After Roger Hutchinson had spent months arguing that the Bible and Christianity were not to blame for any moral atrocities of the past and present, two news items rather ironically dominated the news for several days. The first was the pope's apology for persecutions associated with the Inquisition and the crusades, and the second was the massacres in Uganda that were committed by an organization that called itself the "Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God." At last count, authorities in Uganda had discovered 974 bodies of cult members and children but feared that the count will go even higher.
Since the Catholic Church has now officially issued an apology for its participation in persecutions that have marred its past, Hutchinson, who denies that Christianity bears any responsibility for past atrocities, now finds himself in direct opposition with the largest branch of Christianity, which has said that it did persecute heretics and non-Christians and is now officially "sorry." The only recourse Hutchinson now has is a familiar one that most TSR readers have probably heard: "Well, those who did these things weren't real Christians."
This will probably be Hutchinson's reaction to the Uganda massacres too, but it would be hard to argue that an organization that called itself a movement to restore "the Ten Commandments of God" had not been in some way influenced by the Bible. Why would it have chosen this name unless the leaders who created the movement had been influenced at least by what the Bible said about the ten commandments that God had presumably given to Moses on Mount Sinai? There just has to be some connection here.
Not long after the pope's apology was officially issued, he made a trip to the "holy land," which dominated the news even more than his apology had. Throughout his stay in the so-called holy land, all other news was put on hold while TV viewers were treated to every movement of an old man shuffling feebly about while aids stood anxiously by, ready to grab him the moment he stumbled, and stumble he did several times. During the barely audible speeches mumbled by the pope, TV cameras panned the sea of faces glued to the ceremonial pomp and splendor parading before them. Catholics and non-Catholics alike seemed mesmerized by someone who, after all has been said and done, is just another old man. At times, the audience had to stand in the rain, but those interviewed agreed that the experience was worth the inconvenience. Is there really any hope that humanity will ever shed its superstitious skin?
TV interviews revealed that many Jewish leaders were eagerly watching to see if the pope would expand his apology to include an expression of regret for the failure of the Catholic Church to act decisively to try to stop the holocaust of World War II that had resulted in the massacre of millions of Jews. Expectations were running high when the pope visited a monument to victims of the holocaust, but the speech muttered by the pope on this occasion made no apology for the passivity of the church during those dark days. Many Jewish leaders were disappointed.
After atrocities as malevolent as those experienced by European Jews in the 30s and 40s of this century, an apology from a church that did nothing to prevent it would be of dubious value anyway, but if an apology would give living survivors and their families any psychological consolation, maybe the pope should give them what they want. Meanwhile, Jewish leaders should seriously consider issuing an apology of their own. Anyone who makes a statement like this runs the risk of being accused of anti-Semitism, but it is something that needs to be said. What happened to European Jews in World War II was morally despicable, but the history of Judaism is marred by atrocities every bit as reprehensible as the holocaust.
The Old Testament (known to Jews as the Tanakh) is filled with tales of a nation that thought it was the "chosen people" of God (Deut. 7:6), who had been ordained by this god to take the "promised land" by force from its original inhabitants. They used this "divine mandate" to "utterly destroy" entire tribes in Canaan, including even children and babies, and to "leave nothing alive to breathe" (Deut. 20:16). The book of Joshua claims to be a record of the Israelite execution of this divine mandate under the leadership of Joshua, and it repeatedly claimed that the commandment of their god was carried out just as "Yahweh had commanded Moses his servant" (11:15). Nothing was left alive to breathe (10:40; 11:11, 14, 20).
The genocide actually started on the Israelite trek to the "promised land" and continued after the land was taken. The "chosen ones," presumably under orders from the god who had chosen them (Num. 31:1-2), attacked the Midianite nation, and after thousands of women and children were taken captive, Moses ordered his officers to kill all of the male children and nonvirgin females but to keep the virgins alive for themselves (vs:17-18). Four centuries later, the Israelites thought that they had received a mandate from Yahweh to utterly destroy the Amalekites, including again even children and babies (1 Sam. 15:2-3). The Tanakh claims that this mandate was carried out (vs:7-8).
The belief that one tribal group had been divinely chosen from all the people on the earth (Deut. 7:6) to occupy a geographic area and the use of this belief to justify the extermination of all other ethnic groups in that area smacks of the Hitlerian idea of an Aryan super race that had been divinely chosen to rule the world for a thousand years. Who could quibble about the difference?
Jews were treated horribly during the Hitler era, but to
deplore the pope's failure to apologize for the church's silence during
the holocaust seems a bit hypocritical of those who practice a religion
whose history is also tainted with genocide. Jews want an apology for
the church's passivity while atrocities were committed against their
ethnic group, but many wanting the apology venerate ancestors who
actively participated in atrocities committed against other ethnic
groups. Where's the consistency in this? Maybe both sides should
apologize.
