In the church calender, the 27th of December is known as The Day of the Holy Innocents. This is the day for Christians to remember the death of the children of Israel after the birth of Jesus, as written in Matthew 2:13-18:
13When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” 14So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”[a]
16When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: 18“A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”
Many people dislike this day. Coming so close to Christmas, it is uncomfortable to remember that the birth of Jesus came at a great cost to the people of Israel. But at this time, remembering the slaughter of innocents is perhaps more important now than ever before. As of today, 14,880 to 17,076 Iraqui civillians have been killed. I do not begin to suggest that all these were innocent, but by ignoring the deaths of non-Americans, we are glamourizing war even more than we already have. Entire generations have been decimated. A culture is dying, and people are at continual peril. And, like many other crimes, it has been perptrated in the guise of justice and religion.
When I first began my "spiritual journey," one of the major things that turned me off of Christianity is the horrible history of the church. The Crusades, slavery, policies of non-involvement in multiple conflicts and wars, and the continual degredatation and belittlement of women are just a few of the things that come to mind when one mentions Christianity. Now, as a Christian, I find myself terribly bothered by non-Christians who use these arguements, the same arguements I used before to others and myself, to support their opinion that Christianity is at best antiquated and unneccessary, and at worst, evil and wrong.
There are some things to be learned from the history of Christianity, however, past the caveat of what should not be done again. One is that in every horrible historical event, there were those who perpetrated the travesty, and those who stood idly by and tolerated it. These people are equally guilty. At the same time, however, there has always been a minority in the movement who have known that what was being done was wrong, who have willingly sacrificed their freedom and lives to speak out against what they knew was wrong.
We can also learn that just as Judaism cannot be defined by the wars in Israel or genocide perpetrated against Jews and Islam cannot be defined by September 11th or political extremism, Christianity cannot be defined by the fringe groups who profess a hatred of anything that is different than they are--be it racially, sexually, religiously, or nationally. This is why, in my mind, there must be a clear difference between religion and faith. Religion is an organized group of people. Faith is personal. Some people use religion to strengthen their faith, others use faith to strengthen their religion. When it comes down to it, though, going to a place of religious worship does not make you a faith-ful person, just as going to a McDonald's doesn't make you a sandwich. (I know, old phrase, but it works.)
When I cultivated my faith and got to a point where I could freely participate in organized religion without allowing it to sway me in neither a positive nor negative direction, I realized that faith is an inward process. Without it, religion doesn't amount to anything more than ceremony, which, while interesting, is not usually that comforting. I also began to realize that there is nothing I can do about the history of the church and how people interpret it. All I can do is my best, which includes quiet reflection and faithfulness.
