Will the Violent Inherit the Earth?
One of the blockbuster movies of the summer was “War for the Planet of the Apes,” among dozens of violent movies that appear with alarming regularity at multiplexes around the country.
I didn’t see the movie, but I read a review by an Associated Press writer. The movie apparently has some touching moments and the writer praises the fact that the film “manages to surprise and captivate.” Predictably, however, it starts “with a gripping opening battle.” The film is one in a seemingly endless string of “apes” movies. This one probably won’t be the last.
While watching a football game recently, I saw commercials for other movies and video games that were even more violent. They dripped with murder, destruction, righteousness and vengeance, promising to plunge the viewer into an orgy of blood and guts. (Any relation between the violence of football and the kind of commercials shown?)
Let’s face it, as a nation we’re saturated with violence, in movies, TV, video games, in what is written and said in social media, in film studios, among family members in our homes, and on our streets. People are sexually abusing others. Gun sales are booming. Martial arts establishments are raking in the customers.
Then there’s the non-physical violence: meanness, name-calling, bullying, lack of forgiveness, arrogance, revenge, disrespect.
We love violence. We can’t get enough of it.
Religion a Friend of Violence?
Some may say that religion has been a friend of violence. The Hebrew Bible has plenty of it, including commands placed in God’s mouth to wipe out enemies. Through the years, Christians have been perpetrators of untold violence, ignoring Jesus’ words about “turning the other cheek.”
But God, it seems, not only created through evolution but used evolution in revealing him/herself to us. Humans were not to be changed overnight. God urges us forward, as is evident in other parts of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and in the church’s later centuries.
So what should be the attitude toward violence of people searching for God? How can we search for the God of Love if we immerse ourselves in violence, if we fail to pursue, and advocate for, love?
A word about the violence in the Hebrew Bible and Christians’ participation in violence, now and in the past. Pierre Teilard de Chardin, the famous French philosopher, Jesuit priest and paleontologist who took part in the discovery of Peking Man, theorized in his book, The Divine Milieu, that the goal for the evolutionary journey of humans is to become more and more truly human, becoming more spiritual until becoming one with God.
Billions of years of evolution preceded the writing of the Hebrew Bible, and its God revelation was a tremendous leap in our evolutionary journey. But its writers were immersed in the culture of the time and fluctuated between advocating violence and reminding us that God rejects it. The Christian Bible went further, with Jesus urging us to reject “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But most Christians have yet to embrace the idea.
Recognizing that violence and the search for God are incompatible is a step forward in the evolutionary journey to the spiritual. As I’ve mentioned before in these blogs, you can’t limit the search for God to intellectual pursuits. In my opinion, you also have to strive to be more God-like, and in that effort, we have the church and Bible to guide us.
“The Lord tests the just and wicked,” says Psalm 10: “the lover of violence he hates.” And the author of 1 John in the Christian Bible counsels: “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.”
“Continuous Spiritual Transformation”
People searching for God must become more God-like by rejecting violence and advocating for its end. Despite living through two horrendous world wars, de Chardin saw the peoples of the earth engaged in “continuous spiritual transformation.” But God won’t zap increasing spirituality into existence. That’s our job.
Instead of being people of violence, people searching for God should never pass up the opportunity to advocate for peace, acceptance, understanding, kindness and love.
