Category Archives: Religion

June 12, 2015 · 15:16

ISIL, the Caliphate and Manifest Destiny: Two sides of the Same Coin

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Today another section of my Gettysburg Staff Ride text, taken from the second introductory chapter which deals with how religion and ideology plays a huge role in conflict and how it was used during the American Civil War. This section discusses how a people’s worldview is strongly linked to culture and religion. It deals with the rather uncomfortable truth that the Islamic concept of the Caliphate differs little from the American idea of Manifest Destiny, a concept which may have created our nation as we know it but in practice was as barbaric and dishonorable as nearly conquering power has ever done, in fact there are many on the political right in this country, especially the Christian Right who are apologists for what occurred in the past and who advocate more of the same now.

This might be an uncomfortable read for some people, and I hope that is the case. Of course in no way am I condoning anything that the Islamic State is doing in its quest to create a Caliphate, that needs to be condemned and fought wherever possible, preferably by the people most affected by it, the Arabs.

But the truth is, religiously based imperialism, be it Manifest Destiny or the Islamic State’s dream of a Caliphate are two sides of the same coin of evil.

So with that I bid you a happy Friday.

Peace

Padre Steve+

One can never separate war and the means by which it is fought from its political ends. According to Clausewitz, war is an extension or continuation of politics. Of course Clausewitz understood the term politics or policy in the light of the concept of a “World View” or to use the German term Weltanschauung. The term is not limited to doctrine or party politics, but it encompasses the worldview of a people or culture. The world view is oft used by the political, media and religious leadership of countries and can be quite instrumental in the decision by a people to go to war; who they war against, their reasons for going to war, the means by which they fight the war, and the end state that they envision. This concept includes racial, religious, cultural, economic and social dimensions of a worldview.

One of the problems that modern Americans and Western Europeans have is that we tend to look at the world, particularly in terms of politics and policy, be it foreign or domestic, through a prism from which we cannot see the forest for the trees. We look at individual components of issues such as economic factors, military capabilities, existing political systems, diplomatic considerations and the way societies get information in isolation from each other. We dissect them, we analyze them, and we do a very good job in examining and evaluating each individual component; but we often do this without understanding the world view and ideological factors that link how a particular people, nation or party understand these components of policy.

Likewise policy makers tend to take any information they receive and interpret it through their own worldview. This is true even if they have no idea what their world-view is or how they came to it. Most often a worldview is absorbed over years. Barbara Tuchman wrote “When information is relayed to policy-makers, they respond in terms of what is already inside their heads and consequently make policy less to fit the facts than to fit the notions and intentions formed out of the mental baggage that has accumulated in their minds since childhood.” [1]

Policy makers often fail to see just how interconnected the most primal elements of the human experience are to the worldview of others as well as their own.

Because of this, many policy makers, be they military or civilian do not understand how critical the understanding of worldview is to designing effective polices. Likewise, many fail to see how the world view of others influence their application of economic, political, diplomatic and military power as well as the use and dissemination of information in their nation or culture. This is true no matter which religion or sect is involved, even if a people or nation is decidedly secular, or at least outwardly non-religious.

Perhaps this is because we do not want to admit that our Western culture itself is very much a product of primal religious beliefs which informed politics, philosophy, ethics, law, economics, views of race, and even the arts for nearly two millennia. Perhaps it is because we are justifiably appalled and maybe even embarrassed at the excesses and brutality of our ancestors in using religion to incite the faithful to war; to use race and religion justification to subjugate or exterminate peoples that they found to be less than human; or to punish and conquer heretics.

The United States Military made a belated attempt to address ideology, culture and religion in terms of counter-insurgency doctrine when it published the U.S. Army/Marine Counterinsurgency Manual. The discussion of these issues is limited to two pages that specifically deal with various extreme Moslem groups that use that religion as a pillar of their ideology, strategy and operations. But the analysis in the counterinsurgency manual of is limited because its focus is very general and focused at a tactical level.

Likewise the analysis of world view, ideology and religion in the counterinsurgency manual is done in an “us versus them” manner. While the manual encourages leaders to attempt to understand the cultural differences there is little in it to help leaders to understand why this understanding of religion and ideology is important at the strategic and operational levels of war.

Commendably, the manual discusses how terrorist and insurgent groups use ideology, which is frequently based on religion to create a narrative. The narrative often involves a significant amount of myth presented as history, both Al Qaida and ISIL use the idea of the Caliphate as a religious and political ideal to achieve, because for many Moslems the idea of the Caliphate “produces a positive image of the golden age of Islamic civilization.” [2]

But Islam is not the only religion to do this. Most Americans are blind as to how previous generations Americans have used the Christian religion and race as a theological tool to justify subjugating other peoples and how that impacts us today. Beginning with the “landing of the Mayflower Pilgrims, the notion that the British colonies in the New World had been founded with divine assistance, in order to fulfill a providential mission, was commonly accepted.” [3] The idea that it was God’s will for White Protestant settlers to push west, conquer and settle the continent of North America crystalized in the term Manifest Destiny. This concept was what motivated Americans to move into lands claimed by Britain as well as those which belonged to Mexico. The fact that the lands belong to other nations “was a small matter…Because most Americans considered it their “manifest destiny” to absorb these regions into the United States.” [4] There was a hunger in the land for more and Congressman John L. O’Sullivan, the inventor of the phrase proclaimed “Yes, more, more, more!….More…till our national destiny is fulfilled and…the whole boundless continent is ours.” [5]

The issue came to a head when American settlers moved into Mexican territory in what is not Texas. The Mexican government allowed the settlers on the provision that they would become Catholic and swear allegiance to Mexico. The settlers did this but had no intention of honoring their word for they believed that their race and the Protestant religion they had denied to settle in Mexico “made them naturally superior to the mestizos – people of mixed Indian and European blood – who governed in the name of Mexico.” [6] This caused serious issues. Especially when the settlers, many of who were Southerners refused to give up their slaves when Mexico abolished slavery in 1829. The American colonists disregarded every agreement they had made with the Mexican government, they flouted the Catholic Church, and they refused to learn Spanish and refused to obey Mexican law. Eventually “their numbers dwarfed the tiny Mexican population of Texas.” [7]

One of the most prominent of the early settlers, Stephen Austin declared “for fifteen years, I have been laboring to Americanize Texas” noting that his enemies were a “population of Indians, Mexican and renegados, all mixed together, and all the natural enemies of white men and civilization.” [8] Eventually General Santa Anna attempted to seal the border between Texas and Louisiana to forestall the movement of any new settlers into the territory, but the move backfired and the Texans revolted and in the ensuing war secured their independence. The agreement pledged that Texas would remain an independent nation and not become part of the United States, but this agreement was broken as well and in 1845 Texas was admitted to the Union as a Slave State, furthering the cries of those advocating Manifest destiny for more. One Congressman asserted that:

“When God crowned American arms with success in the Revolution…he had not “designed the original States should be the only abode of liberty on earth. On the contrary, He only designed them as the great center from which civilization, religion, and liberty should radiate and radiate until the whole continent shall bask in their blessing.” [9]

The year after Texas joined the Union the administration of President James K. Polk provoked a war with Mexico which secured most of the rest of what we now know as the United States. In the process the Americans decided to violate treaties they had made with Native American tribes, and the “manifest destiny that represent hope for white Americans thus spelled doom for red Americans,” [10] and through war and disease the Americans decimated the Indian populations over the next fifty years.

A few voices were raised against the war with Mexico, former President John Quincy Adams said in the House of Representatives that in a war with Mexico “the banners of freedom will be the banners of Mexico; and your banners, I blush to speak the word, will be the banners of slavery.” [11] Abraham Lincoln doomed his reelection prospects in 1848 by condemn the war and criticizing President Polk. Alexander Stephens, a Southern Whig and later Vice President of the Confederacy assailed the President:

“The principle of waging war against a neighboring people to compel them to sale their country, is not only dishonorable, but disgraceful and infamous. What. Shall it be said that American honor aims at nothing higher than land…..never did I expect to live to see the day when the Executive of this country should announce that our honor was such a loathsome, beastly thing, that it could be satisfied with any achievements in arms, however brilliant and glorious, but must feed on the earth – gross, vile, dirt!” [12]

Walt Whitman prophetically noted that “the United States may conquer Mexico, but it will be as the man who swallows arsenic, which brings him down in turn. Mexico will poison us.” [13] Whitman would be proven right as it was the territorial acquisitions gained in the war with Mexico which lit the fuse which ignited the Civil War.

