Harsh Encounter Brings Apocalyptic Blessing

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Blessing to curse to blessing. That has been this week: seesawing from the spiritual high of an interfaith gathering extending hospitality to Muslims, to a harsh encounter with that same hatred in cyberspace, and then to a revelation that Jesus' teachings to love no matter what remain true.

Elsewhere on United Methodist Insight there's a report on a gathering held at one of my favorite congregations, Northaven United Methodist Church in Dallas. The gathering, which drew between 200 and 400 people (depending on whose count you accept), came in response to a virulent protest against a Muslim peace conference Jan. 18 in Garland, Texas, a suburb northeast of Dallas.

We few hundred people came together to stand up for our Muslim neighbors as Americans who have every right to practice their religion under the First Amendment. I hadn't intended to report about the event as a journalist, but the experience was so uplifting, so compassionate and joyous that I wrote almost completely from memory with few notes.

After watching videos of what had happened earlier to our Muslim friends, I should have been prepared for what occurred when I posted a Facebook link to the article. As it turned out, I haven't been so taken aback by strangers' vitriolic, hateful remarks since I marched in support of the Affordable Care Act three years ago. People bombarded our Facebook page spewing the same kind of hatred that caused the Holocaust, known to Jews as the Shoah ("catastrophe").  And in a cosmic irony, it happened on Holocaust Remembrance Day!

The comments became so violently offensive that I finally felt compelled to remove many of them, and to ban those who posted them from Insight's Facebook page. That wasn't an easy decision. UM Insight was founded on the principle of free speech – another right guaranteed by the First Amendment. Yet as the day wore on and the intensity of hatred reached a fever pitch, I recalled the remarks of the Rev. Wes Magruder at the Jan. 25 gathering. Wes told us then that confronting hatred in the world often tempted him to respond with hatred, leading him to discipline himself even harder to oppose hatred with love.

That's when it hit me: In cyberspace, Insight's Facebook page had been subjected to the same blind prejudice directed at our Muslim neighbors as they attended a peace conference (a PEACE conference!) at Garland's civic center. This was the same prejudice I had seen in my impressionable youth, when young people not much older than me were met with pounding fire hoses and snarling attack dogs as they demonstrated for their civil rights in Birmingham, Ala.

As I sought counsel over my decision, my friend, the Rev. Gregory S. Neal, posted a Facebook comment:

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:11-12)

Could a Sign from the Holy Spirit have been any clearer? I felt the fear, the lies, the rage with which others malign American Muslims, but my Christian brother's reminder of Jesus' teaching turned those curses into blessings of compassion. I understood deeply what our Muslim friends, co-workers and neighbors go through in the face of Islamophobia.

Nonetheless, I remain especially disheartened by the many comments in effect calling United Methodists "apostates," "devils," "traitors," and "blasphemers" for showing friendship to Muslims. Fear captured those commenters, and I ached for them. With each new invective I heard echoes of "Crucify him!"

This latest outburst of hatred close to home clarifies for me that we are living through an apocalypse in its truest sense. In Greek "apocalypse" means to reveal or disclose, although in English it has come to mean "the end of world." Apocalyptic literature in the Old and New Testaments was written to encourage Jews and Christians through times of persecution by giving visions of the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

To follow Jesus truly means not merely that we say of him "Lord, Lord," but that we love our enemies, return blessings for curses, pray for those who persecute us, and witness to God's love for all.

Trouble is, such visions have been co-opted by those who delude themselves that they're defending good by committing evil. Our current apocalypse reveals the distortions of Jesus' teachings that have crept into the Christian faith, especially in America. Christianity has been so hijacked by human greed and revenge that many versions now espouse the exact opposite of what Jesus taught his disciples to be and to do. To follow Jesus truly means not merely that we say of him "Lord, Lord," but that we love our enemies, return blessings for curses, pray for those who persecute us, and witness to God's love for all.

The apocalyptic challenge before us reveals where I fear the Church has failed us most, for we are not spiritually ready for what confronts us. We cannot follow Jesus faithfully through these perilous times without rigorous grounding in spiritual disciplines:

  • Contemplative prayer that strengthens our relationship with God;
  • Scripture study that focuses on Jesus' instructions for how we are to live eternally in the here and now;
  • Humble commitment to living for Jesus and like Jesus no matter what the world throws at us;
  • Compassion for all, especially for those suffering from want, for those oppressed by the world's domination systems, and for one another within the family of faith no matter how differently we think.

Living through an apocalypse like our time doesn't simply reveals the world's faults. We Christians are being put to the test, and our own faithlessness to the One we call Master is being uncovered. Thankfully, there is still time, through God's grace, to turn back to love.

Cynthia B. Astle serves as coordinator of United Methodist Insight.