ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
August 28, 2025
I am once again heartsick by the violence all around us. The shooting in Minneapolis grieves me to the bone, but the violence is not isolated to that one event here and there. Gaza continues to experience horrific and unnecessary violence, so much of it perpetrated against children. The ongoing war in Ukraine is senseless as more and more civilians appear to be targeted. The ongoing Civil War in Sudan has killed thousands, and it is estimated that more than eight million people have been displaced. And like Gaza, there is a great concern in Sudan about starvation. Ethiopia, Myanmar, and so many other places are seeing acts of violence that are leaving civilian populations at more and more risk. Yet with all the many situations of violence around the globe, research shows that the world is less violent today as compared to the past, both recent and ancient. I find that information fascinating, but it does not provide me with any comfort. There is a part of me that is frustrated beyond measure. We should be so much smarter than what the violence suggests. I don’t want to oversimplify, but a lot of the violence emerges out of very insecure people who have been told that “those people over there” are the cause of all the world’s trouble. If we can only destroy them or push them further back, then everything will be ok. Well, as you know, violence rarely brings about anything that even remotely resembles ‘ok.’ Someone must have the courage to break the cycle. And I would suggest that the cross was to be the event, God’s self-giving through which the cycle of human violence was to be broken. It was to be a symbol of senseless violence, perpetrated entirely out of fear, against the incarnation of love. Yet the resurrection points to a God who unequivocally announces that love is the way and the truth by which the world will be healed and transformed. Sadly, Christianity has made the cross into things it was never intended to be, even a symbol used to lead armies into battle or brand those deemed to be heathens. It is a bit baffling how an act of self-giving love in the face of violence could become a tool of violence that seeks to erase the profound importance of self-giving love.
May your church, inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit, be unashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who did not die because you, God, were somehow violent. Instead, he was executed because the world is violent, and the way of violence always seeks to eradicate any appearance of unconditional love. Provide us discerning hearts that we might perceive a different reality—your Kin(g)dom breaking into this world through acts of self-giving love. Amen.