The deeply Christian and imperialist civil-religious concept of Manifest Destiny of can still be seen in pronouncements of some politicians, pundits and preachers who believe that that this is America’s mission in the world. Manifest Destiny is an essential element of the idea of American Exceptionalism which often has been the justification for much American foreign policy from the time of President McKinley. Former President George W. Bush alluded to this in his 2003 State of the Union Address, “that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.” [14] Throughout the Bush presidency the idea that God undergirded the policy of the United States led to a mismatch of policy ends and the means to accomplish them. Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. and historian Michael Oren wrote:

“Not inadvertently did Bush describe the struggle against Islamic terror as a “crusade to rid the world of evildoers.” Along with this religious zeal, however, the president espoused the secular fervor of the neoconservatives…who preached the Middle East’s redemption through democracy. The merging of the sacred and the civic missions in Bush’s mind placed him firmly in the Wilsonian tradition. But the same faith that deflected Wilson from entering hostilities in the Middle East spurred Bush in favor of war.” [15]

Policy makers and military leaders must realize that if they want to understand how culture and religious ideology drive others to conquer, subjugate and terrorize in the name of God, they first have to understand how our ancestors did the same thing. It is only when they do that that they can understand that this behavior and use of ideology for such ends is much more universal and easier to understand.

If one wants to see how the use of this compulsion to conquer in the name of God in American by a national leader one needs to go no farther than to examine the process whereby President McKinley, himself a veteran of the Civil War, decided to annex the Philippine in 1898 following the defeat of the Spanish. That war against the Filipinos that we had helped liberate from Spanish rule saw some of the most bloodthirsty tactics employed in fighting the Filipino insurgents, who merely wanted independence. It was a stain on our national honor which of which Mark Twain wrote: “There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive’s new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land. . .” [16]

A doubtlessly sincere McKinley sought counsel from God about whether he should annex the Philippines or not.

“He went down on his knees, according to his own account, and “prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance.” He was accordingly guided to conclude “that there was nothing left to do for us but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos. And uplift and civilize and Christianize them, by God’s grace to do the very best we could by them, as our fellowmen for whom Christ died.” [17]

On the positive side the counterinsurgency manual does mention how “Ideology provides a prism, including a vocabulary and analytical categories, through which followers perceive their situation.” [18] But again it does so at a micro-level and the lessons of it are not applied at the higher levels of strategic thinking and policy. This is often due to the fact that American and other Western policy makers “as a set of theological issues rather than as a profoundly political influence in public life.” [19] Even after nearly a decade and a half of unremitting war against enemies for whom religion is at the center of their politics policy makers still misread or neglect the importance of religion and religiously based ideology in the political motivations of their opponents. In many cases the religion of a people is stronger part of their identity than that of the state. Nations which were created during the post-colonial era “continue to see religion, clan, ethnicity, and other such factors as the markers of community identity.” [20]

Thus when faced with cultures for which religion provides the adhesive which binds each of these elements, such as the Islamic State or ISIL we attempt to deal with each element separately, as if they have no connection to each other. But that is where we err, for even if the religious cause or belief has little grounding in fact, science or logic, and may be the result of a culture’s attempt to seize upon mythology to build a new reality, it is, in the words of Reggie Jackson the “straw that stirs the drink” and to ignore or minimize it is to doom our efforts to combat its proponents.

Perhaps that is because people do not like to look at themselves and their own history in the mirror. People tend to be uncomfortable when the face that they see in the mirror is face too similar to those they oppose, especially those who are perfectly willing to commit genocide in the name of their God. It really does not matter if one holds a predominantly secularist worldview and lives a secular lifestyle, or if one is religious yet embarrassed by the religiously motivated criminal actions of their forefathers, the result is strikingly and tragically similar; it makes them blind to the religious motivations of others and causes them to misread events in often tragic ways.

Notes

[1] Tuchman, Barbara W. Practicing History Alfred A. Knopf, New Your 1981 p.289

[2] ___________ U.S. Army/ Marine Counterinsurgency Field Manual FM 3-24 MCWP 3-33.5 15 December 2006 with and forward by General David A Petraeus and General James Amos, Konecky and Konecky, Old Saybrook CT 2007 p.26

[3] Gonzalez, Justo L. The History of Christianity Volume 2: The Reformation to the Present Day Harper and Row Publishers San Francisco 1985 p.246

[4] McPherson, James. The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 1988 p.42

[5] Ibid. McPherson The Battle Cry of Freedom p.48

[6] Ibid. Gonzales The History of Christianity Volume 2 p.248

[7] Guelzo Allen C. Fateful Lightening: A New History of the Civil War Era and Reconstruction Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 2012 p.59

[8] Ibid. Gonzales The History of Christianity Volume 2 p.248

[9] Ibid. McPherson The Battle Cry of Freedom p.48

[10] Ibid. McPherson The Battle Cry of Freedom p.48

[11] Ibid. Gonzales The History of Christianity Volume 2 p.249

[12] Ibid. Guelzo Fateful Lightening: p.63

[13] Ibid. McPherson The Battle Cry of Freedom p.51

[14] Bush, George W. State of the Union Address Washington D.C. January 28^th 2003 retrieved from Presidential Rhetoric.com http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/01.28.03.html 10 June 2015

[15] Oren, Michael Power, Faith and Fantasy: America and the Middle East 1776 to the Present W.W. Norton and Company, New York and London 2007 p.584

[16] Twain, Mark To the Person Sitting in Darkness February 1901 Retrieved from The World of 1898: The Spanish American War The Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/twain.html 12 December 2014

[17] Ibid. Tuchman Practicing History p.289

[18] Ibid. U.S. Army/ Marine Counterinsurgency Field Manual p.27

[19] Rubin, Barry Religion in International Affairs in Religion: The Missing Dimension of Statecraft Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 1994 p.20

[20] Ibid. Rubin Religion in International Affairs p.22

2 Comments

Filed under civil war, History, middle east, national security, News and current events, Political Commentary, Religion

Tagged as abraham lincoln, alexander stephens, american exceptionalism, carl von clausewitz, isil, Islamic Caliphate, james polk, john quincy adams, manifest destiny, president george w bush, stephen austin, texas independence, walt whitman, war with mexico, weltungschauung, william mckinley, woodrow wi

May 22, 2015 · 11:04

Mr. Jefferson BUILD UP THAT WALL!

I don’t know about you but I am sick and tired of people, no matter what their religious belief in this country who use the Constitutionally protections extended to religious freedom in manners that the founders of our country never would have imagined. The fact that those basic religious freedoms are not in danger in any way is irrelevant to true believers who in their insecurity need to create new laws specifically crafted to allow them to discriminate against others based on their supposedly sincere religious beliefs. Sadly, and I say this as a Christian, the vast majority of people doing this are people that claim to be Christians.

Thomas Jefferson in his wonderful letter to the Virginia Baptist Association in 1808, in a letter the echoed his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of of 1802 in which he referred that the legislature in enacting the dual provisions of religious liberty in the Constitution had built up “a wall of separation between Church and State” noted:

“Because religious belief, or non belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. Religious institutions that use government power to support themselves and force their views of other faiths, or no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Morever, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption in religion itself. Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.”

You see my friends, Jeferson and the other courageous men who so carefully crafted this wall of separation had real experience with the abuses by church-state and the incestuous clergy who used state power to prop up themselves and their churches and to persecution those that refused to submit to their control. Likewise there were religious groups in the recently independent former colonies like the Baptists who in Virginia and other states, as well as the Quakers in Massachusetts who were victims of such persecution, and they were determined not to let it happen here through the marriage of church and state.

In fact Jefferson was was convinced that no specific God or religion be established, and not only in the Constitution of the United States, but in his own home state, the Commonwealth of Virginia. There Jefferson authored the Virginia a religious liberty bill which was passed, but which met with considerable opposition from faithful Christians. Reflecting on that legislation Jefferson wrote this in 1821:

“[When] the [Virginia] bill for the establishment of religious freedom…was finally passed,…a singular proposition proved that it’s protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the holy author of our religion, an ammendment was proposed, by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.” The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof tha they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahamoten, the Hindoo and the infidel of every denomination.”

Sadly, jefferson’s words are twisted, rejected and even despised by the authors of the Religious Liberty Resoration Acts being enacted in state houses around the country. Not only are the state legislatures enacting laws meant only to provide Christians the protection and the police power of the state to discriminate against any person, or group based on religious belief. Our founders, especially Jefferson and Madison who have found that incomprehensible, but then they would certainly not be surprised because they had seen it and lived under it during the English Adminstration of the colonies. They also understood human nature very well.

