My Dad and I went to go see the King's Speech in the theater the other day. For those of you not familiar with the premise, it was that a Prince of England affectionately called Bertie, suffering from a speech impediment, must learn to overcome that speech impediment in order to lead his country. This is all set during the beginning of World War II, when Hitler was just starting his rise and quest to conquer the world. For those who aren't history buffs (and I am, in fact so much that I'm pursuing a PhD in History), the British were trying to figure out exactly what Hitler wanted. Neville Chamberlain (not to be confused with Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter), the current Prime Minister, took an action of appeasement to Hitler. Winston Churchill, on the other hand, felt the need to rise up and fight the Germans. All while this shift of power from Neville to Winston, the Germans were bombing Britain. This country, the United States of America, seems to be always on the cautious side of entering war. Why is that?
With World War II, there was a great deal of debate before the US entered the war. Many had the opinion that we didn't need to stick our nose in other people's business. That is, until Pearl Harbor. Then we got angry and united enough to support the war. I'm sure that there were some people who opposed the world war, but they were mainly called communists and were dealt with in their own way. Meanwhile in this country, we took people who had immigrated here from Japan and Germany and started to interrogate them heavily to find out if they were in alliance with the enemy.
If this sounds familiar to you, the act of figuring out who exactly is the enemy and interrogating them and locking them all away in a single place, it's because that has been the history of the world dealing with war. Those who might be in allegiance with the enemy are segregated from society for the society's own good. Those who are segregated are treated badly, and suffer mentally from such segregation as well as physically. There is something about being told that you are the opposite of what a larger group wants and are distrusted, that regardless of what you believe and can prove, that damages the soul.
Major shift change is about to happen here, so brace yourself.
How should we treat enemies? Is it right to segregate them from society in situations that are intolerable to them physically and mentally? The history of the world, the earthly existence, says yes, yes we should. Society should not be exposed to that kind of horror, regardless of whether the individual is guilty or not.
But is this earthly world the only judgment on how to treat those who might be dangerous? Here's where the shift from History to Religion begins. The Romans, when they were in power in Europe and most of the "Civilized World" treated the Jews as enemies. They wanted to stop every revolution because that would upset their title as the world power. There were facets of the Jews who said, "let's get these Romans back for what they've done to our community." This was started way before Jesus was born. Then, there was all this talk about a Messiah. Now, the Romans didn't quite get what that meant for the Messiah to be in the world. They mostly thought of a leader in terms that the Romans understood, which is a emperor who will conquer the world. The Jews didn't quite understand the Jesus take on the Messiah as well. Even the disciples were profoundly stupid when it came to many of the parables and teachings.
My favorite disciple in the New Testament is Judas. There are some Christians still who treat Judas as the ultimate enemy, the one who betrayed the Messiah in the ultimate way. I've always been curious as to the question, "why Judas?" There were plenty of people who could have been the one who finally turned Jesus in. There were many in the inner circle. Judas was part of the Jewish population that saw the Messiah as a leader to throw the Romans off the Jewish collective back. And, according to some theologians and historians, Judas was the closest to Jesus. So, why would you choose your best friend to be the one who betrays you? Why would God allow that to happen? How could Jesus have said that "one of you will betray me tonight" and NOT know that it was Judas. In my opinion, Jesus knew that Judas was going to be the one. Maybe the plan all the long was that Judas was going to be that person who played that role. I can't imagine the pain of having a good friend betray you, but we've all felt like that for some reason or another.
I'm not arguing that we should let our 'enemies' on Earth destroy us and kill us and not do anything about it. I'm just arguing that if we're going to take a page from the New Testament and actually think it through, we should start wondering about how we should treat our enemies in our hearts and be open to understanding why exactly they are doing what they are doing. We should treat them as we wish to be treated....
.... which isn't a new idea at all....
No comments:
Post a Comment