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Is
Christianity being hijacked? As we celebrate
the Feast of the Resurrection today with those words of hope, we
In a market
society that appears to be hellbent on hopelessly plunging towards
the self-destruction of self interest and self centredness, we also
need to be renewed by Paul's words of hope in the awesome Chapter
8 of the Letter to the Romans. If we see what we hope for, then
it is not really hope. For who hopes for something he sees? But
if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Followers of
Jesus Christ would agree that His resurrection is the foundation
of Christianity. They would also agree that Christianity in its
essence is much more than a religion, philosophy or way of life.
Essentially, Christianity is a person - the living Jesus Christ
and a personal relationship with Him. Proof of the resurrection
is not so much in a scriptural proclamation as in a deep dynamic,
and sometimes dramatic, personal relationship that millions of people
are having with the living Jesus. It is on the
basis of that faith and hope that we would need to reflect today
on the realities of the world scene in the aftermath of the US empire's
conquest of an empty tomb in Iraq. Since the cataclysmic 9/11 the
hardline George W. Bush administration and the Bush-Blair Corporation,
which apparently want to run the world with other trans-national
giants, are claiming that Islam has been hijacked by terrorists.
While the validity of that claim is debatable, it might also be
valid to ask whether the Christianity of Jesus of Nazareth has been
hijacked by the newly emerging US empire which shows horrifying
signs of being not only the most powerful but also the deadliest
empire in world history. The war-mongering
Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice corporation has also identified Iraq,
Iran, North Korea, and now Syria also, as constituting an axis of
evil. But many Third World and social justice advocates could ask
with validity whether the real axis of evil comprises Bush, Blair
and Israel's Ariel Sharon. Iraq invasion According to
a veteran diplomat at the State Department, the United States, though
it comprises only about 6% of the world population, controls more
than 50% of the world's wealth and resources. Through a trans-Atlantic
alliance, the US and seven other rich countries control more than
80% of the world's resources though their population is only 15%
of the total in the world. The diplomat has admitted that every
major policy or action of the US empire, including the latest onslaught
on Iraq is intended to consolidate and, if possible, increase the
stranglehold on the world's wealth and resources. Globalisation
and the essentially capitalist policies of the market economy are
also intended mainly to achieve that goal, though many Third World
countries seem to have swallowed it wholesale. In such a reality,
where the gap between the rich and the dispossessed is widening
to monstrous proportions and market economists are quite satisfied
with growth without equitable distribution of resources, Christians
seem to be at the crossroads, facing a choice between Jesus and
Barabbas as the people faced in Pilate's courtroom 2000 years ago. Are we facing
a choice between the prosperity gospel of American Christianity
and the way shown by the poor Jesus of the discarded, marginalised
Nazareth? In making this
vital decision, we could reflect on some challenging or disturbing
insights from one of the world's most respected theologians and
Bible scholars, Fr. Aloysius Pieris. In a recent
booklet on inter-faith dialogue and inter-human justice, the Jesuit
thinker says: "To understand
the principal point of faith, we must ask ourselves a crucial question
about the Covenant: 'Who are the signatories of this Covenant between
God and the people as described in the Bible?' “In the
Old Covenant that comprises the Hebrew Scriptures, the signatories
are Yahweh and the runaway slaves who rose against oppression. Can
anyone cite for me a single instance in the Bible wherein Yahweh
is recorded to have signed a memorandum of understanding with the
dominant class? The Covenant, which is the principal point of our
faith, is God's defence pact with the powerless.The powerless are
the non-persons who, on entering this Covenant with God, learn to
recognise themselves as persons: a non-people who acquire a dignified
people-hood. “In the
books of the New Covenant, we see the composition of this pact further
summed up in one single person. There we see the two Covenant partners,
‘God and the Powerless’ becoming one flesh in Jesus, who
therefore is Himself the New Covenant. God becomes the Lowly One
in Jesus. “In Jesus,
therefore, we can meet both partners of the Covenant; He puts us
in touch with both God and the oppressed. He calls us to associate
ourselves with the lowly ones, for that association with the lowly
ones is a guarantee that we may also associate ourselves with God;
Jesus calls on us to serve the poor in order to worship God worthily.‘The
NGO mentality’, according to which, we serve the poor without
living in solidarity with the poor, is a violation of the Covenant.
