too little religion*

CNN reported a grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls said of the killer on the day of the murder: "We must not think evil of this man."

Jack Meyer, a member of the Brethren community living near the Amish in Lancaster County, explained: "I don't think there's anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts," he told CNN.

The Amish have reached out to Roberts' family. Dwight Lefever, a Roberts family spokesman said an Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them.

An article in a Canadian newspaper the National Post stated that the Amish have set up a charitable fund for the family of the shooter.

The Amish do not normally accept charity, but due to the extreme nature of the tragedy, donations were being accepted. Richie Lauer, director of the Anabaptist Foundation, said the Amish community, whose religious beliefs prohibit them from having health insurance, will likely use the donations to help pay the medical costs of the hospitalized children.

~ from a Wikipedia entry on Amish school shooting

Despite the horror and tragedy of this event, the Amish response to it has been one that offers hope. It's so refreshing to see religious belief manifesting itself in action and not in the way the media usually portrays it -- long political debates about the Ten Commandments on government buildings, prayer in schools, dealth penalty, marriage or abortion. It is good to see an example of Jesus' radical words "Love your enemy" being lived out because people believe in Him.

There are times when I feel like Jonathan Swift's words are true: "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."And perhaps that is the answer, not that we have too much religion, but that we have too little-- we keep the superficial rules and regulations and take God and bend Him to conform to our own notions of who He is and we forget the heart (and the person) behind all of it. Jesus isn't about comfort and convenience and feeling good about yourself because you're moral and righteous. Rather, he tells you to give your other coat to the person that steals from you, he exhorts you to turn the other cheek to the one who slaps and asks you to love and provide for your very enemies.

*I wrote this entry soon after hearing about the Amish shooting and response to it. Posting it now seems slightly outdated. With today's media, it seems that news gets old fast and old news isn't really worth talking about. I disagree with that and thus, am still posting this.

The God Delusion

For those of you unfamiliar with Richard Dawkins, he is a biologist and adamant atheist. His most famous work is probably the Selfish Gene, which does a very good job of explaining natural selection (though, there is a very bizarre chapter on Memes at the end). His most recent publication, The God Delusion, apparently critiques religion and attempts to argue that the world would be a better place without religion.

A good critique of Richard Dawkins, Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching written by Terry Eagleton, Professor of English literature at Manchester University is found in the London Review of Books. He basically points out Dawkin's error in considering all religious beliefs irrational and to believe that all religiously motivated behaviour ressembles those of the 911 hijackers as opposed to those of Mother Teresa. Eagleton is a fairly prominent academic and does not believe in the Christian faith, but I highly appreciate his critique of Dawkins. Much more valuable criticism, dialogue and debate could emerge if only religious people took more time to understand atheists and agnostics, and if only atheists and agnostics took more time to understand religion. If we spent less time lunging and flailing at each other, maybe we can actually have a conversation, instead of a bloodshed.

official declaration