Thus I think that we should applaud Thomas Jefferson and like Christopher Hitchens exclaim “Mr. Jefferson. BUILD UP THAT WALL!”

However that wall is being torn down by the descendants of Christians who longed to be free from the coercion and evil wrought by the marriage of church and state, a marriage which Jefferson so wisely noted harmed the church as much as the state.

I have spent the better part of my adult life as a military chaplain defending and protecting the rights of others to their free exercise of reglion whether or not I agreed with them. I held and still hold that to be a sacred duty of my commission and office. I can also state that even most people who did not agree with regarding my beliefs respected me and still consult me because first they knew that I cared about them and secondly that they knew that I would do all within my power to protect their freedom the excercise their religion, or to have no religion and not to be penalized for it.

But that being said I have found that I am increasingly isolated by the fervent relionists who have highjacked the understanding of religious freedom to mean theirs and only theirs and who use the battering ram of the legislature to destroy Mr. Jefferson’s “Wall.” Sadly they are to blind to see that their actions are a two-edged sword which once precedence has been established can be turned on them with a vengeance.

Last night I was watching one of my favorite television series, Boston Legal. My favorite character in the show is the lawyer played by James Spader, one Alan Shore. In the episode Whose God is it Anyway Spader’s character is defending a friend form charges or religious discrimination in the workplace, and his character, Alan Shore delivers this remarkable closing, which because of the unrelenting actions of many of my Christian Brothers and Sisters in putting their rights and privileges as Christians over those of other citizens. That my friends is profoundly dangerous.

By doing so they through their intense hubris not only harm others as they attempt to control them by the police power of the state but damage their own credibility and the religious liberty of Americans yet to be born. It is no wonder that this generation of American Christianity is shedding members at a rate never seen in this country before, and driving those who they might want to bring to faith away. But I digress…

In that episode of Boston Legal something that I wish I had thought of and said years ago and which I am certain that if Jefferson, Madison and so many of our founders would agree with if they had lived to see the depths of dishonesty of Christian individuals, businesses and legislatures have sunk in their abuse of others through their unremitting pursuit of their religious freedom. That is not just at home where they enact laws allowing them to discriminate, but through their apocalyptic machinations to bring the world to war killing billions of people just so Jesus will come back. Though they would deny it, their ultimate goals, albeit in the name of a different God, are little different than that the Islamic State, Al Qaida, the Iranian Mullahs or Hezbollah. That my friends should scare the living shit out of any rational person.

So here is that closing:

“I don’t know about you but I’m getting a little tired of the religious freedom thing. When did religion get such a good name anyway. Be it the Crusades, the reformation genocides, the troubles in Northern Ireland, the Middle East, mass slaughters in the name of Allah, the obligatory reciprocal retributions. Hundreds of millions have died in religious conflicts. Hitler did his business in the name of his creator. Religious extremism, it’s our greatest threat today, a holy jihad. If we’re not ready to strip religion of its sacred cow status, how about we at least scale back on the Constitutoional dogma exalting it as all get out….

Everyone should get to believe in his God, pray to his God, worship his God of course. But to impose him on others, to victimize others in his name? The founding fathers set out to prevent persecution, not license it…

At a certain point we have to say “enough with this freedom of religion crap. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I know, I’ll get letters….”

To that I can only say “Amen!”

So with that I bid you a good day.

Peace

Padre Steve+

Tears for Ramadi

“We had been hopelessly labouring to plough waste lands; to make nationality grow in a place full of he certainty of God…among the tribes our creed could be only like the desert grass – a beautiful swift seeming of spring, which, after a day’s heat, fell dusty.” T.E. Lawrence

Tonight I write about Ramadi, a place where I spent some of the best worst days of my life. A place where like T.E. Lawrence I gave of myself to help the Arabs, in my case the Iraqi tribes, in his those of the Arabian Peninsula.

My life was changed forever in Iraq and in my time there I came to appreciate the Iraqis that I met.

I am not writing tonight to talk a bunch of military-political analysis, God knows that I do enough of that as it is. As my own life settles down I probably will do this, but with just a couple of observations will avoid that tonight. It will suffice to say that Ramadi, the capital of Al Anbar Province fell to the Islamic State over the weekend. The city has been besieged for months by ISIL forces and fell to them, surviving military and police units fled the onslaught accompanied by thousands of residents. The Iraqi Governmnet claims that it will retake Ramadi and the local Sunni government officials are now reluctantly supporting the introduction of the Iranian backed Shia militias which recently recaptured Tikrit. The significance of this cannot be overstated, the people of Ramadi are caught between the Sunni fanatics of ISIL and the the Shia dominated central government in Bahgdad who they neither love or trust and with good reason.

I have no doubt that eventually the Iraq government supported by the Shia militias will re-take Ramadi for the city is far too important to be allowed to remain until ISIL control. But it will not happen overnight and the battle will be fought to the death between the radical Sunni and the radical Shia whose bloodlust and hatred of each other will create an even more catastrophic situation for those who cannot escape the city or who have been forced into refugee camps or into the open desert.

When I think of the appalling decision of the Bush administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein, his Ba’ath Party and military, which is the major reason this is now happening I get very angry. I think of the thousands of American Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen, as well as those of our coalition allies and the Iraqis who lost everything by supporting us and I weep. I still see the carnage, devastation inflicted by us on Iraq, as well as that done by the Al Qaida Iraq insurgents and the suffering of the people of Anbar whenever I close my eyes and try to sleep.

We did hope for better days, especially after the Anbar Sunnis rose up against AQI and helped us drive them out. However, that hope was like the desert grass, squandered by the inept, corrupt and insanely treacherous Maliki regime which as soon as it could turned on the Anbar Sunni in 2010 and 2011 and planted the seeds of another, even more viscious insurgency.

Iraq is now ground zero in the war being waged between Sunni and Shia Islam, a war which will devastate the Middle East much as the Thirty Years War waged by warring factions of Catholic and Protestant Christians did to Europe. Like that war it is a war which will go on until the borders are sealed by the blood of hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of Arabs, sadly including the best and brightest of this and maybe the next generation, the very people who like men like me dreamed dreams.

Today the places that were often my home away from home, places that we Americans new as Ramadi Main, Blue Diamond, the Shark’s Tooth, and so many others are under ISIL control. Places like Hit, Haditha, Ar Rutbah. Al Qaim, Waleed, Korean Village, Fallujah, Habbinyah are either under the control of ISIL or besieged. I travelled thousands of miles across Anbar working with our advisors and Iraqis, it is so much a part of me, and so tonight my heart breaks for the people of Ramadi and Al Anbar.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under History, iraq, Loose thoughts and musings, Political Commentary, Religion, remembering friends

Tagged as al anbar province, iraq, isil, ramadi, shia islam, sunni islam

May 15, 2015 · 10:38

Friday Interuptions

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Interruptions are the spice of life. Carl Von Clausewitz talked about war being “the province of chance” and of course that can be a metaphor for life. Shit happens and even the best laid plans of mice and men get way layer and mangled. Old dead Carl wrote that “chance makes everything more uncertain and interferes with the whole course of events” and that my friends has been my week so far.

Of course as you know we lost our oldest and best furry child Molly on Monday which hit us hard. There is something else which I cannot say much about right now that is a source of concern for us, and then this morning as I wow working away we lost power at the staff college when a transformer blew. That interrupted work on my latest Gettysburg chapter revision and has forced a retirement ceremony for my friend Commander Lisa Rose to be moved outside.

Lisa’s retirement ceremony will be special. Lisa is a great nurse who I worked with at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth back in 2008-2010. Back then while I was struggling with faith and life while working 80 to 100 hours a week, mostly in the ICU, Lisa who was Nurse Manager for our Inpatient Oncology Unit would put her arm around me and tell me to go home. Lisa is a tremendous Christian who lives her faith in a real and powerful way. She had to live most of her military life wondering if someone was going to try to get her kicked out of the Navy during the days of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell edict, something that gave a modicum of protection for Gay and Lesbian service members but did not protect them from the witch hunts of those who hate them. As such Lisa was not able to have her wife Karen attend functions that most of us consider routine for families to attend. Today was special because not only is Lisa a friend, but like the rest of us her wife was finally able to be honored like other military spouses who devote so much of their lives to their spouse’s careers. That meant a lot to me and it is an honor to be a part of her ceremony. I’m sure I will shed some tears today.

After the ceremony I will likely be heading home for the day, unless power comes back. We have already dismissed our students and because to much of what we do is dependent on technology there is almost nothing I can do.

