Deus Lo Vult: Part III
Religions Uncivil Wars
With week three of this project competed and some of the background colors established, the character of the painting is coming alive. All the design elements have been blocked in and the canvas has been completely covered. This coming week will mark the halfway point in the completion of "Deus Lo Vult."
Just this past week as I was painting the crusader’s there was yet another deadly violent act unfolding in the Middle East. In the very heart of Jerusalem a lone gunman entered a rabbinical seminary and unleashed his "religious" passion on more innocent victims. Here briefly is that news headline.
JERUSALEM - A Palestinian gunman entered the library of a rabbinical seminary and opened fire on a crowded nighttime study session Thursday, killing eight people and wounding dozens of others before he was killed, police and rescue workers said. It was the first militant attack in Jerusalem in more than four years. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip praised the operation, and thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza to celebrate.
MSNBC News Services :updated 5:00 p.m. ET, Thurs., March. 6, 2008
Religious differences always seem to bring out the worst in humankind. The headline above is another very recent example of how the children of Abraham just don’t know how to co-exist with each another in the land flowing of milk and honey as God described it in Scripture.
Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do [it]; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.
Religious fanatics have made that same land "the land that floweth as Bloody Mary’s." The sons of Abraham have turned it into some Jerry Springer religious three ring circus. In part II of Deus lo Vult, I spoke a little about how Jesus was the most dangerous zealot of all because His zeal was directed at religious self righteousness and intolerance. Jesus challenged the religious authorities and spoke of the Kingdom of God unlike any has ever heard. His proclaiming of God’s eschatological Kingdom was couched in religious imagery void of the pious attitudes and language that organized religion has always failed to understand. He spoke of a borderless Kingdom that lives and breathes among the living as it is filled with a Spirit that transcends human rivalries. Yet human rivalries seem to be conceived in the religiosity of who’s god is bigger. Religion seems to testosterones seductive harlot and weakness.
Modern Day Crusaders and Ground Zero
The shadow of the Crusades are still in the news today. President Bush once made the mistake of referring to the war against terrorism as a "crusade" and was roundly criticized. It seems uttering this word is still both offensive and hurtful to the world’s Muslims. Yet considering how often the Arabs themselves make use of the word themselves it would seem some of our Middle Eastern friends should take refuge from the hot desert climate. Osama bin Laden has repeatedly referred to Americans as "crusaders" and the present war as a "crusade against Islam." For decades now Americans have been routinely referred to as "crusaders" or "cowboys" among Arabs in the Middle East. Clearly the crusades are very much alive in the Muslim world as they are in the Christian world. The only difference today is CNN is on scene to record the horrendous bloodletting of Abrahams prodigies.
It is commonly accepted that the Crusades are a black mark on the history of Western civilization generally and the Catholic Church in particular. Anyone eager to bash Catholics and is familiar with history will ultimately connect the dots leading to the Crusades and the Inquisition. The Crusades are often used as a classic example of the evil that organized religion can do. The perceptions of the average man on the street in New York and Tehran would agree that the Crusades were an insidious, cynical, and unprovoked attack by religious zealots against a peaceful, prosperous, and sophisticated Muslim world. The truth is what the Muslims world use to celebrate as a great victory has been overshadowed by the re-writing of that same history that fears modern day imperialism. So the Crusades have become wars of aggression and the Muslims have quietly assumed the role of victim and victor.
During the Middle Ages you could not find a Christian in Europe who did not believe that the Crusades were an act or a commission from God of the highest good. Given their own sense of honor the Muslims respected the ideals of the Crusades and the piety of the men who fought them. But that all changed with the coming of the Protestant Reformation. For Martin Luther, who had already jettisoned the Christian doctrines of papal authority and indulgences, the Crusades were nothing more than a ploy by a power-hungry papacy. What began as a sermon by Pope Urban II in 1095 and echoed in his cry of "God wills it" gradually became swallowed up by Reformation era and Luther.
The spirit and ghosts of the Crusades are alive and well this very day and hour. Civilization may have advanced by leaps and bounds but the raw ignorant mentality of religious right and wrong’s lives on in different faces. Several days ago in the library of a rabbinical seminary in the heart of Jerusalem, eight Jewish students stared back into the evil face of uncontrolled religious zealotry. It would be the last face they would ever see as they left this world in the name of some god or religious ideal at the hand of one of the children of Abraham. Executed by that same two thousand year old principle of would you be willing to kill for god.
Remember Abraham answered yes to that call and many countless other’s up till this very day have followed in his footsteps of so great a faith.
