THE POWER OF LOVE - MOHONDAS K. GANDHI AND NON-VIOLENCE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

by Rev. C. Anthony Hunt, D.Min., Ph.D.

 

(This public lecture was delievered at St. Mary’s Seminary and University, Baltimore, Maryland on February 10, 2012)

                    

Mohandas K. Gandhi was one of the few pesons in modern history to lead inthe struggle for human progress simultaneously on moral, religious, political and cultural fronts. His life and praxis of non-violence impacted many persons in india and across the world in the promotion of peace and love with jsutice, and continues to impact persons and institutions today.  With the ongoing proliferation of violence, war, local and global conflict, and geopolitical discord, Gandhi’s philosophy and praxis could be helpful in the discovery of non-violent approaches to conflict resolution and transformation in the 21^st century.

Huston Smith, in The World’s Religions offers that “the face of Hinduism for the West is Mohandas Gandhi.”  According to Smith, “Most responsible for awakening the West to (the realities of the East and the beauty of Hinduism) was a little man who weighed not much more than a hundred pounds and whose possessions when he died totaled two dollars.[1]  If his picture were to appear on this page it would be recognized immediately.  How many other portraits would be recognized universally?  Someone ventured a few years ago that there were only three: those of Charlie Chaplin, Mickey Mouse, and Mahatma Gandhi – “whose essence of being is great” as the title “mahatma” would be literally translated.

The achievement for which the world credited Gandhi was the British withdrawal from India in peace.  What is not as well-known is that among his own people, he lowered a barrier much more formidable than that of British colonialism in India, racism in the United States or Apartheid in South Africa, renaming and redefining “untouchables” in India as “harijan”, God’s Children, and raising them to human status.   

WITHOUT LOVE

(This is an exerpt of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 5/12/13)

“Though I understand all mysteries and all knowledge…. but have not love, I am nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:2)

This text is familiar to many of us because it is a part of what has come to be known as the “love chapter” in the Bible.  It is not uncommon for couples who are preparing to get married to scan the Bible for a scripture text that they wish to be read at their wedding ceremony, to park here are at 1 Corinthians 13 at these marvelous and challenging words attributed to the Apostle Paul.

There is no evidence that Paul intended for 1 Corinthians to become known as the “love chapter,” and the “wedding poem,” but upon close examination, his words speak to the very nature of love for those seeking to be in relationship within the context of the church, and for those of us seeking to understand love in our daily lives. 

On at least five occasions in this particular text, Paul juxtaposes love against various and sundry actions and activities that the people of his day might have understood and to which they might relate.  Paul here talks about the many gifts of the people of Corinth – gifts of tongues of mortals and of angels, gifts of prophecy, gifts of wisdom, gifts of faith, and gifts of charity.  But Paul shares that without love, none of these gifts really mean anything.  

Common Ground for the Common Good

Rev. C. Anthony Hunt, D.Min., Ph.D.

(This is the text of a public panel response/presentation given on April 9, 2012 at the Ecumenical Institute of Theology, St. Mary's Seminary and University in response to Rev. Jim Wallis's new book, On God's Side.)

 

I would venture to suggest that at the root of Protestantism is an ongoing quest for an appropriation of the common good.  Martin Luther’s call for the reformation of the church in the 16^th century seemed to signal a call for Christian communities to address matters of ecclesial, theological, and socio-political significance to the masses of people.    By its very nature Reformation faith and Protestantism served as a faithful protest against what was viewed – at least to some degree – as the perceived class abuses of the church and society – directed primarily toward the poor.  In as much as the Protestant Reformation was to become a protest against some of the practices of the church - as perceived by Luther and others - it would also become a framework for reforming and reframing some of the practices of Christianity in the search for common ground and the common good.    

The quest for such common good became one of the marks of enlightenment faith that would be the hallmark of early Protestantism in America.   Martin Marty intimates in his book Pilgrims in their Own Land, that although early 15^th and 16^th century settlers in the American colonies were largely “pilgrims of dissent,” what they shared was a common quest for freedom, and that colonists were “knit together by law, religion, and custom.”[1]

Addressing Educational Disparities in Urban Settings

          


Dietrich Bonheoffer, the great German theologian pointed out in the middle of the 20^th century that the test of the morality of a society is how it treats its children.  A statement of American abolitionist Frederick Douglas from more than century and a half ago sheds light on the critical importance of properly educating today’s urban young.  Douglas intimated that “literacy unfits a child for slavery.”  Similarly, today education unfits children for poverty, addiction and incarceration. 