Since I was bored I got on Facebook and tweaked some preachy preacher’s post on a friend’s page, sending him into a theological rage which has given me much ammo for a future blog post. The guy got so spun up so I tweaked him more and he just didn’t get the irony, or the humor of what I was doing. But sadly that is the base line for religious extremists of any persuasion. They cannot deal with history, humanity, or life, so they spend their lives building theological fortresses that make in impossible for the undesirables to enter and from which the cast aspersions and condemnation on all that disagree with them. But I digress…

So, that said it is time to get suited up and get ready for the ceremony and probably an early beer. As we know, beer is good, and as Oscar Wilde said “work is the curse of the drinking classes.”

Let the games begin.

Peace

Padre Steve+

3 Comments

Filed under faith, History, Just for fun, Military, Religion

Tagged as chance, clausewitz, fundamentalism, realm of chance, Religion, religious extremists

April 13, 2015 · 00:00

Doubt, Faith and Realism: Doubting Thomas

Yesterday I celebrated Eucharist on the Second Sunday of Easter its a number of m students and their families at our Staff College Chapel. I have to say that I love what do, I never will regret following the call that I first felt aboard the USS Frederick (LST-1184) back in 1978 to become a Navy Chaplain.

Of course was with everything in my life it has not been easy, and to quote Jerry Garcia I have to admit “what a long strange trip it’s been.” Bug my friends I digress…

That being said, today was a specially day. I was able to celebrate Eucharist with some very nice people and today the Gospel lesson, from the final chapter of John centered on the story of St. Thomas, or he is better know among most people today, “Doubting Thomas.”

The interesting thing is that unlike most “true believers” today Thomas was not rejected by the other disciples as they testified to the resurrection, nor by Jesus himself. Thomas you see was a realist who wanted proof. Thomas wanted to put his hand in the wounds of Jesus, the same Jesus who he knew was crucified and dead. As a realist, Thomas know that dead is dead and unless as he told the other disciples, unless he could put his hand in the wounds of Jesus he would not believe.

Personally, I admire that, more than most people could imagine. Faith is faith, it is not about having to absolutely know, but is about trust, about belief even when you cannot prove it, otherwise it would not be faith. That is why when I see those who have to prove that the absolute certitude that they call “faith” is “absolute truth” I realize that they have totally missed the point of the Gospel.

Having gone through a period of almost two years where as a priest and chaplain I was for all practical purposes an agnostic hoping that God existed I understand this. In fact I have to admit that even today I doubt as much as I believe. I totally understand Thomas, and in fact not only understand, but feel a special kinship with this much maligned follower of Jesus.

Truthfully I think that doubt is a very good thing, it keeps us honest, it keeps us from becoming pious, arrogant, religious assholes who think that they know it all.

Truthfully, I don’t know it all. In fact, as the late Earl Weaver said, “it’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” At least that seems to be the case for Thomas and the other disciples because what happened with Jesus and the resurrection blew their minds, it was not anything that they could fathom.

Perhaps Thomas, having not been one of the first witnesses to the resurrection was actually more circumspect and a bit more like us than the disciples who first saw Jesus following his crucifixion and resurrection. I would actually saw more honest, for in fact Thomas was a realist who refused to believe unless he had some kind of physical evidence. That my friends I appreciate more than I ever did, because even though Thomas saw Jesus, talked with him and had Jesus show him his wounds, Thomas only believed when he saw and touched those wounds. I cannot condemn nor can I question the faith of the man who is most identified with doubt.

Doubt is not bad. As the late Father Andrew Greeley wrote in his novel The Bishop and the Beggar Girl of St. Germain:

“Most priests, if they have any sense or any imagination, wonder if they truly believe all the things they preach. Like Jean-Claude they both believe and not believe at the same time.”

That my friends is faith. That is Easter, if we knew it absolutely it would not be faith and that would be against everything proclaimed by those that first followed Jesus. In fact if we claim with absolute certitude that we know everything needed to be right with God and that we know exactly what God desires, we are probably liars, or at the minimum sadly deluded. As the late Father Henri Nouwen wrote:

“Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God’s incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.”

I think this is something that Thomas and the other disciples came to understand. All of them had their moments of faith, and certainly their times of unbelief, even after the resurrection. Maybe that is why Jesus told Thomas “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Thomas was a realist. Even though the other disciples testified to Jesus being alive, Thomas knew that dead, was dead. He knew that Jesus had died on that cross and that it would take more than words to make him believe that Jesus was alive.

Faith is not about certitude as much as the apologists and propagandists of any faith may say, faith always has to have an element of doubt, otherwise it cannot legitimately be called faith. In fact sincere faith admits that it could be wrong, and as the Paul the Apostle said “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile….”

Personally, I find nothing wrong with that. For me that is honest faith, that is Easter faith.

So, have a great day.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under christian life, faith, Religion

Tagged as andrew Greeley, apostle paul, doubt, doubting thomas, easter, faith, henri nouwen, jesus, resurrection of christ, the bishop and the beggar girl of st germain

April 6, 2015 · 20:40

Post Easter Thoughts on Christian Right Paranoia

Easter was weird for me this year. While I rediscovered the joy of celebrating Eucharist thanks to three Lebanese Christian officers who were in our last class at the Staff College, I struggled. I mentioned last week that it wasn’t my post-Iraq agnosticism, but rather a reaction to the power hungry preachers, politicians and pundits of the Christian Right.

These are people who though they hold most of the levers of power in the Republican Party, have a stranglehold on over half of the state legislatures and state houses as well as have the majority in both the House of Representatives and Senate live in a paranoid dream world. It is a cloud-cookoo-land were they honestly continue to spread the lie that they are the only group that it is legal to discriminate against. It is a world where they pass laws to discriminate against groups of people that they hate and then say that they are being discriminated against.

The positively Orwellian attitude, words and actions of these people are responsible for the rapid decline of people who call themselves Christians and the rapid expansion of people who no longer believe. The reason is born out by the polls of the Barna Group, Pew Religion Research and many other polls. They all agree. It is not Jesus that people reject, it is his most ardent followers, who are now described as Hypocritical, anti-homosexual, insincere, sheltered and too political.

Another Barna poll recorded that young people were leaving the church because “Christians demonize everything outside of the church,” that “God seems missing from my experience of church,” that “Christians are too confident they know all the answers and that churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in,” that “churches are afraid of the beliefs of other faiths” and “church is like a country club, only for insiders,” and finally that young people are unable to ask their “most pressing life questions in church,” that they have “significant intellectual doubts about their faith,” and that the church “does not help with depression or other emotional problems.”

Despite these self-inflicted wounds the Christian Right and their allies blame everyone else for the demise of the Christian church in the United States. Instead of making a genuine attempt to witness of the grace, love and mercy of Jesus embodied in the message of reconciliation so wonderfully stated in Second Corinthians chapter five:

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”

Note that in this there is no command to judge or take political control over the world, it is a message of reconciliation seldom practiced by Christians now or sadly throughout much of history, especially after the Church became the Imperial Church under Constantine.

The words of the Christian Right and their allies, especially regrading homosexuals have reached such a point of ridiculousness that it is hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Cries by Mike Huckabee that “It won’t stop until there are no more churches, until there are no more people who are spreading the Gospel, and I’m talking now about the unabridged, unapologetic Gospel that is really God’s truth.”

Others repeatedly invoke the specter of Nazi Germany, persecution of Christians and even concentration camps and martyrdom, even though they are the ones passing the laws and using the government to legislate against homosexuals. But they say that they are the victims of homosexual hatred and liberal intolerance.

To me it is reminiscent of the scare tactics used by the Souther proponents of secession and slavery in the months leading to the Civil War. Henry Benning of Georgia told the Virginia Secession conference:

“I fear that the day is not distant when the Cotton States, as they are called, will be the only slave States. When that time comes, the time will have arrived when the North will have the power to amend the Constitution, and say that slavery shall be abolished, and if the master refuses to yield to this policy, he shall doubtless be hung for his disobedience…we will be overpowered and our men will be compelled to wander like vagabonds all over the earth; and as for our women, the horrors of their state we cannot contemplate in imagination. That is the fate which Abolition will bring upon the white race…But that is not all of the Abolition war. We will be completely exterminated, and the land will be left in the possession of the blacks…”

The message of the Christian Right and their allies is laden with similar statements, not about blacks, at least openly, but mostly in regard to Gays and the LGBT community. None of these words or actions can be in the slightest construed with an authentic Christian message. Robert Henlein wrote:

“Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.”

