As I see it, our world is a School of Violence. From very young, boys and girls learn violence. They learn that force brings them what they want, and if they encounter opposition, use even more force to get what you want. The feelings and desires of those others whom you oppose are not to be taken into account. Our world reduces others to nameless problems which can be solved by the application of violence. If that violence results in their death, dismemberment, or loss of family members, well, that’s too bad, but they should have given in and given up what is desired. Sometimes it’s not even property that is desired. Violence has become the appropriate response for those who are stuck in traffic and don’t like it. Every day there is news of yet another shooting as people vent their inner rage, frustration, and/or mental illness through the barrel of a gun. If a gun is lacking, then fists, cars, knives, or any other sort of implement will do for people to take out their rage on others. Movies about war, glorifying our side of the casus belli, are a strong draw at the box office, and no one cares to find out if we have been lied into yet another conflict which fills the coffers of those corporations producing war toys. I live in a world of people who are perpetually offended and angry, expressing that anger through acts of violence.

There is something interesting in the Bible. The School of Violence begins almost immediately after Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden. The first sin we see taking place after their expulsion was one of violence – Cain murders Abel. It is the first event of just sheer rage. There is nothing to be gained. No property, no sexual conquest as in rape. It is just pure rage, the kind we see these days so often associated with people not getting their way.

Not many chapters later, we find this verse: Genesis 6:11 “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.” The response of God is to unleash the heavens and start all over with Noah and his family.

No other sin is mentioned, although I am sure that in the absence of God and the darkness of their lives, the inhabitants of the world at that time eagerly participated in any number of disgusting sins. It is, however, violence which is mentioned as the cause of the Flood.

The history of mankind is a long litany of violent men seeking to take over and rule the world, using force to get their way. There have been relatively few years that somewhere in the world one country was not at war with another country. Christ entered a world ruled by the brute force of the Roman Empire. Somehow, the Gospel He left with mankind – The Way – failed to continue to resonate with the leadership of the Church as the centuries went by. An examination of Christian history, while filled with saints and those who did live for Christ, is a depressing reading of Christians killing Christians, as well as killing anyone outside the Christian faith.

Some two thousand years ago, God stepped into the School of Violence, showing us His love in the Person of the incarnate Son of God, the Living Word come to be among us. To a world accustomed to violent revenge, Christ displayed ultimate humility as He not only died to destroy death, but upon the Cross, asked His Father in heaven to forgive all who had just driven nails into his wrists, mocked, scorned and spit upon Him. He left behind Apostles who built a Church in which the believers so followed the Prince of Peace that service in the military was forbidden, the use of violence deemed unworthy of the Christ-follower, even for defense of country. The martyrology of the Church is filled with the names of soldiers who put down their arms, and saints who refused to take up arms, even to the point of their own death.

I write this today as a response to weeks of a depressing stream of news and videos in media which give the impression that violence is normal, it is good, and it is the only way to settle an argument once and for all. Somehow the Gospel message of the Prince of Peace has lost its way in the hearts of men, and even worse, in the hearts of most Christians over the last seventeen hundred years. There is a validity to the complaint that Evangelical Christians in America have united Jesus to the military/industrial complex in a sort of hoorah over any war that is declared on supposed enemies. Those who are willing to take up the cross of pacifism are called cowards, traitors, and unpatriotic. Yet a deeper investigation of the many false flag operations and outright lies told us by our government shows that we Christians have been used. In some strange way, militarism and violence have become what Jesus would do. Yes, He would kill the Islamists, the homosexuals, and all other undesirables He could get His hands on. However, since He is not here, He depends on Christians as His representatives to do the job for Him. From the Rape of Hispaniola to the Croatian Ustaše killing Serbian Orthodox, Christians have been doing their part. [1]

You can debate this next point with me – I entirely blame this on the politicization and militarization of the Christian religion, which began when Constantine declared Christianity no longer an outlawed religion. Over the next several centuries, there took place a slow mind-meld of the Kingdom of God and the Roman Empire until the aims of them became as one. The behavior of Western Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, reminds me more of how an empire is run than of a religious body dedicated to principles of peace, love, and fraternity in disagreement. Theological differences in the Middle Ages were blood sport. I find it hard to imagine that the Holy Spirit was leading men to kill one another over arguments involving such differences. Nor do I understand the gusto with which Catholics and Protestants killed anyone who would not adhere to their various teachings, including each other. Where did Jesus say, “If they don’t follow me – kill them!!!”

