And of course that's not all bad. The current order has great evil as well as great good. But there are certain consequences of certain trends which very much concern me. We are at the start/continuation of a great battle with huge potential to reshape the world in very unpleasant ways. But of course all human machinations pale in significance to the logic of the faith. If the Lord God Almighty tends to get a little pissy about the slaughter of innocent life, then I'd imagine he has a lot to say to the world right now. Abortion on scales never before seen in human history, because never before possible. Euthanasia staring us in the face. The incredibly wealthy behaving like Lazarus...though to be completely fair, the philanthropic impulses of a lot of the Western wealthy are really quite admirable.
At the same time, immense amounts of money going to arms deals, going to sex trafficking and the porn industry, going into the drug trade which so destroys lives and societies, going into attacks on the Church, attacks on the good, attacks on all sorts of foundational things. Where do we get off? Think about it--various and sundry unpleasantries awaiting those in former ages who arrogated the rights of God to themselves. Dramatic trials and tribulations in response to the enactment of the sort of thing we now yawn at, or remark cynically about. This is the way of the world--the strong exploiting the weak, the weak casting aspersions at the strong, an inability to see straight in the chaff thrown up by a myriad of different groups and organizations, a myriad of human impulses and isolated virtues run amuck.
And we believe it when we say it. How deeply entrenched are we. How dumb. How blind to history. It's as though the world has suffered a rather dramatic stroke, which killed a huge chunk of the brain, or at the very least threw the whole thing out of whack. Now we're struggling to restore basic functions, but the body kept functioning just fine. The memory just shorted out, got distored. The reasoning faculties were blitzed. Certain impulses amped up, and control lost. Where do we go from here?
3 comments:
Hi Caspar,
I was interested in your post over at Get Religion today about the motivations of the Mumbai terrorists. What about writing a longer version of that as a post here?
Please let me know it you do by replying to this comment that it is posted.
Also, it would be nice if you filled in your Profile with more information.
Hi, Perpetua,
Might be a good idea. I'm storing the comment here for future reference:
I think this has to be put in the context of the Islamic conquest of chunks of India centuries ago, the nature of Islamic rule in India, and what exactly that has meant for Hindu/Islamic relations since then. Hindus have a reason to be angry. Now, I think they’re also tarring all monotheists with the same brush and so going after Christians, but in this case, the history of jihad is vital to understanding this particular incident. Social oppression of the Muslim population will not help the situation. But a wealthy Islamic class would still be informed and influenced by the jihadi ideology, as shown by Saudi Arabia’s ruling class.
The attacks on Jews make sense in the jihadi context, as do the Pakistani ties. In fact, the jihad hermeneutic allows analysis to transcend the question of which sub-organization of the broader jihad has a specific tie in to this. One can understand the reasoning behind the attacks is not dependent upon one organization’s expectations and ideology, but rather comes from a broader source.
Post done. There's tons more to say, of course--but a lot of that's said through the links.
Thanks!
Post a Comment