This is what Conservative American Christians of the Christian Right, especially the leaders who subscribe to Christian Dominionism are doing every day. That my friends is why the church in the United States is dying and why people are fleeing it in record numbers, and why non-believers want nothing to do with it. It is why I struggle.

But there is an antidote to this, a message that wonderfully contradicts everything that the Christian Right and their allies stand for, and that is a message of love.

In his last Bishop Blackie Ryan novel, the late Father Andrew Greeley used the example of a fictional Spanish Cardinal to his people. It is the message that needs to be preached here and now in this country:

“So many of our lay people believe that ours is a Church of rules, that being Catholic consists of keeping rules. They do not find an institution which is like that very appealing. Nor should they.

In fact, we are a Church of love. Our message from the Lord himself even today is the message that God is Love and that we are those who are trying, however badly, to reflect that love in the world. I find that in my own city that notion astonishes many people. How we came to misrepresent that which we should be preaching above all else is perhaps the subject for many doctoral dissertations.

More important for us today, however, is the reaffirmation that we exist to preach a God of love, we try to be people of love, and we want our church to be, insofar as we poor humans can make it, a Church of radiant love.

Does such a Church have a future? How could it not?”

Greeley wrote more than fiction, he was a socialist and a historian. He noted something about a time when Christians were actually the subject of real persecution before Constantine:

“People came into the Church in the Roman Empire because the Church was so good — Catholics were so good to one another, and they were so good to pagans, too. High-pressure evangelization strikes me as an attempt to deprive people of their freedom of choice.”

But now the problem is more than high pressure evangelism, it is the high pressure political machine that the Christian Right is an integral part. That my friends is what is destroying the witness of the church, not gay rights or same-sex marriage. It isn’t the liberals, or the media, it is a woefully short-sighted belief that Christians must subdue those who they disagree with and disapprove of and that they must work to use the law of the state to establish their view as law, and enforce that law on others. Eric Hoffer noted that:

“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.”

The Christian Right has found multiple devils to demonize: gays, women, liberals and anyone else they want to make the enemy of their God. As Hoffer said: “religions give people identity by positing a basic distinction between believers and non-believers, between a superior in-group and a different and inferior out-group.”

I thought about this subject over the past week in the context of my own struggle and the series of articles that I wrote about the Roman Centurion during Holy Week. Despite my own struggle I realize it is better to struggle with faith than to subscribe to the absolute falsehood and heresy of the hatred and judgment used by the Christian Right and their allies.

Anyway, I am tired and need to take a break.

Peace

Padre Steve+

A Centurion’s Troubling Morning After

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

This is another installment of my series on Longinus the Centurion looking at Holy Week through the eyes of a Roman officer in occupied Judea. It was originally written in 2011 but I have done some more work on it. The soldier is not a believer in either the Roman gods or the Jewish God, and he has little patience or understanding with those who use religion for political gain. But he is placed in a position where he is surrounded by religion coupled with blatant power politics. I hope you enjoy.

Peace

Padre Steve+

The horrible day was passed and a new morning greeted Longinus as he arose. The sun rising over the escarpment in the east that overlooked the Jordan River cast a warm red and yellow glow as its rays infiltrated the window overlooking the courtyard of Fortress Antonia. It seemed an eternity since he watched the sun rise as Pilate debated what to do with that Jesus fellow.

Longinus and his fellow officers Flavius and Decius had spent much of the previous evening in the tavern following the executions. It was not a typical night for them. There was little frivolity, few jokes and none talked much about the events of the day, which had begun for Longinus not long after midnight. Flavius, whose servant had been healed by Jesus in Capernaum had briefly discussed the meaning of Longinus’s comments as the Galilean preacher died upon the cross. Longinus pondered the words again. “Surely this man is the son of God” or something to that effect. He didn’t remember his exact words and he couldn’t even remember why he had said them, but then the day was long and the events struck a nerve. He had seen or taken part in many executions as well as difficult battles. He disliked executions in general but until now he had managed to keep his soul protected from from what he felt on Golgotha by the wall that he had built around his heart.

Longinus looked out the window and then at his desk. He would need to call his officers together soon. He was sure that even though it was the sabbath that those that plotted against Roman rule, as well as the various factions at work in Jerusalem were still plotting, scheming and at work. He wondered how in such a climate anyone could call the day “holy.”

He did not like what had happened the previous day. When Pilate gave in to the Jewish leaders in regard to killing the Galilean he very uneasy. Pilate should have damned the whole politics of the situation and let the man go. The events still bothered him. The man was innocent. Pilate knew it, Longinus knew, hell they all knew and yet all of them had aided and abetted those that wanted the man named Jesus dead. Longinus felt a shame that in all of his years of soldiering he had never before felt. Pilate was able to wash his hands of responsibility. Longinus wished he could do so for himself, but the blood of the innocent man which still stained the tip of the lance that Longinus had plunged into his side would not let him. He shook his head in disgust.

Just then Decius knocked and entered with the news that Pilate had ordered a guard set at the tomb of Jesus. Supposedly the Jesus fellow had said that he would rise from the dead and the Jews wanted to make sure that no one tried to make off with the body of Jesus.

Longinus was not surprised, somehow as strange as the week had been it make perfect sense. Set a guard over the tomb of a man who was betrayed by one one his own, denied by others and abandoned by all but one? It was ridiculous, people don’t rise from the dead. Dead is dead. Longinus thought rather cynically that it was a waste of his troops time and effort. If the Jews were so concerned why didn’t they send their Temple Police to guard the tomb. But then he realized that such duties were beneath the Temple establishment. Get the infidel Romans to do the dirty work, that way if something went wrong they could take the blame. It figured.

He ordered Decius to set the guard. As he did this he received a report that two of his Samaritan soldiers had been brought in by a patrol dead drunk late in the evening. He would have to discipline them later, that was the lot of a commanding officer. How he wished that he was commanding a unit of Italians in a home province or on a campaign rather than these Samaritan and Syrian cast offs in this God forsaken backwater of the Empire. At least he had a number of good officers under his command, perhaps if he remained in Palestine he could organize a transfer of he and his officers to the Italian Cohort stationed in Caesarea where his friend commanded one of the units. Though he too was based in Caesarea it was much better to be assigned to that Italian unit rather than the locally recruited units.

Flavius joined them as they set down to eat breakfast. Outside Quentin and other sergeants mustered the men, and proceeded to carry out the order of the day. Patrols were dispatched to remind any Zealots or sicarii that even if they had gotten Pilate to do their bidding regarding the Galilean that Rome was still in charge of their capital.

The officers discussed details of the planned movement that would take them back to Caesarea in the next couple of days, whenever Pilate decided that the situation in Jerusalem was calm enough to leave. That would be a day or two at least as the multitudes who had come to observe Passover from the diaspora returned to their homes about the Empire and beyond.

The sun now shown brightly through the window. Pilate looked at the still menacing hill known as Golgotha, now devoid of crosses. He thought about that final scene yesterday amid the gloom as the tree men including the Galilean hung suspended between the heavens and earth. It was a sight that he would not soon forget.

Flavius and Longinus hoped for an uneventful couple of days in order to prepare for the always dangerous trip through Judea. The Zealots, sicarii and other insurgents lying in wait to kill a Roman. Tonight, the Gods willing they would meet over a cup of ale in the tavern and maybe things would begin to return normal, whatever that meant in this place.

Peace

Padre Steve+

A Centurion’s Long Good Friday

This is a re-do of my original “Long Good Friday of Longinus the Centurion.” Since I first wrote that piece three years ago I have wrote a prequel which I published last year and with minor changes again this year. Like George Lucas I felt the need to change and improve the original. Unlike Lucas who simply tweeked Star Wars I have chosen to spend my time completely re-writing the original in light of the prequel series dealing with the events leading up to Good Friday that I did this week. I don’t know about you but I like to imagine events as they might have actually happened. As an Iraq veteran who served with our advisors to the Iraqis I do understand the plight of soldiers from an occupying power serving far away from home where their presence is barely tolerated, much less welcomed. I have always felt a special affinity for the soldiers that have interactions with Jesus, who are treated very sympathetically by the writers of the Gospels as well as Luke in the Book of Acts.

Longinus had finally decided to try to get a bit of rest. After his rather morose meeting with Flavius and Decius he and Decius went back to check on the preparations for the executions scheduled for the next day. Quentin his Tesserarius had been working with the squad chosen to to conduct the actual crucifixions of the prisoners, Bar-Abbas the insurgent as well as the common criminals and murderers Dismas and Gestas who he had met in the hell hole of a jail in the dungeon of Fortress Antonia after Pilate had assigned him the task of conducting the executions.