James Robert Kessler
Because of Him Art Ministry 2008
Religions Uncivil Wars
With week three of this project competed and some of the background colors established, the character of the painting is coming alive. All the design elements have been blocked in and the canvas has been completely covered. This coming week will mark the halfway point in the completion of "Deus Lo Vult."
Just this past week as I was painting the crusader’s there was yet another deadly violent act unfolding in the Middle East. In the very heart of Jerusalem a lone gunman entered a rabbinical seminary and unleashed his "religious" passion on more innocent victims. Here briefly is that news headline.
JERUSALEM - A Palestinian gunman entered the library of a rabbinical seminary and opened fire on a crowded nighttime study session Thursday, killing eight people and wounding dozens of others before he was killed, police and rescue workers said. It was the first militant attack in Jerusalem in more than four years. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip praised the operation, and thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza to celebrate.
MSNBC News Services :updated 5:00 p.m. ET, Thurs., March. 6, 2008
Religious differences always seem to bring out the worst in humankind. The headline above is another very recent example of how the children of Abraham just don’t know how to co-exist with each another in the land flowing of milk and honey as God described it in Scripture.
Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do [it]; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.
Religious fanatics have made that same land "the land that floweth as Bloody Mary’s." The sons of Abraham have turned it into some Jerry Springer religious three ring circus. In part II of Deus lo Vult, I spoke a little about how Jesus was the most dangerous zealot of all because His zeal was directed at religious self righteousness and intolerance. Jesus challenged the religious authorities and spoke of the Kingdom of God unlike any has ever heard. His proclaiming of God’s eschatological Kingdom was couched in religious imagery void of the pious attitudes and language that organized religion has always failed to understand. He spoke of a borderless Kingdom that lives and breathes among the living as it is filled with a Spirit that transcends human rivalries. Yet human rivalries seem to be conceived in the religiosity of who’s god is bigger. Religion seems to testosterones seductive harlot and weakness.
Modern Day Crusaders and Ground Zero
The shadow of the Crusades are still in the news today. President Bush once made the mistake of referring to the war against terrorism as a "crusade" and was roundly criticized. It seems uttering this word is still both offensive and hurtful to the world’s Muslims. Yet considering how often the Arabs themselves make use of the word themselves it would seem some of our Middle Eastern friends should take refuge from the hot desert climate. Osama bin Laden has repeatedly referred to Americans as "crusaders" and the present war as a "crusade against Islam." For decades now Americans have been routinely referred to as "crusaders" or "cowboys" among Arabs in the Middle East. Clearly the crusades are very much alive in the Muslim world as they are in the Christian world. The only difference today is CNN is on scene to record the horrendous bloodletting of Abrahams prodigies.
It is commonly accepted that the Crusades are a black mark on the history of Western civilization generally and the Catholic Church in particular. Anyone eager to bash Catholics and is familiar with history will ultimately connect the dots leading to the Crusades and the Inquisition. The Crusades are often used as a classic example of the evil that organized religion can do. The perceptions of the average man on the street in New York and Tehran would agree that the Crusades were an insidious, cynical, and unprovoked attack by religious zealots against a peaceful, prosperous, and sophisticated Muslim world. The truth is what the Muslims world use to celebrate as a great victory has been overshadowed by the re-writing of that same history that fears modern day imperialism. So the Crusades have become wars of aggression and the Muslims have quietly assumed the role of victim and victor.
During the Middle Ages you could not find a Christian in Europe who did not believe that the Crusades were an act or a commission from God of the highest good. Given their own sense of honor the Muslims respected the ideals of the Crusades and the piety of the men who fought them. But that all changed with the coming of the Protestant Reformation. For Martin Luther, who had already jettisoned the Christian doctrines of papal authority and indulgences, the Crusades were nothing more than a ploy by a power-hungry papacy. What began as a sermon by Pope Urban II in 1095 and echoed in his cry of "God wills it" gradually became swallowed up by Reformation era and Luther.
The spirit and ghosts of the Crusades are alive and well this very day and hour. Civilization may have advanced by leaps and bounds but the raw ignorant mentality of religious right and wrong’s lives on in different faces. Several days ago in the library of a rabbinical seminary in the heart of Jerusalem, eight Jewish students stared back into the evil face of uncontrolled religious zealotry. It would be the last face they would ever see as they left this world in the name of some god or religious ideal at the hand of one of the children of Abraham. Executed by that same two thousand year old principle of would you be willing to kill for god.
Remember Abraham answered yes to that call and many countless other’s up till this very day have followed in his footsteps of so great a faith.
James Robert Kessler
Because of Him Art Ministry 2008
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