By Pastor Marcia Sietstra

Sept. 14, 2003

More wars have been waged and more people killed in the name of religion than any other institutional force in human history. Certainly we are seeing, in the world today, the destructive power of religion. The events of Sept. 11, 2001, underscore the point. Key leaders of the hijacked planes that hit the World Trade Center were inspired by a particular understanding of Islam. The 5-page letter left by ringleader Muhammad Atta revealed a religious worldview that sought to justify their behavior, and it reavealed the belief that they would be welcomed by God as a reward for their violence.

Other Muslim leaders denounced the terrorists’ acts of violence as false and illegitimate interpretations of Islam. Muslim scholars from around the world told about the peaceful nature of Islam, as that religion is generally practiced by moderate Muslims. How do we get two such different understandings of one religion called Islam?

In just the same way that we get such different understandings of Christianity. About two weeks ago, the American judicial system in Florida executed the Rev. Paul Hill. A Christian minister, Paul Hill was on death row because he murdered an abortion doctor and his body guard. Hill’s last words before he was executed were a call to other Christians to do God’s will by stopping abortionists by any means. He truly believed that murder was justified by his Christian religion. How does it happen that Paul Hill understood Christianity so differently from me or you? How does religion become destructive, and a motivation for violence?

In a two-part sermon that will conclude next week, I will suggest to you that there are five warning signs that appear when a religion becomes destructive. I will describe the first two warning signs today, and then next Sunday will speak about the other three .

Before I do that, let me remind you of the amazing good that religion has done through out history as well. Even though religions have caused a great deal of harm in the world—Christianity included—religion has also been the most powerful force for good in history. The great religions that have stood the test of time—like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism—these religions share a common core, and that is they help people connect with God and live with compassion for others. Each of them, in their own way, has a text like this one from our scripture: You shall love God with all your heart, soul and mind’and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Mt. 22:37-39. Not all religions are equal; not all are healthy or valid, but the ones that have endured through the ages have done so because they promoted life-sustaining connections to God and compassionate connections to people.

Unfortunately sometimes those religions become destructive and compassion is lost. Dr. Kimball, in his book, When Religion Becomes Evil, proposes 5 warning signs that precede religiously sanctioned destruction. One or more of these signs always precedes religious extremism.

The first warning sign that a religion may be destructive is absolute truth claims. Pretend for a moment that you are in an airport and someone approaches you with a book in their hand. This person is concerned that you know the truth and not continue on a sure path to hell, so this person informs you that the book he is holding is the literal Word of God. It holds all the answers to life’s questions. If you embrace and follow its teachings, you can have eternal life in heaven. Assuming you are willing to talk to the sincere, obviously committed evangelist, what would be your response? Would you say, ‘What wonderful news!’ Would you accept the bold truth claims uncritically? Or would you ask some basic questions: How do you know it is the Word of God? Where did it come from? Why should I take your word for it? By the way, the book in this person’s hand could easily be a Bible if he were Christian, or it could just as easily be a Quran, the Muslim scripture, if he were Muslim.

Most of us were not brought up to ask these questions of our scripture. We just assumed that OURS is the ‘true’ scripture and everyone else’s is ‘untrue.’ Faith, then, is more a matter of where you were born, than it is a matter of choice’in Midwest America you were handed the Bible and told that it is true’in the Middle East one is handed a Quran or the Jewish Torah.

Consider another point: within Christianity there are thousands of denominations, or groups of churches. There are at least a half dozen Lutheran denominations, as many Methodist ones, lots of Reformed denominations, many, many Catholic groups, as well as Episcopalian, Southern Baptist, Free Baptist, Baptist General Alliance, the Church of Christ, the United Church of Christ, the Armenian Church of Christ, the Free Church of Christ and on and on and on’it would take me hours to name the thousands of denominations of Christians, all of whom have a different understanding of what the Bible says. Now within each of those thousands of denominations there are hundreds or thousands of congregations who do not agree with the other congregations in their denomination on all points of Biblical interpretation, and within each of these congregations the people do not all agree on interpretation. How is it that any one person can be so arrogant as to assume that they have a corner on complete truth? How is it that any one denomination dares to suggest that they are saved and all others are surely damned?

How is it that television evangelists like Pat Robertson proclaim absolute truth claims, and dare to presume to have the only ‘right’ understanding of God from the only ‘right’ scripture revealed by God? I used to avoid saying anything critical about tv evangelists. That was before 9/11. I am more and more convinced that we must speak out about the dangers of absolute truth claims that imply that anyone who disagrees is evil, because there is new urgency. It takes only a few radical religious people with a weapon of mass destruction to wreak havoc on a global scale. In order to reduce extremism, we need to educate people about the fallacy of absolute truth claims.