Such form of giving aid to the poor is the business of the rich.
For, the poor become the means by which the dispensers of aid acquire
power. Unless we are one with the poor, we cannot claim to be God's
Covenant partner. “Whoever
declares to be a follower of Jesus and claims to have experienced
Him cannot worship and praise God without loving and serving the
poor. To raise one's voice and give public testimony to having experienced
the Lord in worship-assemblies is highly suspicious unless that
same experience is publicly testified to in and through an active
solidarity with the oppressed. My testimony before the church that
God has got involved with me personally is incomplete and anti-Covenant,
if it does not allow that same God's inseparable partner, the victim
of injustice, to be involved with me. The acid test of my Covenantal
liaison with God is the way I express, in action, my Covenantal
responsibility towards the poor. “This
two-fold covenantal responsibility, this yoke and this burden, constitute
the principal point of our faith which recapitulates the Scriptures
around Jesus, the defence pact between God and the victims of our
sinful social structures, Jesus who, in His person, represents the
interests of both God and the Powerless.” The scene
today In the current
war against Iraq, millions of Iraqi people are clearly the victims
of the world's injustice and evil. They are God's
Covenant partners and Jesus represents those dispossessed people
whatever their religion or race.Do we choose Jesus or Barabbas?
Do we choose the empty tomb taken over by the new US empire - or
Jesus Christ alive in thousands of billions of dispossessed victims
of a New World ‘Odour’ and its weapons of mass deception
channelled through journalists who have gone to bed with the emperors
without clothes? According to
most scholars, including Father Aloysius Pieris, the Bible could
be most deeply understood only if seen in the light of the Exodus
experience where God sees, hears and feels the anguish of the people
who were caught up in enslaved poverty. Exodus shows
the living God getting directly and deeply involved in the liberation
of these dispossessed people. The liberation took place in the political
and socio-economic dimensions with God leading the people out of
the centre of power, wealth and oppression. Today we appear
to be in reverse motion. The modern pharaohs, emperors and master
builders of the new US empire appear to be trying to drag the whole
world back to domination and enslavement in their centres of power,
wealth and oppression. Of course,
they use sugar-coated or sophisticated phrases like globalisation
and the market economy. Arundhati Roy believes that the religion
of the new US empire is the market economy. Anyone who does not
accept, subscribe to or worship that economic system of power, wealth
and oppression is marginalised and throttled. The living
Jesus we see in the Bible represents both God and billions of poor
people and He seals the defence pact or Covenant between God and
the victims of injustice. We face a major
decision today: Do we choose Jesus or Barabbas? Do we choose the
inner liberation that Jesus gives, from self-interest and greed
or do we choose the liberation of the US empire by worshipping the
economic policies and political worldview of the cowboy or cardboard
messiah? A
city holds its breath as a tragedy of alarming proportions takes
its toll SARS, which
unfortunately even sounds like Hong Kong's popular acronym SAR HK
(Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong), has dealt this city
a serious blow. Tourism, a staple for Hong Kong's economic health,
has experienced a steep drop. Where once as many as 54,000 visitors
entered HK daily, now only around 30,000 do and the number is dropping.
Hong Kong's carrier, Cathay Pacific, which last year had ambitious
plans for expansion has been forced to cut flights. The hospitality,
catering, food and entertainment industries have been hard hit by
the drop in tourism as well as local patronage, as most residents
play safe by staying home. Even public transport companies such
as City Bus and First Bus are reporting a drop in passengers and
reducing schedules. For many workers,
the SARS outbreak has hit them where they hurt most - basic survival
- with employers cutting pay and laying off staff as business spirals
downwards. Unemployment, currently at 7.2 per cent, is expected
to rise to 8 per cent at the end of this quarter. Many workers are
complaining they have no money to make ends meet and urging the
government to set up an emergency relief fund for workers in industries
most affected. Meanwhile,
what's life like for those of us at this epicentre of "contamination"
and for whom Hong Kong is home? Life goes on, but at a nervous pace.
The soul of this once dynamic city has been subdued - albeit temporarily.
The government is taking, somewhat belatedly, drastic steps to contain
the spread of the disease. Those who have been exposed are forced
into quarantine. Schools have been closed. For the rest of the public,
traveling among the public is like navigating an obstacle course
- trying to avoid touching each other, public utilities, and even
oneself. The latest
reports on the disease are worrying, with steep double-digit increases
of new cases reported daily. Where once the disease seemed confined
to small pockets of Hong Kong, now it is widespread. Once it was
thought that only the young, the elderly and the infirm would succumb
to it, but now it is taking the lives of the young and healthy.