Longinus was certain of his unit’s ability to carry out the mission, though he would have rather had a unit from Italy than his unit of Syrian and Samaritan troops. There was one positive aspect, his Samaritans and Syrians had no love for the Jews and would have no qualms whatsoever in disposing of the criminals.

He thought for a moment about the prisoners. That Bar-Abbas fellow, he would be glad that he or any other Roman would have to deal with him again once the crucifixion was over. As for the common criminals he felt that everyone would be better off with Gestus dead although he hoped that Pilate might take pity on the repentant thief named Dismas. However, despite his feelings he also knew that the law was the law and repentant or not that Dismas was guilty of the crimes and the sentence was just. As he had realized earlier in the day while talking with Flavius it was important not to become emotionally involved with the locals, especially prisoners. Maintaining an emotional distance ensured that he would not flinch in times when ice rather than blood needed to flow through one’s veins. He was proud that he could do this but envied the humanity that his comrade and friend Flavius still maintained in spite of everything.

He was just about to prepare for bed when a messenger from Pilate knocked on his door. It was late, too late and Longinus wondered just what was going on.
“Come.” He said, the weariness in his voice obvious in the way he answered.

The messenger, a relatively young Italian soldier assigned to Pilate’s bodyguard entered, came to attention and saluted.

Longinus looked at the young man, like him far from home and asked “what am I needed for now?”

“Centurion, the Governor has requested your presence” the soldier replied.

“May I ask what for?” A now increasingly irritated Longinus asked.

“Sir, I do not have the details but it is a pressing matter regarding the Jews and that Galilean preacher.” The young man was obviously uncomfortable in having to request a career officer like Longinus, a veteran of real battles and campaigns appear before Pilate for what was not much more than a religious dispute among an occupied people.

“Pressing matter?” Asked Longinus.

“Yes Centurion. I was told that it was urgent that you come to Governor Pilate now and alert your unit as at least some of your men may be needed if things get out of hand.”
“Can you please tell me just what is going on?” Longinus asked as he pulled his armored breastplate over his shoulders.

“I’m sorry Centurion, I have no more information. You are to report to the Governor within the half hour. The Governor wants your unit ready within the hour.” When he finished he came to attention, saluted and exited the room.

Longinus hated how leaders sent young men to be their messengers and would not give them all of the relevant information.

He then sat back down in his chair where he had been sitting and discussing the situation with Flavius and Decius. He wondered to himself what could be so pressing that Pilate needed him now.

After briefing Decius and Quentin, instructing them to wake the men and be ready for action Longinus took a squad and went to Pilate’s headquarters. When he arrived Pilate greeted him.

“Centurion, I hate to have bothered you at this hour in light of how busy you and your men will be in the morning but a situation has arisen.” Longinus looked around the room and then heard some commotion on the area called “the Pavement.”

“What is happening my Lord?”

“Longinus, these Jews have brought that Jesus fellow here and are accusing him of fomenting a rebellion against the Emperor.”

“A rebellion sir?”

“That is what they say Centurion. They claim that one of his closest associates had turned him in and after a trial of their own that they found him guilty of claiming to be a king and God that will overthrow the Emperor.” Pilate could not hide his discomfort.

“Do you actually believe them sir? After all we had heard this morning that this Judas Iscariot fellow had betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver.”

“I know Centurion, I know.” Pilate looked at Longinus then back out at the crowd gathered outside in the dark. He was afraid and Longinus could sense that fear, fear that if he made the wrong move that a real rebellion could break out and that Pilate as the Governor would take the blame and bear the punishment and wrath of Caesar.

“Centurion, I tried to placate these people be questioning this Jesus fellow myself.” Pilate paused. “I must say that he is a rather unusual man and truthfully I could not find anything that under Roman law that I could find him guilty of doing. Not a thing Centurion, nothing but their leaders kept pressing me.” Pilate’s gaze seemed to be almost pleading with Longinus to help him escape this decision. Longinus knew at that moment that his day was about to get worse. Pilate continued “It seems to be a religious squabble of some kind so in order to deal with it and to try to keep us out of it I sent Jesus to Herod since Herod is the ruler of Galilee.”

“So Herod will certainly deal with the situation, will he not Governor?”

“Centurion, I thought that that corpulent bastard Herod would deal with it but I just got word that Herod too could find no crime. The Jewish leaders and of their Temple Police are supposedly bringing him back to me to render judgment. They are leaving it to me.”

“Judgment for what?”

“Sedition, treason, blasphemy, proclaiming himself a king.” Pilate paused, his face flushed. “My God I’m surprised that they haven’t accused the man of fathering the High Priest’s daughter.” The sarcasm and bitterness was evident in his voice.

“So what do you intend to do.”

“I intend to try to get us out of this with as little trouble or guilt as possible. When they return him to me I will ask a few more questions and set him free as is my prerogative, certainly they wouldn’t want to release a real murderer like Bar-Abbas back into society, I do give them more credit than to stoop that low.”

“I do hope that you are right governor, but from what I understand it seems that they are intent on ridding themselves of the fellow once and for all. I think that their leaders see the Galilean as more of a threat than a man like Bar-Abbas.”

Pilate said nothing and during the silence Longinus’s troops under the direction of Decius entered the perimeter of the court adding an additional security cordon as the crowd grew and got more boisterous. As they took up position the Temple Police and members of the High Priest’s entourage approached the court with the Galilean in custody. Quentin with four soldiers met them and took custody of the obviously tired and already abused man. They delivered Jesus to Pilate and stood back. Longinus watched as it happened. As he did so Flavius entered the room with his servant. The servant appeared unsteady and full of emotion when he saw the man who had healed him two years before. Flavius stood by his face not betraying any feelings except deep seated rage that was boiling as he saw this travesty of justice take place.

Pilate attempted every trick in the book to garner a way to save the life of the man standing before him. He asked him questions and Jesus clothed in a purple robe that Herod had mockingly placed upon him said nothing. Finally in desperation Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king. The answer both fascinated and terrified Pilate and caused him to wish that he had never come to the city. As he deliberated earlier and debated the members of the Sanhedrin his wife again urged him to “have nothing to do with that innocent man.”

But the answer of Jesus to the question of his kingship troubled Pilate. Had he thought the man insane he would have scourged him, declared him mad and been done with the affair.

“My kingdom is not of this world, if it were my followers would be fighting to ensue that you did not hand me over to the Jewish leaders.” Jesus looked into Pilate’s eyes, the look sent a chill through Pilate’s soul and so he restated the question “so you are a king?”

Jesus replied solemnly “You say I am a king. I was born for this and it is why I came to this world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to me.”

Pilate appeared stunned and both Longinus and Flavius knew that he was beaten. They listened as Pilate asked “what is truth?” The question was one of a man who had long ago sold his soul to gain the world, it was the question of a deeply cynical man who had long determined that truth was only in the eye of the beholder and to be used as needed to acquire power. At the same time they could see a touch of genuineness in the question as Pilate, desperate for an answer that would enable him to please everyone and spare the life of the man before him wrestled with the question of truth for the first time in years.

They watched as Pilate attempted to bargain for the life of Jesus only to be shouted down by the increasingly riotous crowd who demanded that Bar-Abbas be released. Again attempting to assuage the mob he had Jesus scourged with a barbed whip. The soldier who did that brutal work was a Syrian, big and burley without a trace of feeling in his eyes or face. The servant of Flavius begged him to intervene but Flavius now knew that the things happening to Jesus could no longer be influenced by sentimentality and stories of the goodness of Jesus. He had seen this type of Justice before, and though he despised it, he earnestly hoped that it would be enough to deliver Jesus.

After the scourging, soldiers assigned to Longinus jammed a crown of thorns down on the blood covered Jesus and placed the purple cloak over him. Jesus’s body trembled. Pilate again approached the mob and tried to decline the odious responsibility thrust into his hands. The mob led by the Chief Priests and joined by man of their rivals, the Pharisees cried out for Jesus to be crucified.

They heard Pilate plead with Jesus, again noting that he had power over the life and death of Jesus to which Jesus replied that Pilate “had no power over him that had not been given by God.” Finally he pleaded with the Jews one more time to take Bar-Abbas for execution and to spare the Galilean. The leaders shouted him down again and cried out that Pilate would be “a traitor to Caesar” if he let a man who claimed to be a king live.