How has the School of Violence, which began immediately after the expulsion from the Garden, affected us? The clearest thing I see from the various religions invented by men is that we as human beings, with darkened intellect and lack of spiritual sight, have superimposed upon God our own angry existence. The gods of paganism are angry tyrants, monsters of the worst sort, immoral louts whom you better not offend, lest they do terrible things to you. In turn, we have taken the true God of the Bible and replaced Him with an understanding that is more like Zeus — war, power, and revenge. Yes, Jesus may be the gentle Lamb of God who loves all and healed all who came to Him sick and in need, but His Father? Whoooooaaaaa . . . you do not want to deal with that dude! Western soteriology is more about Jesus protecting us from the wrath of an angry God than it is about our loving heavenly Father who, according to Scripture, “was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” According to one Roman Catholic “visionary,” God is so violently angry over our sins that only the intervention of Jesus and Mary are keeping Him from cleaning house down here, and the visionary was told that Jesus’ arm is getting very tired trying to hold back His Father’s wrath, so hurry and repent and say lots of Rosaries. [2]

Once you imagine a violent and angry deity, it is not a far step from inventing vivid expressions for His anger, such as an eternal, burning hell, with appropriately horrific tortures, such as described in Dante’s Inferno. Hot lead poured up the anus, being boiled in oil, burning but never burning up, pain unrelenting and beyond description. This is Jesus? Remember, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are ONE! Not many, not different expressions of God – ONE! What the Father is the Son is and the Spirit is. That is my clumsy (and hopefully not heretical) attempt to say that the will of One is the will of The Three. The Early Fathers of the Church knew this, and because of this, realized that the violent ideas of God found in the Old Testament could not be taken with a wooden literalism. These ideas of God make Him a violent fiend, therefore, according to Fr. John Behr and other patristic scholars, you cannot take these Old Testament descriptions literally. They have a deeper spiritual meaning and are to be understood as such.

Unfortunately, too many people are willing to take the musings of other men and declare them to be infallible when thinking of God. They are so locked into the School of Violence that they have impressed upon God that image of violence which for several millennia has been the way that mankind has viewed the world and our relationship to it. To speak of Universal Salvation, of a God who is not angry, but wills the salvation of all (1 Timothy 2:4) is to reduce people to sputtering disbelief as they angrily declare that, after all, “God is just, don’t you know,” which really means, our sins have pissed Him off, especially you Universalist heretics, and you better duck, pal!

I don’t know what the answer is to this. Roman Catholicism and some sects of Protestantism appear to be working on presenting a “softer and kinder God” of sorts. The effect of the School of Violence was most especially seen in the Middle Ages in Europe and continues to affect theology up to this day. Everything I read of that time period, and the behaviors I observe, show me belief in a God who is angry with the whole world. Dante’s Divine Comedy and the descriptions of hell therein perfectly reflect the idea of a God who will get His revenge on most of mankind, even unbaptized babies. This is what attracted me to Orthodoxy. In Orthodoxy we speak of “God, who alone loves mankind.” The love of God is the theme of so much of our worship. The sermons of the European Middle Ages? Sheeeeesh . . . depressing!

I admit that it feels odd to try to not have a desire to smack the hell out of some person I see doing evil. It is hard – almost impossible some days – to imagine myself following the humility of Christ and allowing myself to be scourged, spit upon, insulted, and ultimately put to death as He was. The Orthodox have an icon of this. It is called, “The Icon of Extreme Humility.” It is the same Cross to which each one of us is called – to eschew violence, to submit to the cross which God give us – even unto death!

God in Christ entered into the School of Violence and taught the lesson of peace through humility. Looking at the world around us, I have to think that it is the one lesson that we as Christians have failed to learn. The Cross closed the School of Violence. Someone should have informed Christians of that.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[1] “After all, if heretics or pagans are not “one of the elect of God,” then they are God’s enemy, and since God burns His enemies for eternity, we should treat them in similar manner here on earth. Killing those who do not follow our interpretation of God or the scriptures, who are going to go to an eternal hell of fire anyway, is not seen as violating the commandments of Christ to love our enemies, but is instead commended as “protecting the flock from error” or “saving souls from hellfire.” This kind of thinking led the Puritan leader, Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, to delight in the murder of some three hundred Native American women and children because they were pagans, and as such, deserved to fall under the just condemnation of God, which Winthrop, being a good and devout Christian, was only too happy to administer as God’s agent on earth!

This same thinking pervaded the Roman Catholic Church when it put to death Orthodox Christians and those who were outside the church of Rome, such as the Cathars, the Albigensians, and others. Funny thing about that, I don’t find any instructions from Jesus or St. Paul regarding the killing of heretics! Something I do remember was about loving your enemies and doing good to them. Perhaps the popes of the Middle Ages missed that little detail in their haste to conquer the world for the Roman Catholic Church. (From the Book A LAYMAN INVESTIGATES UNIVERSAL SALVATION)

[2] “You do not fear God, you live in immorality, in disobedience, in the mire of sin. Our King and Lord Jesus Christ, Infinite Mercy, is requesting that His Mother no longer hold back God’s Arm, before more children are lost.“

I couldn’t find the exact quote. This quote gives a similar idea. Congratulations. You just created two different gods. Is Jesus not God, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit? Just whose arm is Mary holding onto? Is Jesus saying, as God, “Let go of my arm so I can smack them!” Do you see the problem here?

---