One media agency went so far as to quote a medical expert who predicted
that 80 per cent of Hong Kongers would have contracted SARS by the
end of two years. As if to rub it in, a local television station
ran a programme on the 1918 influenza pandemic in the US, which
killed 40 million worldwide. Meanwhile,
bored children now at home because schools were compelled to take
early Easter breaks, are being kept busy with "homework"
sent to them from schools via the Internet. They were scheduled
to return to school on April 22, but the government has extended
their "vacation" to April 28, after which they will use
public transport, mingle with classmates, much to the anxiety of
parents. After the first two weeks indoors, my teenage daughter
begged me to allow her to go for "a walk about" with friends,
in Causeway Bay, a crowded but trendy part of Hong Kong. I let her
go, but asked her to be very careful - wash hands as often as possible
- and scrub down after she returned. Businesses
run as usual but employers are nervous. There have been reports
of discrimination against employees residing in areas linked to
SARS outbreaks. Wearing face masks has become compulsory in many
offices, despite the discomfort they cause and the fact that wearing
a mask alone is not enough to prevent one from contracting SARS.
One employer has set up a temporary work area for all staff, to
be used if a member of staff is found to have caught the bug. In
this event, the main working area will be disinfected while the
rest of the staff work from the temporary working area. For the
very first time, this writer whose work involves meeting people,
wondered if the job was hazardous to her health, especially when
a writing assignment took her to the area of Ngau Tau Kok, where
the disease spread through much of an entire housing block that
was home to over 10,000 people. This writer comtemplated cancelling
her interviews, but then went ahead taking good health precautions
but not using the mask, which itself gives her respiratory problems.
The incubation period has passed since that visit and this writer
is in good health. Some of the
government health advisory alerts are paradoxical. People are advised
to avoid confined places and crowds. Travelling in lifts is said
to be risky. But this is Hong Kong, a densely populated place where
the majority of people live in small apartments of sky-rise buildings.
Try telling residents who live on the 30th floor not to take the
elevator. People get
about, but look at each other with suspicion as though every person
encountered is a carrier. Where once people would rush impatiently
to the doors of trains, buses and ferries long before they reached
their destination, now they hang back, waiting for others to leave
first. A sniffle or cough is enough to make people move away. At
a personal level, getting a sore throat, a headache, a wheeze or
a cold - all symptoms of common influenza that Hong Kongers would
usually shrug off - is grave cause for concern. There are a
few positive outcomes. Among the paradoxical pieces of advice commonly
issued is one that tells us to avoid stress - but this is Hong Kong,
which a few years ago was very proud to be ranked one of the leading
stress cities in the world. We boasted of our strong work ethic,
the fact that we thought little about working from 9 to 9, and even
through bouts of common influenza. Now, however, we have been forced
to realize we are merely mortal, and can't outwork the rest of the
world. We have been forced to slow down and take time out. Even
the Hong Kong jive - a habit of walking head-on into the person
coming towards you and then jumping aside a second before the two
of you crash into each other -a manoeuvre that had to be mastered
to navigate the crowded streets - is no longer necessary. People
just won't walk into you on the streets anymore. The SARS epidemic is very worrying. However, to put things into perspective, here are some other little known facts about Hong Kong. During the three weeks after SARS hit Hong Kong, 150 people, many over the age of 45, died of "typical" pneumonia, while the death rate from SARS was just 16. On average, between 15,000 to 25,000 Hong Kongers contract typical pneumonia each year, with about 2,000-3,000 succumbing to it. In the same period, according to a report, over 100 people in Hong Kong could be expected to die of accidental injury or poisoning, including traffic accidents and food poisoning. This is not to say that SARS isn't dangerous - it's contagious, and it kills. The fact is, it seems like SARS is also the disease fad of the moment. An expensive and sad fad for Hong Kong, once touted as the City of Life, now a city associated with death. |
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Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
could
also reflect on what Paul said to the Corinthians: If Christ did
not rise from the dead, then our preaching is in vain, our faith
is in vain and so is everything including the Church and all its
rituals.
