Bill Dogterom
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Faith in a Time of Terror - Mark 4:35-41
The carefully coordinated explosions which crippled London’s transit system last week brought home again the inconvenient truths of life at the beginning of the twenty first century. We live in a time of targeted terror. A time in which terror is both goal and strategy. Terror destabilizes – undermines – upsets – disconcerts – destroys . . . and brings nothing of value with it. Terror is the weapon of the angry minority who seem to be convinced that, out of the chaos they create, an order more suitable to them will emerge. Or, failing that, that at least their presence will have to be acknowledged. They remind of nothing so much as the bullies and spoiled brats disrupting someone else’s party, simply because it is someone else’s party.
Terror as weapon is not new, but it redefines the nature of warfare. No longer is it helpful to speak of “fronts” when considering the progress of a battle. Now, the front is illusive, individual, impossible to define, surround, penetrate. Some of the greatest numbers of casualties in modern warfare have occurred at the unlucky junction of old methods and new weapons and tactics. Methods designed to be effective against an army armed with muzzle loaders accurate to thirty yards, are suicide when the weaponry is rapid load and accurate to two hundred yards. Thus, Gettysburg. The strategies of World War Two Europe are virtually useless against the guerilla actions of Vietnam, where the enemy simply wouldn’t stay in place, but kept disappearing into and under the jungles. And now, a new kind of war. The kamikaze of the Pacific Theatre now wear knapsacks and ride trains and leave briefcases with timed detonators and deliberately choose civilians as targets of opportunity. And recognize no borders, driven by an ideology beyond politics. It is truly, in Samuel Huntington’s words, “a clash of civilizations.”
So, in this time of terror, what are the faithful to do? C. S. Lewis asked much the same question during World War Two and came to conclusion that they should be doing the same thing, more or less, they would be doing if it weren’t a time of terror. We need to be regularly reminded that, as students of Jesus, the goal is not an orderly society or peace in our time – but Christlikeness and the pursuit of God. Far from this rendering believers impotent in the face of terror, it provides great courage to live normal, peace-full, lives in the midst of conflict. We are not defined by what is external to us, but by Who is internal to us. So . . . we row in the storm, knowing that safety is not the objective, but obedience in joy.
Terror as weapon is not new, but it redefines the nature of warfare. No longer is it helpful to speak of “fronts” when considering the progress of a battle. Now, the front is illusive, individual, impossible to define, surround, penetrate. Some of the greatest numbers of casualties in modern warfare have occurred at the unlucky junction of old methods and new weapons and tactics. Methods designed to be effective against an army armed with muzzle loaders accurate to thirty yards, are suicide when the weaponry is rapid load and accurate to two hundred yards. Thus, Gettysburg. The strategies of World War Two Europe are virtually useless against the guerilla actions of Vietnam, where the enemy simply wouldn’t stay in place, but kept disappearing into and under the jungles. And now, a new kind of war. The kamikaze of the Pacific Theatre now wear knapsacks and ride trains and leave briefcases with timed detonators and deliberately choose civilians as targets of opportunity. And recognize no borders, driven by an ideology beyond politics. It is truly, in Samuel Huntington’s words, “a clash of civilizations.”
So, in this time of terror, what are the faithful to do? C. S. Lewis asked much the same question during World War Two and came to conclusion that they should be doing the same thing, more or less, they would be doing if it weren’t a time of terror. We need to be regularly reminded that, as students of Jesus, the goal is not an orderly society or peace in our time – but Christlikeness and the pursuit of God. Far from this rendering believers impotent in the face of terror, it provides great courage to live normal, peace-full, lives in the midst of conflict. We are not defined by what is external to us, but by Who is internal to us. So . . . we row in the storm, knowing that safety is not the objective, but obedience in joy.
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