In Violence We Trust

I have to tell you about my new book and my strong reaction to it.  I had read the synopsis and was intrigued, so I put it on my Kobo wish list for when I finished the latest book I had checked out on my Library app (I couldn’t find a coy on the library app) which I did on Saturday.  On Saturday I bought it, but, after reading the forward, I couldn’t go on reading it because every time I thought about it I would well-up and start sobbing.

 

The book is called, “On Killing:  The psychological cost of learning to kill in war and society”.  It wasn’t what I expected.  I expected it to be a study by a psychologist on how armies and other armed forces desensitize their members to killing and the psychological damage it does to those members.  I am interested in psychology and took the holy trinity of psychology lecture courses in University; Intro, Abnormal, and Developmental.

Reading the forward, however, I realized that the author is not a psychologist doing research, but a Lt. Col. inside the army and this is a fucking “how to” manual.  The introduction talks about the long standing “problem” of getting soldiers to actually kill another human being and cites a study in WWII about how when faced with the enemy a large percentage of soldiers on the line either don’t fire or deliberately mis-fire, and that this has been a problem that is cited throughout history.  He then talks about measures in training done to overcome this “resistance” such as changing from bulls-eye targets for shooting practice to human silhouettes or even more lifelike targets.  He also talked about how earlier editions of the book have been required reading at West Point, the CIA and FBI, academies, and other institutions that instruct in “deadly force”.  A how to manual for conditioning people to overcome their basic humanity and empathy in order to kill other human beings in cold blood on command, and how to deal with the mess it makes of the person afterward when you have a monster that can no longer function in society.

 

I read this preface and then went to the grocery store for milk and laundry detergent.  While scanning my groceries at the check out, I started welling up and had to suppress sobbing.  Driving home I was full out sobbing and couldn’t think about the book for the rest of the day without welling up with sobs.  So, I may have to put the book away for a while.

 

I’ve been thinking about why I have had such a strong reaction, why this is so triggering.  I was fine when I expected the book to be a clinical research study from the outside, but this change in perspective has made a big difference.  We all know that agencies such as the army train their members to kill people. I was going to use the euphemism “use deadly force”, but that makes my point, that this type of killing has always been sanitized by euphemisms and other means, and the fact that these agencies train people to overcome their humanity is somewhat of an open secret, understood but not talked about, a bit shameful, but hidden as an unpleasant necessity.  I think that part of what I was reacting to was how this book was normalizing and even lauding the process as a great achievement that one should work to get better at and to do it with less consequences.  Get them to sell their soul to the devil, but in a way that lessens the sentence in hell as much as possible.  And I reacted to that with great sorrow; that dehumanization and the deliberate curtailment of empathy should be a goal and lauded in our society.

 

It just goes against all my core values of what is loving and true and worthy, and the kind of society that hope to live in.  It also brings home to me how insulated I am from violence and how that insulation depends on the cultivation of this kind of violence in others, and on others, others “outside the wall” of pleasant middle class Canadian society.  I also realize my complicity in this system while benefiting from it.

 

I have been insulated from violence all my life and have idealized a life of non-violence.  Probably the only example of violence (if you can call it that) that I can recall is in Grade 5 when lining up to come in from recess another boy pushed me out of line and struck me.  I was so incensed that I yelled in his face that he should, “strike my other cheek!”. I was so vehement and aggressive in my response that I think I scared the other fellow, which I don’t think was quite what Jesus intended.  Even growing up with my brother we never had physical fights or hit each other.  I remember once when we were quite young, Terry had ratted me out on something to our mother and I had run from her to my brother full of fury to enact vengeance.  Terry cowered beneath me once caught, but once he was under my power I just stood there unable to harm him.

 

In Highschool the movie about Gandhi made a big impression on me and I read a biography of his life after watching the movie.  The movie was produced for Western audiences and tailored the story to show parallels between Gandhi and Jesus’ teachings.  That given, I found in his teachings and example many of the principles of Jesus I had learned to revere in Sunday School as a child.

