Jesus
vs. The Beast Of
The Apocalypse
By Glen Martin
Counterpunch.org
04 January, 2004
Recently,
I have been reading the gospels of Jesus Christ once again (Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John). The teachings of Jesus about how to live our lives
are astonishing. Essentially, Jesus says that all our worldly values
must be turned upside down, for God's judgment is on the rich, on "the
nations" and on the powerful of the world. God's love and mercy
are for the poor, the downtrodden and the oppressed.
In this spirit,
Jesus condemns the Pharisees, the respectable religious people of his
day, for they perform the empty rituals of worship but do not live authentic
lives of service to the kingdom of God. Jesus says he has come to bring
the kingdom of God to Earth. But the respectable religious and civil
leaders of his day do not care for the poor, the downtrodden and the
oppressed. They prefer to be seen as respectable, as upholders of the
established social, economic and religious order.
As a professor who
teaches philosophy of religion at my university, I have read extensively
in the theology of Latin American Christians who have produced much
wonderful Christian thought since the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65.
One theme that emerges again and again in this literature is the deceptive
nature of the great beast of the apocalypse (the Antichrist), symbolically
described in the Book of Revelation. For evil in our world does not
present itself as evil.
Evil presents itself
as "respectability," as the established way of doing things,
as the accepted social morality of a society. Evil hides, they say,
in everydayness, in business as usual, in what is given honors and the
highest praise. Evil poses as its opposite, for the goal of the Antichrist
is to prevent the realization of God's kingdom on Earth, to destroy
the possibility of human beings living together in love and peace upon
the precious planet granted to us as our home by God.
If one thinks about
it, this is fairly obvious. Evil could not be successful in preventing
people from living together in peace and harmony on the Earth if it
appeared to us as a hideous monster (the traditional image of the devil).
We would see it for what it is and turn away in horror. But if evil
can cloak itself in the image of good--if it can appear as its opposite--then
the destruction of God's kingdom on Earth can proceed unhindered.
This cloaking of
evil is all the more necessary given the simplicity and clarity of Jesus'
teachings. He sums up his teaching with astonishing focus in the "great
commandment" of Matthew 22. All of the law and the prophets (including
the Ten Commandments), he says, are summed up in the most fundamental
command from God: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, soul, and mind. ... And like unto it, You shall love your neighbor
as yourself."
When his critics
asked him, "And who is my neighbor?," he again answers with
great clarity through the story of the good Samaritan. A man is beaten
and left for dead on the side of the road. A priest and a Levite pass
by the man on the other side, for they don't want to take risks and
this might be a trap laid by the thieves. These are the respectable
religious and civic leaders of Jesus' day.
But Jesus says a
Samaritan stops and helps the wounded man. To the respectable ears of
Jesus' day, this was outrageous. The Samaritans were foreigners. They
were not Jews (who considered themselves the true disciples of God in
Jesus' day). They were considered dirty, ignorant and deluded foreigners
not worthy of mention. They were heathens, not followers of the true
religion. Yet Jesus says a Samaritan loved his neighbor as himself.
And he says that all people, like Samaritans, are our neighbors who
must be loved as we love ourselves.
One wonders where
the followers of Jesus are today. St. Paul tells us that the early Christian
communities were persecuted by the respectable established system of
their day (the Roman Empire), for they refused to serve in the military
and refused to recognize the established religious orthodoxy and social
morality of their society. The early Christian communities were not
about to send their children into the military to destroy the lives
and countries of Samaritans and others who were their neighbors on this
precious Earth.
Who are the Samaritans
of today that we should love as ourselves? I'll bet they are the good
people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea. I'll bet
they are people of the Muslim faith, or people of no faith at all. Who
are the followers of Jesus today that are persecuted in his name by
the dominant system of evil that cloaks itself in the appearance of
goodness and respectability?
I'll bet they include
the founder of the Christian group Voices in the Wilderness, who was
recently brutalized by U.S. military personnel at Fort Benning, Ga.,
for doing nonviolent civil disobedience against the U.S. Army School
of the Americas. This top secret "school" trains foreign military
in methods of torture and repression. Like economic exploitation, training
in repression is another gift that our country gives to our "neighbors"
in Latin America.
I see among the
followers of Jesus today the three Catholic nuns in their 70s recently
sentenced to federal prison for painting Christian symbols on the tip
of a nuclear warhead in the Midwest. They are resisting the respectable
building of more and more hideous weapons of mass destruction by the
great beast of our day. I'll bet there were also many Christians among
those brutally attacked by police recently in Miami. They were shot
with rubber bullets, sprayed with cruel pepper spray and beaten with
clubs for nonviolent witness to the evil system of economic exploitation
being pushed on Latin American countries by the United States. This
system is called "free trade," for evil presents itself with
the appearance of respectability.
I see among the
followers of Jesus the priest in New Mexico who has been preaching in
his church against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He is author of many books
on Jesus' teaching of nonviolent resistance to evil and injustice. This
priest recently had a platoon of military recruits jog to the street
in front of his house and stand there shouting at him, chanting "kill,
kill, kill."
If we want to find
the followers of Jesus in our day, we need to look in the prisons, to
those in shackles, to those being beaten and brutalized.
We don't have far
to look. They are from all sects and churches within Christianity, but
they have one thing in common: They are nonviolently resisting the system
of respectability and evil. If one has any doubts about who is who,
just read the gospels. Read the teachings of Jesus about how his followers
are to lead their lives.
If we want to discern
the great beast hiding under the cloak of social morality and respectability,
look to a country that spends nearly $400 billion a year on weapons,
bombs and mechanisms of destruction. If we want to discern the evil
built into business as usual, look at the U.S. corporations exploiting
the labor of starving people in horrible sweatshops to produce the clothing
that you and I purchase as "Christmas gifts" in our local
superstores. Look at the corporations firing millions from their jobs
in the United States so they can move overseas to increase their profit
margins.
If we want to see
the apocalypse in action, look at the invasion and destruction of the
Iraqi people, or the nightmare of chaos and suffering our government
has forced upon the good people of Afghanistan. Evil is a system, not
a person. As the Christians of Latin America say, it is a "system
of sin." It is a system of people wearing suits and ties, driving
fine cars and giving the appearance of the highest respectability.
In reality, it is
a global system of economic and military domination and exploitation,
just like the Roman Empire. Evil is a system designed to prevent us
from loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves. Our neighbors
include every person on this Earth. The purpose of evil is to prevent
the realization of the kingdom of God on Earth. For the simple command
of Jesus was to "love one another as I have loved you" and
to live together in peace and harmony on our common home.
There is a fitting
bumper sticker that reads "God bless the whole world. No exceptions."
If we are to follow the teachings of Jesus, we need to change the system
that prevents this from happening.
Glen Martin is a
professor of philosophy and religious studies at Radford University
in Radford, Virginia.