Religion and violence have filled our newsfeeds lately. It’s not easy to look at these events. They trouble us and risk making us feel despondent. But events like this are sometimes worth a little of our attention as we do learn things and might start to find some possibilities on how to move forward. Even in the dark, there are sometimes lessons for us and glimmers of light to be found. So let’s see what we might glean.
Manchester Synagogue
In Manchester, England, two were killed at a synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jews. There has been two surges in antisemitism in recent years, the first starting around 2016 and the second since the Hamas attack of October 7th (these surges are cumulative and evident in both Canadian and American data).
This year had already witnessed two young Jews assassinated in Washinton D.C. for being Jewish and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s home burned down in an attempt to kill him and his family. Canada has not witnessed anything quite as violent but there are hundreds of incidents per year that happen below public awareness (here’s some examples).
That Jews in the UK, the USA or elsewhere are suffering for Israel’s actions is unconscionable.
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Oddly, an excellent piece in the Washington Post highlighted that American Jews are quite conflicted (and in many cases, quite critical) of Isreal’s actions. The piece is behind a paywall but the key data charts are accessible and tell a compelling picture.
Obviously, the violence is unjustified regardless of this data. But the data charts demonstrate yet again that if stereotyping whole groups often ends in violence, it usually begins and finds its footing in a kind of ignorance of how groups and communities are always diverse and complicated.
Latter Day Saint Church
A gunman in Michigan drove their vehicle into a Latter Day Saint church, then began shooting, and finally lit the building on fire. Four were killed and eight were injured. The gunman had told people he considered the Latter Day Saints (sometimes called “Mormons”) to be the “antichrist.”
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The LDS community, however, responded in a stunning way. Someone in the broader church community launched a fundraising campaign…for the gunman’s family! The gunman was killed by police and so this church member pointed out that the person’s widow and children will need support. Within days, $300,000 had been raised, many of the donations coming with statements from donors who stated that this is what their faith and the Bible has taught them. Some of the victims’ loved ones have even voiced forgiveness (here and here). Members of the gunman’s family have expressed being overwhelmed with this act of kindness.
It is impossible to know how any of us would react in such circumstances. And we should understand that some of those who lost loved ones may not feel this kind of forgiveness. There can be no expectations here. But we can be shocked at the violence and at a community responding with unbelievable compassion.
Charlie Kirk’s Murder
Kirk’s murder achieved monumental coverage which I believe stemmed partly from his status but partly from the fact that it was captured on film. The graphic visual went viral on social media so the event wasn’t something you just read – you could see it (whether you wished to or not).
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While Kirk’s legacy is hotly debated, mercifully, his murder was widely denounced. The shooter’s motives will be examined in court but there are indications it was politically motivated. Kirk was a hero to many conservative Christians who believe his murder says something about their opponents and their own level of security.
A small addendum to this story came from liberal commentator Van Jones. Jones, who is African American, had been in a social media fight with Kirk about things Kirk had said on race, and Kirk had texted him the day before he died suggesting they do a podcast together to debate the issues. Jones was certainly no fan of Kirk’s approach but was affected by the offer which he did not read until after Kirk had been killed.
How to Move Forward
There are no easy answers. But there have been some good responses.
The actions of the LDS church are really incredible and so inspiring. I had similar feelings years ago when a Sikh gurdwara in Wisconsin lost six members to a gunman. The slogan that the congregation embraced in the wake of the devastation was “chardi kala” which translates as something like “relentless optimism” (I interviewed Simran Jeet Singh, who wrote about the incident, here.)
Image of James Talarico. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
I have also been heartened by James Talarico. Talarico is a young congressman in Texas who is now running for the Senate. Talarico is a devout Christian and seminary student running for the Democrats who has been critical of the current American president but also called him a “child of God.” Whether this fits your own theology or not, Talarico refuses to dehumanize those he disagrees with. In our polarizing age, this is noticeably rare. Importantly, it is also hitting a chord. He is attracting huge crowds and was profiled in the New York Times where the author noted that his spiritual approach is meeting a hunger even among the non-religious who are yearning for some hope, some meaning that isn’t transactional. His broad appeal means he was also interviewed on the popular Joe Rogan podcast. It is true that hate crimes are up. It is also true that people are hungry for an alternative.
On Free Speech
Addressing all of the issues relevant here is beyond this small blog. Social media is likely a very serious component that our society has not yet grappled with. We have outsourced our public square to billionaires who do not seem concerned about how social media runs on anger. Indeed, many suggest they have realized the road to astonishing profits is to create vehicles of “angertainment.”
One other aspect that perhaps we can address quicky is free speech. Free speech and religious freedom are part of the core freedoms that define liberal democracies. Violence obviously robs freedom – both from those hurt or killed but also from others who lose the ability to attend freely or to feel safe to speak out. Much of the fear today is the sense by many that these core freedoms are at risk.
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Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, is one of America’s most outspoken and eloquent defenders of freedom of speech. In his popular TED Talk, he makes four key arguments why we should defend free speech, one of which relates directly to the issues above. His claims are:
- Free speech makes you safer. He contends that you are not safer for knowing less about what people actually think. Rather, he suggests it is better for us to be aware of what our neighbours, our coworkers and our political representatives think. You can only respond to what you know and ignorance does us no good
- Free speech counters violence. He disagrees with those who say words are violence and suggests that this phrase (which has been quite common in recent years) risks demeaning victims of actual violence (he has suffered some himself). Second, he makes the stronger claim that freedom of speech is the best alternative for violence we’ve found. It’s not perfect obviously, but upholding the right to speak and debate offers an outlet that channels disagreements into non-violent arenas that can lower animosities and sometimes even foster growing understanding.
- Free speech protects the powerless. Lukianoff contends that if you don’t protect freedom of speech robustly that, in the long run, it is the vulnerable who will lose their capacity to speak. He quotes John Lewis as saying that freedom of speech is the best check on power that there is and that the Civil Rights Movement would have achieved little without free speech protections.
- Even bad people can have good ideas. In short, folks we consider wrong will sometimes inevitably be right or have an insight we (and folks in our group) will miss.
A few decades ago, issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would have been debated openly on university campuses. More recently there were open debates on issues like gay marriage. Today, speaking with those who disagree is often framed as moral compromise but this seems a strange claim given thatt Martin Luther King debated a white segregationist, Black thinker and activist James Baldwin debated conservative William F. Buckley, and no less a figure than Abraham Lincoln debated slavery. Indeed, MLK and Gandhi are two of the most influential religious voices in the past hundred years and both were strong advocates for free speech (the theme of freedom more broadly resounded in King’s speeches such that many of us can still hear him saying “free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last”).
Photo Credit: Left – Mahatma Gandhi Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain, Right Martin Luther King Jr, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
Nothing will prevent all violence. But I think the trend in recent years to silence our opponents, to silo ourselves off and reinforce our own bubbles are trends that foster animosity and heighten misunderstanding. Silencing people adds fuel to the fire. It increases the risk that someone who cannot voice their animosity will act with violence. That violence has enormous costs be it the loss of life or the ability to attend a house of worship safely.
We need to find ways to air our views. To listen to folks we oppose. In so doing, we may at times find some humanity in one another, even across large divides. Rather than think of this as moral compromising, we might think of it as moral work. Perhaps it offers some hope to start to turn the ship in a better direction.
