressions of doctrinal hostility. The politicization of our churches has led to deep and emotional religious and political divisions among our people. In some instances armed conflict is threatened and violence has flared. Religion and politics do not mix well.
We have seen murders committed in our churches by religious zealots with a particular emotional belief, unfortunately with the support of thousands of fanatics with a similar belief. We have seen seemingly devout religious people zealously supporting militaristic, even hate-based political causes, and just as zealously opposing those societal causes which directly reflect the teachings of the Master, i.e. tending the sick and elderly, concern for prisoners, seeing to the welfare of widows and children, and helping the poor.
We wonder if a corollary to the Master’s teaching, “When you do it for the least of these, you do it for me,” might be “When you refuse to do it for the least of these, you are denying me.”
Faced with such confrontational dilemmas, maybe our best answer really is, “We didn’t know who you was!”
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
