I doubt I’d get away, on Twitter, FB, YouTube or anywhere, with glibly and radically redefining words to make them fit something I wanted to promulgate. And the reason I wouldn’t get away with it is that I don’t seek to ratify my assertions through reference to a manufactured deity.
Around 8 minutes into the linked video, the issue of forgiveness is raised. Richard Dawkins asks why God needed to arrange a revoltingly violent killing before he could forgive the sins of mankind. The Right Reverend Michael Nazir Ali responds:
“Real forgiveness comes from restitution, from cost, from sacrifice.” (8:40)
This is utterly at odds with the definition of the word forgiveness, which is the idea of concluding resentment without demanding punishment or restitution. The bishop is not taken to task for his bare-faced re-writing of the dictionary in order to provoke brainlessly sanctimonious nods and grunts from the studio audience. Pressing home his point, the bishop adds:
“There can be no forgiveness without cost.” (9:20)
Ovine applause follows. The bishop justifies a public lynching by talking tripe about the definition of a word. Or perhaps he means that God simply chose to withhold forgiveness until he had exacted his pound of flesh with attendant suffering and anguish. Was omnipotent God forced into such a callous act, or did He exercise His divine free will in the matter?
Suppose a member of my family had been convicted of cold-blooded child murder, and I were to go public in the Sunday tabloids to the effect that his action was entirely justified. My argument? Murdering a child is fair, because there can be no fairness in the world without cost. Do you find yourself able to agree with my assertion? Of course not (although, please note, it concurs more closely with the accepted definition of fair than the bishop’s mangling of the word forgiveness matches its definition). Why, then, does the bishop get away with instant revision of the English language? He gets away with it because, in the minds of many, religion is, at bottom, all about being good. Many of those who profess no belief in a deity, and who pledge allegiance to no partisan confession, still think that the religious impulse is basically an admirable one. Hence, any silly assertion from a clergyman, provided it be delivered in pious tones and superficially varnished with shallow plausibility, stands a good chance of going unchallenged in the public arena.
This needs to change. It will not change by itself.
Postscript: I anticipate that some may respond by pointing out patiently to me, while kindly and inwardly sympathising with my moronic lack of understanding of the central message of Christianity, that the cost of forgiveness was incurred by God at the crucifixion. In other words, God had himself publicly tortured in order to demonstrate the 'cost' of his forgiveness. To borrow modern vernacular, EPIC FAIL on two counts. Firstly, since each sin committed by man is supposedly injurious to God, the cost had already been paid, and forgiveness could have been issued without bloody red tape. Secondly, if God is bound by rules (such as no forgiveness without 'cost' as the Bishop puts it) then where is his omnipotence?
You ask why God had to exact His pound of flesh. But in fact, it was US, the people, who did that. God sent us His Son. A beautiful man with a beautiful message. WE were the ones who partook in His death. WE were the ones who took God's son, killed Him, and then whipped out our dicks and pissed on the corpse. You'd better believe forgiveness comes with a cost. Don't confuse youself with GOD. WE, the people, are called to forgive without restitution. But judgement will be left to God. That is what it means to be obedient. I'll say it again: THAT is what it means to be obedient. The Bishop's words were powerful enough to silence even you. To make you think....to make you post this blog....and to make ME search it out.I can't answer your question. BUT I can assure you the mystery behind the whole PASSION OF THE CHRIST grounds itself on something far more profound (and far less shallow)....than the mere definiton of a word.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading my post and for taking the trouble to comment.
DeleteIf you wish to declare yourself personally responsible for a filthy act of mob murder, which allegedly took place twenty centuries before your birth, and which probably never took place at all, you are free to do so. I think your stance is ludicrous beyond comprehension but I acknowledge your right to adopt it. However, you will not, please, use the pronoun 'we' to imply that I am bound to share in such pathetic, narcissistic scapegoating.
Your infantile rant about god's judgement has a threatening tone. If you wish to make threats, please go ahead, but have the honesty and the guts to do so on your own behalf. Do not invoke an imaginary big-brother bully to do your threatening for you. That is not a respectable stance.
The bishop's words are not powerful, not profound and not very clever.
If there is meaningful profundity in the contradictory, morally reprehensible farrago of pulp fiction on which Christianity rests, kindly expound it. Unevidenced assertion is not enough.