Defeated By the mob and by his own weakness of character Pilate asked for a ceremonial washing basin full of water. When it came in the hands of a court member he placed his hands in it and proclaimed “I am innocent of this man’s blood.” He then ordered the soldiers to take Jesus to be crucified even as the prisoners Dismas and Gestus were led from the dungeon for execution and a profoundly perplexed Bar-Abbas was released by the jailer.

Longinus looked at Flavius and whispered to him “wash my hands of his blood? My God, he knows that he is as guilty at them.” Flavius looked on and simply said “I know my friend, we all are.”

The detail of soldiers assigned to the crucifixion detail was commanded by Quentin, a man who had fought many battles and like Longinus and Flavius felt that these executions of helpless prisoners were unworthy of soldiers like himself. The soldiers of Flavius’s unit had responsibility for helping to clear a way down the narrow street called by the Romans Via Delarosa. The street of suffering. It was the street that all the condemned travelled to the hill of execution so fittingly called the place of the Skull. Longinus had seen others walk this path but in the past he had been able to shield his person from their suffering, but today was different.

Longinus’s own execution squad led by Quentin led Jesus and the others along, forcing them to carry their crosses. About halfway down the street Jesus collapsed under the weight if his cross and grabbed a bystander, a man from Cyrene to carry the cross while the soldiers prodded the bloody body of Jesus down the street and out of the city to the place of execution. People jeered at the condemned as they did at very execution as for most this was no different than any other crucifixion and most of those present knew little about any of the condemned men and even those that were familiar with Jesus probably did not recognize the bloody man stumbling down the street. Of course there were others present who did know Jesus and watched in horror as their friend, teacher and for one woman her son struggled to the execution site. Longinus wondered about his own elderly mother and thought of her as he saw the mother of Jesus. He quickly tried to chase her image from his mind, he needed to be strong and hard if he was to keep his objectivity and conduct the mission as distasteful as he found it.

When the macabre parade arrived at the hill, the prisoners were stripped, placed on the crosses and nailed to them. Their screams as Quentin hammered the large iron nails home through their already abused flesh echoed for all to hear. Thankfully Quentin knew what he was doing and this part of the execution process happened quickly. Then the crosses were raised, but just before this a messenger from Pilate arrived with the placards that denoted the charges. He handed them to Longinus who noted what was written on the one for Jesus. It said “The King of the Jews.”

The placards were placed and with a thud the crosses were placed in the holes on the hill. The suffering of the prisoners was great, the crowds jeered and mocked them while those that loved them stood at a distance. Soldiers stood guard to ensure that no one interfered with them in any way. There was a bit of banter between the real criminals one of whom, the unpleasant one named Gestus joined in the mocking of Jesus only to be put in his place by the other one named Dismas.

Longinus, Flavius, Decius and a few other officers watched as their soldiers from the crucifixion detail divided the paltry worldly possession of the men between themselves. The men argued over a one piece tunic worn by Jesus, Not wanting to destroy it they cast lots for it. A trooper from Tyre won the tunic. Longinus and Flavius looked at each other and realized how little most of their men earned and neither begrudged the men the few items that they gathered from the men being executed.

The skies which had began the day with bright sunshine now became dark and foreboding. Lightening appeared in the distance and occasionally Jesus would address his mother or one man, Flavius believed him to be a disciple who stood by the cross. Jesus even promised the Dismas character that “he would be with him in paradise” and told others, Longinus thought the soldiers but he wasn’t sure “forgive them they know not what they do.” As it approached the ninth hour Jesus cried out in Aramaic “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me!”

A cold rain began to fall.

Quentin approached him with a sponge on a pole which was soaked in a sour wine. It touched Jesus’s lips and Jesus said “Father into your hands I commit my spirit” and then “it is finished.”

With that last dying remark the head of Jesus fell to his chest and his body, bloody and mangled hung limp. As the men looked on the ground began to tremble and as the ground shook and the officers looked about amid the gloom and confusion as the onlookers took flight Longinus exclaimed “surely this man was the son of God.” Flavius looked at his fellow Centurion in astonishment. Longinus, the man who had closed his heart in a fortress was echoing what he had believed since Jesus had healed his servant, the young man who was more than a servant to him.

As the crowds dispersed Longinus received the message that the executions had to be concluded before the Jews began their Passover. With that he sent Quentin to break the legs of the prisoners to hasten their deaths. When Quentin reached Jesus he called for Longinus.

“Centurion, I believe that this man is already dead. Do you still want me to break his legs?”

Longinus looked up at the bloody corpse and then at his subordinate and said “no I must do this myself.” He had a soldier bring him his lance, a ceremonial lance that denoted his seniority as the senior Centurion in the Legion. He looked at the lance and plunged it into the side of Jesus into his heart. Jesus did not move but from the wound blood mixed with what looked like water poured out of the wound and down his side.

“Quentin, he is dead, you may take him down.” Other soldiers pulled down the dead bodies of the thieves. As they did this a man approached Longinus and Flavius.

“Gentlemen. I am Joseph, I am a member of the Sanhedrin. I have come to take responsibility for the body of Jesus of Nazareth.”

Longinus replied in a businesslike manner “by whose authority?” He had a hard time believing that a member of the Sanhedrin would claim this body.

With that Joseph produced a letter from Pilate. Longinus looked the letter over and handed it back to Joseph without comment. Joseph then motioned to several men with him to take the body as Longinus, Flavius and the others looked on. Longinus thought to himself that it was good that a man of some means and influence would at least take the time to give this innocent man a decent burial.

As Quentin took charge of the cleanup Longinus instructed Decius to prepare the troops to return to Fortress Antonia. Flavius instructed his optimo to do the same. The last thing that any of them wanted to be was on the streets when the Jews began their Passover, as always they decided that it was unwise to stir up any more animosity than was needed. Today was a near run thing with e demonstration outside Pilate’s headquarters and none of them wanted any more excitement this evening.

When the clean up was completed and the bodies removed Longinus and Flavius ordered their soldiers back to Fortress Antonia. When they arrived the Centurions went to Pilate to inform him that the mission was complete. Pilate was glad the ordeal was over but was obviously still disturbed by the events of the day. Longinus, now exhausted was glad to leave Pilate’s presence. He still loathed politicians and wondered if had Pilate been a soldier if he would have had the courage to tell the leaders of the Sanhedrin to “pound sand” and keep Jesus alive. But then he knew that had Pilate done something that only a diplomat could do, he kept the peace. Had he been in charge the man named Jesus might have lived but hundreds maybe even thousands of others might have died.

After he dismissed his soldiers he went to his room, doffed his gear and went to the tavern in the fortress. Flavius joined him about 15 minutes later. They sat at the table as the barkeeper brought them each an ale. They looked at each other and Flavius asked “What did you mean by surely this man was the son of God?”
Longinus shook his head. “My friend I do not really know.” He paused and took a drink from his cup. “Until today I simply figured that he was a good man, but after today, after what I witnessed I just don’t know.”

“If you ask me my friend I think that he must be a God, if not somehow connected to the greatest of Gods, the God of the Jews.”

“Perhaps Flavius you are right. All I know is that I can no longer see the world, the Empire or my life in the same light as I did just a week ago.”
Flavius nodded his understanding as Decius entered the tavern. The younger officer reported to his seniors. They acknowledged his entrance and Longinus asked the younger officer to sit with them.

“What do you know Decius?”

The younger officer spoke. “Sir, I do not know if you heard the latest about the man that betrayed Jesus.”

Longinus asked sarcastically “did they elect him High Priest?”

The younger man caught the sarcasm and replied “if only that we’re the case. He was found dead, hanging from a tree in the Potter’s Field.”

Flavius answered “So the traitor couldn’t handle his own act of duplicity?”

Longinus replied, “evidently not, serves the bastard right.” He took a drink from his cup and motioned for the barkeep to get Decius a cup of ale too. The three men continued to drink silently and wondered what else could happen…

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as crucifixion of jesus, good friday, holy week, jesus christ, joseph of arimathea, judas iscariot, longinus the centurion, pharisees, pontius pilate, sanhedrin, trial of jesus

April 2, 2015 · 09:02

Duplicity, Politics & Betrayal: A Centurion in Jerusalem

This is the final part of my Holy Week prequel for my series on Longinus the Centurion. It deals with the night that Christians now refer to as Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday.

Longinus continued to think about the various intrigues that he saw in Jerusalem but he could not imagine what he was soon to learn about. The morning had started normally until the corpulent and corrupt Herod Antipas, the appointed “Jewish” ruler of Galilee and son of Herod the Great arrived in Jerusalem with his entourage.