 

Earlier this year I became curious again about Jesus’ teaching on non-resistance.  

 

Matthew 6

39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

 

Luke 6

27 “But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; 28 bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

 

 

These are pretty radical teachings and occurred to me that I could not remember any examples of Christian commentary on this teaching other than a convoluted explanation about striking the other cheek where one cheek would be the one where you would strike someone of lower rank and the other an equal and that Jesus wasn’t really saying what the rest of the passage repeats but was telling people to stand up for themselves.

 

So, I purposely set out to find commentary on Jesus’ teaching on non-resistance and found out that this was the subject of most of Leo Tolstoy’s “The Kingdom Of God is Within” and that both Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. credited Tolstoy as an inspiration.  So, I’ve been picking away at Tolstoy’s work.  It’s long and dense, as befitting a Russian novelist, and has no large talking cats to add levity.

 

The more I consider and wrestle with Jesus’ teaching on non-resistance the more I am struck by Christianity’s contradictory values as a whole in support of Empire, the most blatant being American evangelical teaching.   If someone threatens to strike you, you shoot them with your open carry gun.  Someone coming on your property to take something from you is also a legitimate target and the opportunity to kill someone and you can do it and spend two hours the next Sunday with your hands in the air praising Jesus without seeing any contradiction.  I also recognize that I myself am just as complicit in my outsourcing of violence to the state.  I take for granted the security of myself, my family, and our home and possessions that is ensured by a police force based on the use or threat of violence.

 

It is also ironic that I, who am unconvinced of Jesus’ godhood (and am unconvinced of God’s “godhood” in a literal sentient superbeing way) take his teaching in what in my mind is much more seriously.  If Jesus is God, then his teaching and example can be filed away as unattainable and only possible by saints at best.  Jesus death as an act of substitutional atonement that provides a ticket to heaven in the afterlife to all those who give their intellectual assent to this as being factual is much easier and asks a lot less of a person than a death that embodies his teaching of non-resistance to evil that calls us to emulate him and follow the same path.  And really, why go through the effort of trying to follow Jesus’ teaching if you have decided that it is all about getting into heaven when you die (at least the important part), and you’ve already got your ticket, and this life is just an inconvenient waiting period where you’re entitled to wait in comfort.  And besides, if you fail to try to follow Jesus teaching, you can always “confess your sin” or go up at the next alter call, and all responsibility and accountability are wiped clean.

 

I have been doing a lot of thinking and wrestling with Jesus teaching on non-resistance.  Although I am no longer convinced of Jesus’ divinity, his teaching is not only a big part of my heritage and sets the stage for me on how to perceive the world, but I also affirm the truth and hope of his teaching and example because they “sit right” in contrast to the message and values that dominate our society.  It is a difficult teaching to wrestle with because it goes against so many of the assumptions we take for granted in our society.  It makes me think of the quote by  G.K. Chesterton: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

 

I have in no sense a complete or even consistent view on non-violence and non-resistance.  I support the Palestinian right to resist, including the use of violence, their occupation and genocide.  But, at the same time I question the validity of using violence in any circumstance, no matter the justification.  Each side, every user of violence, has a rationale or justification.  Even if they can’t justify the specific occurrence, they can tie it back to what they see as a greater good and the “defence” of their group, tribe, nation.  To refuse to use violence out of love of the greater good of humanity is cast as treason against one’s tribe for which one is supposed to favour over others.  That’s why Jesus’ call to expand the circle of love and concern beyond family, religion, race, and nation, is so radical.  

 

I also reject the argument that dependence on violence and non-violence are a binary where if you live a life free from violence due to state sanctioned violence, you have no right to criticize militarism in both the army and domestic policing forces and that there is no other way to respond to violence except with more violence or the threat of it.

