Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. – Acts 9 

Thinking about religious persecution this morning in my prayer time as I read this text appointed for the coming Sunday.

Of course religion doesn’t have the corner on the persecution market.  The butchers of the 20th century were atheist dictators. Hitler hated Jews and considered Christianity a weak sect, having derived from Judaism and having exalted poverty and humility, hardly traits of a master race. Stalin killed more and his persecution of the Orthodox Church nearly stamped it out. When we adopted Yuliana the monastery next to the orphanage in Russia had been used to store arms for decades prior to perestroika. 

But religious folks have done their fair share of persecution. Paul, as part of the Temple Guard talks of persecuting the church himself prior to his conversion to The Way, which would be, for the first three hundred years, a powerless, pacifist religious offshoot of Judaism. Subsequent Roman persecution of Christians is also well-chronicled. Christians fed to the lions, burned at the stake, and so on.

And then, when the tables turn and Chrisianity comes into power, post-Constantinian Christians do what tthe oppressed all too often do: they adopted the tools and tactics of their oppressors. Crusades inquisitions, pogroms against Jews and Muslims and even fellow Christians. It’s heart-breaking. 

Orthodoxy is a funny thing. Everyone thinks they are the orthodox ones. And if I’m Right, I can do awful things in the name of Right. The ends justify the means. Conversion by the sword became the norm. How can the followers of a slain victim of religious and political persecution become the persecutors? Happens all the time.  

I’m convinced the horrific events of the Holocaust and centuries of Anti-Semitic violence in Europe have been the seed for current brutality of Israeli security forces and settler violence against Palestinians. Christians are leaving the Holy Land in droves. There is more than fear of suicide bombers going on here, at least in what I witnessed last year in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Hebron, etc. Israeli force isn’t stopping the fanaticism, it’s fueling the hopelessness that leads someone to take their own life and others’ for a cause. Christians are caught in the middle. Bishop Younan fears the historic church buildings of Jesusalem will become empty museums if the government doesn’t turn around secuity and housing policies that clearly favor a Jewish-only population in Jerusalem and the occupied territories. I can’t hardly have this conversation with my Jewish brothers and sisters here in Houston, though Rabbi Rosen and I have ventured it. It makes them mad. Who can blame them? It’s chronic: Abused children become abusive parents. We all have blood on our hands. No one is innocent. We are all complicit by our action or inaction; by our words or by our silence at the moment words are necessary.  

A group of our young pastors is going to Croatia in a few weeks with a few Jewish and Muslim leaders to learn about reconciliation after racial cleansing and religious persecution. The goal is to see places like this together – places like South Africa and Northern Ireland, where peace and reconciliation did happen in the face of long-standing animosities. It didn’t happen until they got sick of killing, put down their guns and did te much harder work of working out a negotiated compromise that everyone could live with. One day I would love to take young pastors, rabbis and imams to Jerusalem and visit the remains of the wall and say, “This used to be a war zone…” “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, oh that you knew the ways that led to peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes.”    

I hope these young pastors and other religious leaders make lifelong friends across social barriers of long-standing animosity. The human family has a disease, a chronic cycle of violence. Fortunately, we have good interfaith ju-ju here in Houson. I hope this travel group learns the blessed craft of peacemaking. Someone has to break the cycle. Someone has to turn the other cheek, on a personal level, family level, national level and religious level.  

Whoever does this is truly walking in the footsteps of Jesus, whatever their professed religion.       

Michael Rinehart, bishop
Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
12941 1-45 North Freeway, Suite #210
Houston, TX 77060-1243
281-873-5665

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