Calls to Revolution and to Peace

Article: Nev. Senate hopeful Sharron Angle talks of armed revolt | ScrippsNews

It is becoming popular among Tea Party candidates to foment revolution. As indicated in this article, Senator Reid's opponent in Nevada, Sharron Angle, says that she hopes she wins at the ballot box, because if she doesn't, people might use their Second Amendment rights to take up arms against the government.

In a relatively short period of time (that happens to coincide the rise in prominence of conservative talk radio), we have gone from a few extreme militants like Timothy McVeigh who perpetrated the worst act of domestic violence before 9/11 when he blew up the federal center in Oklahoma, to having candidates for public office rallying their supporters to consider armed insurrection if they can't muster the votes to win an election.

I read recently that many Democratic lawmakers will not hold summer town meetings because they fear for their safety after last summer's Tea Party attacks.

Surely Christians and other spiritually minded people in this country do not support these notions, right? When Jesus was alive, there were many like Barrabas who fomented revolution against an unelected Roman government. Angry with the Roman occupation, Barrabas was apparently part of an armed uprising. These people expected the coming of a Messiah who would lead their armed rebellion to establish a new kingdom on earth. Jesus was a disappointment to such people. He said that their weapon should be love. Jesus taught that it was the peacemakers who are blessed. He said you should love your enemies, and implied that we should not take immediate offense when it seems someone is doing something wrong against us, but to "turn the other cheek." (There's an excellent scene in Franco Zefferelli's Jesus of Nazareth film that portrays a discussion between Barabbas and Jesus on this difference between their views.) And that was in the context of an unelected occupation force. So, hopefully, it is not Christians who support this talk of revolution against a democratically elected government just because they are in the minority and can't persuade a majority of their views.

In the 1960's, the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam felt the same kind of frustration with the peaceful protests of Martin Luther King, Jr. They wanted action and they wanted it now. They wanted it by force. They wanted blood to be shed for the pain they felt. Malcolm X experienced a spiritual conversion before his death as he realized that Islam was meant to be a way of peace and should not be a vehicle for violence and hatred. King is today honored because of the Christian path he blazed (following his understanding of Jesus, Tolstoy, and Gandhi) toward peaceful resolution of injustice. Like Jesus, both Malcolm X and Dr. King were murdered by men whose hearts were filled with anger and hatred that distorted their sense of justice.

We need to consider what it means to have a good and clean heart as a human being. Is the heart of the spiritual warrior one that is filled with love and hopes for peace like Jesus and Dr. King? Or is it the heart of those who lead angry mobs toward violence?

Recommended books: The Terrorist Next Door by Daniel Levitas; Toxic Talk by Bill Press; Jesus by Deepak Chopra; A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.; Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa; Malcolm X: The Last Speeches 

Recommended movies: Jesus of Nazareth; Gandhi


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