I have been wrestling with Mark Carny’s announcement of the largest investment in the Canadian military and weapons manufacturing for both domestic use and for export in Canadian history outside of war time.  I struggle with the idea that money is going to militarism when our own people are suffering poverty.  I also question the assumptions around the need for an expanded military.  Who would we fight or deter with the paltry force we could muster even doubling our current force against an expected adversary on the world stage.  The most likely adversary would be the United States who have been openly talking about annexation.  No force that we could stage, even if we used the sum total of our economy, would in any way be a deterrent or would be able to resist an invasion.  The same would be true for Russia and China.  The only use I could see would be to support Eastern European nations like the Ukraine from Russian encroachment and so further develop European alliances and assured trade partners.

 

This makes me think about the “need” for an army at all.  The idea that we "have no choice" instead of the fact that we just won't accept another choice in terms of non-resistance.  It is argued that if we didn’t have an army we would have ended up being conquered by Nazi Germany and would have lost our freedoms and the continued need for an army is to deter the same type of conquering by Russia or China with the same loss of freedoms.  The evil of having that type of government conquering us is epitomized by the Holocaust.  Yet, the righteous west that won the second world war and is credited for ending the Holocaust had their own concentration camps for Italian and Japanese people and is currently sponsoring a genocide and holocaust in Gaza.  Are the deaths of the second World War justified by the “more moral” governments winning?  A lot of the “elites” in German and Japanese society stayed in power and in some cases little actually changed with the Allied victory.

 

I’ve also heard claims about how the Army “keeps us free”.  One time I heard an ad said that if you enjoyed an afternoon at the beach you should thank a veteran, as if German and Japanese citizens didn’t enjoy afternoons at the beach and if we were under their government we would not be either.  I’m no fan of totalitarian of authoritarian governments, but fighting wars is no guarantee against fascism as the United States is a prime example.  Also, war and violence is not the only way one can resist.  I think of India resisting English colonialism and Gandhi’s non-violent protests.  He didn’t succeed in curtailing all violence in the resistance, and people died, but a lot less people died than if it was all out armed resistance for independence.

 

What if Germany and Japan had won the Second World War?  Would we have fought the new totalitarian government in different ways and, if so, what would the society that resulted be like, particularly if it was a non-violent resistance?

 

I think I’m also greatly dismayed at the lack of imagination with the assumptions built into our culture that there are no alternatives to violence and militarism and their threats to keep us safe.  I think of Ernst Bloch’s quote:

 

“The most tragic form of loss isn’t the loss of security; it is the loss of the capacity to imagine that things could be different”

 

And from the book I just finished by Palestinian Canadian Safee Teebi,

 

“I want to never hope, to never be stuck in its expectant static.  I want to always imagine, because there is nothing that compares with the engine of imagining”.

Hierarchical Priority Lists and Order of Love

There is a popular Christian school of thought that one's priorities and duty should reflect the importance of the persons or things involved in a correct order.  For example, a hierarchy of priority would be:

1. God
2. One's children
3. Spouse 
4. Home 
5. Job 
6. Extended family and friends

I would like to explore this idea, its strengths and weaknesses as a helpful model and tool, and what other thinkers have written about this subject. First off, for this process, I’m going to talk about priority and love interchangeably.  One’s priority is where one’s heart is, and is an expression of one’s love/care/responsibility/duty

A hierarchical priority list model makes me think about St. Augustine’s “ordo amoris”, “order of love”, and of the recent public disagreement between J.D. Vance and Pope Francis on how to interpret it.  This made me want to do some research about “order of love” and the debate to see if it would enlighten me on how to view and implement something like a priority list.

Augustine’s key idea was that virtue consisted in loving things in the right order.  This to him was:

• God is loved highest
• Human beings are loved as persons made in God’s image
• Material things are loved as lesser goods

The “order” is not mainly about who gets loved first, but about what is ultimately more important and how intensely or appropriately we love different things. He was not talking so much about “circles of people”, as much as a hierarchy of goods and relationships.