People who think they have an exclusive knowledge of God, or a direct communication line to God, those people lose an appropriate sense of humility and are one step away from committing violence because they believe they are God’s instrument in the world, the only ones who God is really guiding. Believing themselves to be God’s only ‘true army’ they can justify going to extreme measures to impose their will on ‘nonbelievers’, who by the way, include people who may share the same religion but disagree on what that means.

How is it that these extremists in Christianity and in Islam are so insistent that they possess the absolute truth? It comes out of a belief that their reading of scripture is completely and exclusively accurate. They profess to take the Bible literally, but are selective in their use of scripture. Take, for example, Mark 16:17-18 where it says that true believers will be able to pick up snakes or drink any deadly thing and not be hurt. Now most rigid literalists selectively ignore the snake text, although there is one church in the south whose members routinely handle poisonous snakes to test their faith. Most ignore a lot of Old Testament texts like the one that says to take disobedient children to the city gate and stone them to death (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). Verses that legitimize violence against unbelievers, however, are often seized upon. This one, for example is a favorite of Paul Hill’s group called the Army of God: In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. Heb. 12:4

Using the Bible selectively and with rigid literalism is dangerous. Indeed, prior to the Enlightenment, a strictly literal reading was considered to be a very elementary reading. Ancient people were very aware that deep truths are often told through metaphor and symbol, and story. To read a text today, without paying attention to how the original author intended it to be read, and out of its historical context, without studying what the situation was when a text was written, is not only unwise, it can lead to all sorts of misunderstanding. To read poetry and dreams and other figurative language in the Bible as though they were literal fact is the most inaccurate way you could possibly read those texts, and their original authors would probably be flabbergasted to see anyone do so.

Furthermore, every text needs to be compared to the rest of the Bible, for many reasons, but for example, because often earlier ideas and statements in the Bible are contradicted and corrected by later ones. But most troubling of all, the reader who says, I can read it and know what it means without a doubt, that reader risks mistaking their private judgment for God’s will. We need to study the Bible in community where scholars help us find its core themes, and we need to be humble in our assertions, even then.

Charles Kimball explains that most cults spring up out of churches that are selective and rigidly literal in using the Bible. Many of you will remember Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple in the jungles of Guyana, where 914 people died in a mass suicide after killing California congressman Leo Ryan and his delegation who were in Jonestown on a fact-finding mission. Jim Jones got his start in two mainline American Christian churches, the Assemblies of God and the Disciples of Christ, our sister church. Jones particularly appealed to a story in Acts 4 & 5, in which the early church is described as owning all possessions in common, with everything brought to the apostles feet to be distributed to each as they had need. The passage continues with a stunning account of Ananias and Sapphira, a husband and wife who are struck dead at Peter’s feet within three hours of withholding some assets from the church and lying about it. A biblical story like this is a powerful tool in the hands of a charismatic leader like Jim Jones. By the way, this system of co-ownership in the early church is a text that most literalists ignore. Selective use of the Bible always accompanies literalism.

Very briefly, this brings me to the 2nd warning sign that a religion has become destructive, and that is the requirement of blind obedience to a leader. Unhealthy religious groups have a pattern: usually they begin with a noble program, and then move to more and more selective use of scripture, using just the verses that fit their thinking, and ignoring the overall themes of that religion. Then they move toward uncritical obedience to one narrow view, and one leader, and finally they disallow questions and alternative views, often insisting on isolating the followers from people who disagree. This is the pattern in cults and other extremist groups.

How do we guard against religion becoming destructive? I will talk more about that next week, but briefly I suggest that all religious people should be willing to ask critical questions about their religion. Why is it true? What are its noblest, core truths?

I accept the Bible as scripture, not because someone told me it’s perfect, but because I am satisfied that it tells how other people experienced God, and it reveals deep, noble, universal truths that have stood the test of time. Those truths are: that we can be in relationship with God, and that human beings live best when they live with compassion and love and justice for one another. I think those core truths are also found in some other religions, revealed in different ways.

In addition to asking critical questions, we guard against religion becoming destructive when we have a proper degree of humility about our knowledge. No human can presume to know the mind of God, so humility should be the prevailing attitude. I tell the youth in confirmation that if they move away and join another church to be suspicious of any church that claims to know the answer to every question. Look for a church that welcomes questions, and is on a search for truth, a church that admits that our puny, human minds will never wrap themselves around God well enough to say, I have all the truth and anyone who disagrees is wrong.

And finally, we guard against religion becoming destructive when we compare what it says to those highest, noblest truths at the core of religion. If a teaching contradicts the law of love and caring for neighbor, it should be immediately suspect. Too often, extremists begin to think that they are fighting a holy war, and that justifies violence. This is the 3rd warning sign in fact, the idea that the end justifies any means, and it’s where we will pick up next week. A difficult and demanding subject, to be sure, but one which we dare not neglect in these times.