It is important to give constructive attention to the education of children in urban areas because – as Marian Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund points out - urban children  face the higher likelihood of being abused and neglected, born into poverty, born without health insurance, killed by a firearm, or born to a teenage mother.  These figures are exacerbated for black and brown children in urban settings.[i] 

Easter - Howard Thurman

"... if stumbling in the darkness, having lost his or her way, one finds the spot at which they fell is the foot of a stairway that leads from darkness into light. Such is the glad surprise. This is what Easter means in the experience of the race. This is the resurrection! It is the announcement that life cannot ultimately be conquered by death, that there is no road that is at last swallowed up in an ultimate darkness, that there is strength added when the labors increase, that multiplied, peace matches multiplied trials, that life is bottomed by the glad surprise. Take courage, therefore:
'When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father's full giving is only begun.'"

WHEN VIOLENCE ABOUNDS: OUR CALL TO ACTION AGAINST VIOLENCE

(This essay was first published as an article in the United Methodist Connection of the Baltimore-Washington Conference in June 1999. It was also published by the United Methodist News Service, and as a chapter in my 2006 book, 'And Yet the Melody Lingers; Essays, Semons and Prayers on Religion and Race.")


The recent acts of violence that have littered our national and local news should heighten our collective conscious and raise our level of concern. The trial and acquittal of four police officers charged in the death of Amadou Diallo is but the latest episode that serves to remind us of the pervasiveness of violence and hatred in our midst. While the issues surrounding Diallo’s death – a West African immigrant who was shot 41 times while unarmed in New York – notably points to the problems underlying some zero-tolerance enforcement policies, and rogue police officers involved in acts of brutality, other instances also serve to point to the permeation of violence in our midst.

Whether it is a 6-year-old boy who brings a gun into a Michigan school and kills his first-grade classmate, or two promising high school seniors in Washington, DC who are gunned down after a basketball game, or a Pennsylvania man who fatally shoots three persons because of his alleged anti-white and anti-Jewish views, we find a plethora of evidence pointing to an increasingly violent society.

Violence abounds. Whether it’s the death of Taisha Miller, the young African American woman murdered by police while sitting in her car in California, or James Byrd, an African American man who was dragged behind a truck to his death by white supremacists in Texas, or Matthew Shepherd - the young college student who - because of his sexual identity - was beaten, hung on a pole and left to die in Wyoming - violence is all around us.

The problem of violence is complex and multi-dimensioned to say the least. The death of Amadou Diallo – and the lack of justice (heretofore) for those who murdered him - points to the prevalence of racism in America. Racism has resulted in a double-standard in many policing practices. These practices are the by-products of policies that tout decreasing inner-city crime rates – but often at the expense of the selective interrogation and arrest of innocent persons of color who fit certain profiles – particularly African American males.

Several other factors seem to be complicit in the recent wave of violence in America. Widening economic disparities between the rich and the poor contribute to the escalating violence. We observe that a disproportionate number of those who are victims, as well as many of the alleged perpetrators of violent acts are a part of America’s under-class.

Additionally, the continued right-wing political influence of the gun lobby – spearheaded by the National Rifle Association - seems intent on keeping guns in the hands of any person – of any age – who for any reason wants to possess a handgun. Furthermore – violence in the media and in cyber-space serve as breeding grounds for a preponderance of the intolerance and violent acts that are carried out among us.

What is the church’s response when violence abounds? First it is incumbent upon the United Methodist Church as a community of the faithful to affirm that the problem of violence in American society is the church’s problem. The apostle James shared that “faith without works is not faith at all.” John Wesley’s notion of social holiness – that we are to “reform the nation and spread Scriptural holiness” - helps us to see that the United Methodist Church is to be prophetically and actively engaged in speaking and acting to eradicate the societal ills that plague us.

Secondly, we must affirm that the problem of violence is shared by all of us. As one of the most diverse communities of faith in the United States, we who are United Methodists are challenged to realize that whether in the city or the suburbs, violence - and its underlying forms of hatred - whether racism, homophobia, sexism or any other forms of xenophobia - must be viewed as our collective dilemma. Violence touches all of our lives, our families and our churches.

Therefore, solving the problem of violence in America is our shared responsibility. Each of our churches - and each member of the United Methodist Church - should prayerfully consider ways that we can constructively address the problem of violence among us. Our collective prayers and thoughts should then spawn us into prophetic social action.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. placed the matter of our faith within the context of peace and justice. King said, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension, but it is the presence of justice.” As we strive to become a just church and society, may we all seek to be the peacemakers that Christ calls us to be.

Now the Work of Christmas Really Begins...

(From "The Mood of Christmas" by Dr. Howard Thurman)