Vance, I read, based his interpretation on a simplified version of St. Augustine’s teaching which consists of a “concentric circle” model of love/care/responsibility/obligation;  (family → neighbor → city → nation → world).  Vance used this model to argue that one’s compassion “belongs first” to one’s own group.  According to him, the United States should therefore love citizens first over immigrants and refugees for which they have a lesser obligation.  He takes this to the point of denying immigrants and refugees completely.  Under Augustinian thought we do have stronger responsibilities to those closer to us.  Augustine wrote that we should give “special regard” to those closer by circumstance. However, Augustine never reduced love to a moral priority system that justifies neglecting distant others.

Pope Francis corrected Vance saying, “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests…”.  Pointing to the Good Samaritan, Francis explained that, the true model consists of a form of love that creates a “fraternity open to all, without exception”.  Love, and with it our establishment of priority, according to Francis, is not a widening circle of partiality.

I find Jesus’ teaching on the idea of priorities of love or obligation as different in degree from Augustine.  Where Augustine talks of giving “special regard” to those who by circumstances are closer, Jesus consistently widens the circle of who we should define as close, who should be shown no lesser love than family, tribe, religious group, or due to status, wealth, or nationality.  

Jesus’s teaching points to expanding non-preferential love.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?

Are not even the tax collectors doing that?

And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others?

Do not even pagans do that?” (Matthew 5:43–47)

“even sinners love those who love them.” Luke 6:32–34

I explored some of these ideas a number of years ago in the blog, I Like Rules and Jesus Scares Me.  I wrote about how when I was in High School, the staff advisor for our Interschool Christian Fellowship group taught us the hierarchy of Christian duty he had learned at his Church.  Our first duty and allegiance is to God, then one's spouse and family, then one's job, employer, and nation.  I argued that this would make the difficult choices between competing concerns much easier, but it is not the teaching of Jesus.  

Often our most difficult moral choices involve two legitimate demands from different people or groups that are mutually exclusive.  To show your love and give your assistance to one means withholding them from the other.  Whichever side you pick, someone is going to get hurt or neglected.  A system like the one above allows you to make some of these choices in a way that absolves you from responsibility and guilt for your harm or neglect of the side not chosen and see yourself as "in the right".  One can appeal to the authority of, "family comes first", to justify a decision and still appear righteous.  Again, this does not follow Jesus' teaching.

… Without absolute law and authority to make our decisions for us, how do we decide when to put the interest and needs of ourselves over others and to what extent?  The Gospels tells us that Jesus has sent us his spirit to guide us.  This is the spirit behind the principles of the Law, "justice, mercy and faithfulness" (Matt. 23:23).  It is also the spirit of love, compassion, and inclusion demonstrated in the Gospel stories of Jesus and his parables.  We are called to make the best and most balanced decisions we can by the prompting of this spirit with grace both for others and ourselves. It is messy and filled with uncertainty and lacks the assurance, self justification and lack of moral responsibility one can find in Law and authoritative directives.  However, it is a path of maturity, of accountability, of truth and integrity, the path of the Way of Jesus.

Leo Tolstoy, in his book, “The Kingdom of God Is within You”, argues that Jesus’s teaching about expanding love of the other is realized through movement towards an ideal, that we will never be fully there, but it is through the ongoing expansion that we become Christ like.  He also stresses that this expanding love comes not through adherence to rules and systems, but through personal growth and the expansion of love in our own hearts.

Life, according to the Christian teaching, is a motion toward divine perfection. No condition, according to this teaching, can be higher or lower than another.

It is natural for any one to love himself, and every person loves himself without any special incitement; to love my tribe, which supports and defends me, to love my wife, the joy and helpmate of my life, my children, the pleasure and hope of my life, and my parents, who have given me life and an education, is natural: and this kind of love, though far from being as strong as the love of self, is met with quite frequently.

...the recognition of self as this son of God, whose chief quality is love, satisfies also all those demands for the widening of the sphere of love, to which the man of the social conception of life was brought.

There, with a greater and ever greater widening of the sphere of love for the salvation of the personality, love was a necessity and was applied to certain objects,—self, the family, society, humanity; with the Christian conception of life, love is not a necessity and is not adapted to anything, but is an essential quality of man's soul. Man does not love because it is advantageous for him to love this man or these men, but because love is the essence of his soul,—because he cannot help loving.

The Christian teaching consists in pointing out to man that the essence of his soul is love, that his good is derived not from the fact that he will love this or that man, but from the fact that he will love the beginning of everything, God, whom he recognizes in himself through love, and so will love everybody and everything.

This brings me to another concern I have with the hierarchical priority/love model, and that’s the definition of what it means to love or prioritize God and how it screws up the order below.  I think of the Shema Jesus quoted saying, 

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  

The two commandments are linked and synonymous.  To love and prioritize God is to love and prioritize your neighbour, as defined in the story of the Good Samaritan as including those of different tribes and religions.  Not your family first, your employer, your tribe, your nation.  There are no levels in Jesus story. There is no hierarchy in 'my neighbour'.  I explored this theme in the blog Jesus Was Not "Pro-Family" Or "Pro-Nation".  

The problem that I mentioned earlier about prioritizing loving God over family is that, by the definition above, loving or prioritizing God means loving and prioritizing the rest of humanity and by making a hierarchy of priority where God is above family and others you are then saying that you should make humanity as a whole a higher priority than your family, job, or friends.

Another concern with this specific hierarchical model is that it doesn’t have a place for self.  “love your neighbor as yourself” implies that you can’t love others any more than the love you put into yourself.  And that’s where I think the hierarchical model is only useful if you follow it loosely and allow the priorities to change and ebb and flow with need.  There are times when you have to surrender your obligations to others, even family members, to look after yourself.  Sometimes the good of the few outweigh the good for the many.  Sometimes the interests of someone “lower on the list” needs to take precedent over someone higher” Family may be more important than your job/employer, but neglecting your obligations to your employment over family can lead to you not advancing in your job and affect your ability to meet your families needs.  In extreme cases it could mean losing your job and forcing your family into unpleasant circumstances.  In this way meeting the interests of your job, while maybe not to all the short term immediate interests of family, gives precedence to their greater interests.

Now that I’ve explored these different viewpoints, what do I think about how to apply a hierarchical priority model?  First, I have to say that as I respect Jesus’ teaching as foundational to Western thought and my cultural heritage, I see the deification of him and his teaching as metaphorical, not literal, so that Jesus can be wrong or too extreme in some circumstances and questioning him is valid.  And who knows if his words around family were hyperbole, meant less as a literal guide, but as a shock statement to turn the thinking of the times on its head and make people question.  As well, the figure of Jesus is portrayed as a young single man with no wife or children, and no teaching or example on how those relationships should figure into the lives of those who follow his teachings.  Those who wrote the Gospels were also not in a position to give guidance on family relationships except to encourage those who joined their communities to break with families that did not support them.  There was also a stream of apocalyptic thinking that removed priority from establishing families. 

Although there is a stream of thought in the Gospel that interprets the Jewish contemporary idea of the “age to come” in a metaphorical sense, where “the Kingdom of God is within you” and is where/when God’s will is done, there is also what seems to be a more literal stream where it was expected in the writer’s lifetime that Jesus would return to usher in the new age where creation would be renewed with heaven and earth re-born and the resurrection of the dead.  All three synoptic Gospels have Jesus stating, “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.”  (Matthew 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 20:34–36).  The views on marriage and family relationships and priority/duty of a people who thought these institutions would soon pass away and were a distraction to preparing for that time should be taken with a more than generous helping of salt.
 
That said, I would have to find most honest and useful a modified model based on Pope Francis’ interpretation of St. Augustus.  That model would give precedence to the interests of those “who by circumstances are closer” including spouse and family.  However, this is not a rigid hierarchy and ebbs and flows with the need of those close to us including our own needs.  Making those judgement calls relies on our understanding and gut feel for “"justice, mercy and faithfulness".  It also means there is no easy or “right” answer and that accepting that is part of maturity and a measure of grace for our inevitable mistakes or the hurt feelings of those who do not feel rightly prioritized.
 
In figuring out how to balance the love given to those close to those remote I also need to acknowledge that love involves change and effort and that the extreme of preferring those furthest away over those closest risks a more superficial kind of love.  It is easier to love the child of Ethiopia or Gaza who’s need is obvious and great where what is asked for is limited and remote.  Loving the child near at hand is messier, calls for more intimate contact and getting one’s hands dirty.  It means loving not only those you find deserving whether close at hand or further away.
 
I also have a hard time with a hierarchical model of love/priority in that it would seem to imply that these are a limited resource that must be carefully metered out following strict rules, a scarcity mindset rather than one of abundance.  The hierarchical model also would suggest that love/priority is a zero sum game, where one person’s gain is exactly balanced by another person’s loss.  Instead I see it not as a competition but as more synergistic and a positive sum experience where the total increases so that everyone benefits.

The Best Of All Possible Worlds

In my town outside a sign maker's shop there is a sign with a picture of Jesus with sacred heart rays signifying His boundless mercies and the words, "Jesus I Trust in You!".  I strongly affirm this statement, but doubt that the meaning I ascribe to those words are the same as that of the business owner.  Taken that the owner has also posted anti-abortion religious sentiment signs, I would imagine that their understanding of this phrase would follow a more conservative Christian narrative.  That understanding would have Jesus as a literal deity that takes personal interest in that person's life and directs and intervenes in their life events through supernatural means.  In this narrative, Jesus has a plan for the "perfection" and growth of each Christian and life events have been carefully orchestrated by Him to that end.  What seems like hardship or tragedy has a purpose in our development or the development of others as part of a plan that may be opaque to us but will lead to the best of all possible ends if only we will, "trust in Him".

I was also reminded of this philosophy by a humorous animation entitled "God sending you a toxic person for character development"  In the clip, God tells his angels to "send him another toxic one" and argues that "I know what I'm doing..this is for character development..send the toxic bitch".  Many who take this view literally see all the tragedy and misfortune in the world as "part of God's plan", and part of the best of all possible worlds that God created and maintains.

The phrase, "the best of all possible worlds" comes from the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.  Leibniz argued that, since God is perfectly good and all powerful, then God must have chosen to create the best possible world and what appears to be evil or suffering must ultimately serve a greater good.  This belief was popular among Enlightenment-era rationalists.  However, the philosopher Voltaire found the position both morally offensive and intellectually dishonest.  He felt that in light of real-world suffering such as war, disease, and natural disasters, such an excuse was cruel comfort.  He wrote a scathing satire to parody this philosophy with his novel, "Candide".

On the surface "Candide" looks like a simple adventure story, but it is really a systematic parody of philosophical optimism, especially the idea that we live in “the best of all possible worlds.”.  This philosophy is the often repeated instruction of Candide's tutor, Dr. Panglos with the humour being that he repeats this phrase, insisting that everything is the best, in the worst of circumstances; being hanged and later surviving with syphilis, witnessing wars, massacres, rapes, and executions, along with standing amid earthquakes and public burnings.  He never changes his beliefs, no matter how much evidence contradicts them.  By this Voltaire parodies how philosophy and theology, when they become abstract systems and certainties divorced from experience, can become cruel in the face of human suffering. The protagonist, Candide who is eager to believe in Pangloss's teachings is also exposed in the novel to a series of disasters; brutal military violence, religious hypocrisy and persecution, slavery, natural catastrophe, betrayal, loss, poverty and exploitation, with each episode comically presented in it's extremity, emphasizing the absurdity and indefensibleness of this ideology.

Voltaire concludes his novel with his counter to this doctrine, the phrase, "We must cultivate our garden".  This is his rejection of the urge to explain away injustice as "necessary", of the comfort that things are fine and going according to a divine plan, rather than acting to make them better.  It is a call for engaged and modest human responsibility grounded in reality rather than abstract doctrine.

I should also note that the "best of all possible worlds" reasoning goes hand in glove with the "divine right of kings".  According to that doctrine, If all that happens is only what is directed or allowed by God, then whoever has political power must have been installed by God and therefore represents His authority.  The actions by this king must have been foretold and desirable by God and should then be legitimate.  By this thinking, to resist or rebel against the king is to rebel against God.  Many American evangelicals extend this doctrine to Donald Trump, stating that he has been put into power by God and that his actions are God's will.

When I was younger, I was a follower of this philosophy, in the form that, if God was both good and in control of all things, then everything he allows to occur must serve a greater good.  I had read a book about praising God in all circumstances which was based on this thinking.  It was not long after reading this book that I saw an opportunity to put it into practice.  As the president of my Highschool ISCF (Interschool Christian Fellowship) I had convinced our staff advisor and the Vice Principle that a reformed "born again" convict and former bank robber should come share his testimony to the students of the school and, to the reinforcement of my belief that this idea had been from God, they agreed and a date for a senior assembly for this man's presentation was arranged.  However, on the day of the assembly, as the chair filled gymnasium also filled with students, the speaker had yet to arrive.  Our ICSF staff advisor called our club members together and asked sarcastically if anyone could tap dance, stating that the Principal had told him that he would not hold the students in the gym waiting on the speaker much longer.  I failed to recognize the stress this put our staff advisor, how he had struck out his neck for this, and how this might effect his career if the assembly had to be cancelled.  Instead, taking a page out of my book on praising God in all circumstances, I led the group in a prayer where I praised God for what was going on and insisting that God had control of the situation and that we should thank him even if we didn't understand what He was doing.  Instead of acknowledging the staff advisors very real concern and fears, I had shamed him for his "lack of faith".  At the very last possible moment, the speaker did arrive before the assembly was excused and the testimony went ahead.  This circumstance justified in my eyes my "faith" in this understanding of God  and in my conviction to adhere to this theology in the future despite reality and any evidence to the contrary.

Today, I affirm the statement "Jesus I Trust in You" quite differently, but no less emphatically. First century Rabbis like Jesus were synonymous with their teachings.  I similarly see Jesus the person as inseparable from his teachings and recognize that in the Gospels the story given of his life epitomizes his 'Way'.  So, for me, saying that I trust in Jesus means that I trust in the Way, the teachings of Jesus.  This is what I put my trust in; a perspective of the world where what is paramount or "divinely sanctioned" is love of one's enemies, radical inclusion, non-violence, and a compassion that leads to active service such as the feeding of the hungry, visiting those sick and in prison, and welcoming the stranger.  This perspective, instead of passively accepting injustice and suffering as part of God's will, calls us to do what we can to correct injustice and alleviate suffering.  Like Candide's conclusion, it calls us to, "cultivate our garden", to take responsibility and engage with the world in light of an alignment and allegiance to what Jesus demonstrated was important and had the highest legitimacy; love, compassion, inclusion, and truth, among other things.  In a world that seems to be dominated and led by greed, self interest, and lack of compassion and concern for the other, raising this standard may seem like raising a flag in a hurricane. Yet, even if the rest of the world rejects it and I convince not a soul to it's merits, or end up benefiting none of those I hoped to help, I believe this faith to have merit on it's own and to be worth any and all cost.