Longinus knew that there was no love lost between Pilate and Herod, nor between the Pharisees and Herod. Herod chafed knowing that he only ruled a portion of the land his father had ruled especially that he did not rule in Jerusalem. His father had rebuilt and restored the Temple after it was desecrated by the Seleucids, something that the Pharisees and the Priestly class in the city seemed to not give his father enough credit for doing. The fact that Herod was coming to observe the Passover in the city could only add to the tensions that were simmering.

Pilate called Longinus and the other senior officers, including the Centurion Flavius to his headquarters to be part of his official greeting party. Pilate may have despised Herod, but he was the representative of the Empire and Herod, like any proxy ruler needed Pilate’s support.

The meeting at the court referred to as “the Pavement” was filled with ceremonial pleasantries as Pilate, Herod and their staff members and court followers conducted the business of the day. Nothing of much importance was discussed, Pilate decided not to bring up anything about the Galilean preacher despite the uproar of Sunday that accompanied his arrival. Pilate thought it amusing that a poor preach from Herod’s own province would be greeted as a king while the population hardly acknowledged Herod, apart from the rathe sullen looks that greeted his arrival.

After Herod departed Longinus, Flavius and the other officers were dismissed, yet another morning that they would never get back. But again that was part of life as an officer in a Godforsaken backwater like Judea. Such meetings of course were a necessary evil for them to attend and sometimes one could find out information that could be useful. Though nothing important was shared in the meeting Longinus noted that no Jewish religious leaders were in attendance. He thought that odd until he arrived back in his quarters where he was doffing his more ceremonial dress uniform items for the more practical daily kit.

As he changed his second in command, Decius knocked on the door.

“Come.” Longinus said and his subordinate entered. Decius came to attention and saluted.

“Be at ease my friend, what news do you bring?”

“Centurion I have some rather interesting news from our Jewish spy regarding this Jesus fellow.”

“Is that so?” Longinus inquired.

“Yes sir. He said that one of Jesus’s own men, one of his 12 closest followers went to the ruling elders this morning and offered to betray him.” The words coming from his subordinate were stunning.

“Tell me more.” Longinus said, his voice now full of curiosity.

“Sir, our man said that a man named Judas Iscariot, who is trusted by Jesus enough that he carries the money bag and pays whatever expenses that Jesus and his men incur.” Decius paused while Longinus pondered this unexpected turn of events.

After a few moments of silence Longinus asked his Tesserarius, Quentin to fetch Flavius and asked Decius to sit at his desk. Flavius arrived within a couple of minutes and joined Longinus and Decius at the desk.”

Longinus began the discussion.

“Flavius, we have news about your friend the Galilean preacher, it seems that one of his merry band is a traitor.”

If Longinus’s reaction to the news was surprise and maybe even amusement with the duplicity of these Jews the reaction of Flavius was one of stunned disbelief and horror.

“You can’t be serious?” He stammered.

“Well that is what Decius says my Jewish insider at the Sanhedrin has reported just a little while ago.” He looked at Flavius as Flavius asked “do you know which one of his men has done this.”

“A certain Judas Iscariot. That is the correct name isn’t it Decius.”

“Yes Centurion, Judas Iscariot.”

Flavius looked at Decius and Longinus and said “Iscariot.”

“You know of him.” Inquired Longinus.

“Yes I do know of him. Before he joined with Jesus he was reported to be linked to a group of assassins called the sicarii.”

“The sicarii?” Longinus asked , hardly believing what Flavius said. The sicarii were a particularly violent group, known to kill Romans and people that they suspected of being collaborators. They armed themselves with a particularly nasty dagger that they carried beneath their tunics. If this was true it could be a particularly disturbing turn of events.

“Yes my friend. You see many people followed this Jesus not because of his goodness or any thought of benevolence, but because they believed that he would overthrow the Jewish regime and drive us out of this land.”

“I had no idea. I thought they were all a bunch of do gooders. In fact until Jesus took a whip to all the merchants in the Temple the other day I didn’t think that he had a violent bone in his body.”

He looked at Decius and asked “What does our spy say about this Judas fellows motive?”

The younger officer replied “our man said that He overheard Judas talking before he went into the chambers of the Sanhedrin with some Priests sympathetic with the Zealot party of the Jews.”

“Continue.”

“What he said is that evidently Judas told these men that he was disappointed by the fact that Jesus did not appear to be seeking to overthrow us.”

“That would not be surprising for a member of the sicarii.” Added Flavius, his expression changing from disbelief to anger and after a moment’s reflection he slammed his fist down on the table and added “I could kill that miserable bugger myself…the man Jesus has done nothing wrong.” As Flavius spoke his voice rose in intensity. Longinus knew his friend was upset.

“Flavius, I can understand, this seems a vile thing but there are even larger issues than your friendship with this man and what he did for your servant.” Longinus hoped that his outward calm and acknowledgment of his friend’s feelings would help calm the anger.

“Longinus my friend, I know how you feel about these people and I hoped for better, I wanted to believe that they were a cut above us with their One God, but I see that even a people as devout as the Jews are as capable of evil as the worst Greek, Egyptian, Cretin or Arab.” He paused. “Do you have wine? I could use a drink about now.”

“Of course, my friend. Decius, please pour each of us each a cup of wine.”

As the younger officer got the wine Longinus looked at his angry and downcast friend. He felt a certain amount of sympathy for Flavius, but he had long ago learned not to let the sufferings of occupied people touch him deeply. He had built a fortress at impregnable as Fortress Antonia around his own heart years ago. It was the only way to survive. The being said he recognized a certain amount of humanity in his friend that was absent from so many of his comrades. In a way he envied Flavius. As he thought these things he realized that he needed to move the subject from Flavius’s emotional response to this situation to the practical consequences of this development. About that time Decius brought the wine and placing three cups on the table poured the wine.

“Thank you my friend.” Flavius said as he lifted the cup to his lips.

Both men raised their cups and took a drink. As he set his cup down Longinus continued. “I know that you hoped for better from these people, but you know I have found that some of the most religious people are also the most violent and intolerant.”

Flavius looked at his friend who continued “it seems to me that when someone, you know true believers, know that they have any deity at their disposal they are inclined to be less tolerant of others.” He paused and took a sip of wine. “I think that it is a testament to the Empire that we have so many religions and that in the name of law and order that violent ones are suppressed. That is why throughout most of the Empire we have peace.”

Flavius interrupted his friend. “But we enforce the religion of Caesar, a man, who we claim as God on our citizens.”

“True, but none of us really believe he is a real God anyway, it is a way to keep order. The state makes a religion of itself, it keeps the really dangerous types at bay. So long as people put Caesar first, even if it means burning a bit of incense to a man that they do not believe is God it serves a purpose doesn’t it?”

Flavius looked at his friend and quietly replied “I guess until I met this Jesus fellow I would have agreed completely, but now I don’t know.”

Longinus listened to his friend and could see the sincerity in his face. He continued saying softly “I really believe my friend that the second that any religion that proclaims something different arises and gains control of the Empire you can be assured that the peace that we know will be gone.”

“But that is no substitute for belief in a real God.” Answered Flavius.

“That may be so my friend but it helps keep the peace and is why we don’t have problems throughout the Empire like those that beset us here.”
A curious silence descended in the room as the two friends pondered the situation. Finally Flavius broke the silence. “I just hope that what this man has done stays a Jewish problem for their leaders. I would hate for us Romans to have to become involved in it.”

“As do I my friend, I can drink to that.”

The three men sat silently continuing to drink their wine as they pondered the position that they found themselves…. It was nearly sunset.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as betrayal of jesus, caesar, fortress antonia, galilee, herod antipas, herod the great, holy week, jerusalem, jesus christ, jewish temple, judas iscariot, judea, king herod, longinus the centurion, pharisees, pontius pilate, priests, roman centurions, roman religion, sacarii, seleucid kingdom, the pavement, zealots

April 1, 2015 · 13:50

A Centurion Meets a Terrorist

This is the third chapter of a prequel to my series on Longinus the Centurion, who according to tradition was the Centurion in charge of the execution of Jesus. Today is how I imagine that the Centurion would deal with receiving orders to prepare for the execution of a condemned terrorist.

The next morning a messenger knocked on the door to Longinus’s quarters in Fortress Antonia. He told Longinus that Pilate wanted to speak to him and to report as soon as possible to Pilate’s headquarters in the fortress.

Longinus, who had been discussing the day with Decius in order to ensure his soldiers were ready for any contingency but also conduct some training was bothered by the request. He had discussed the situation in the city and about Jesus in particular the previous afternoon with Pilate and figured that unless there was some sort of incident that he would meet again later in the day to discuss the latest events.

Instead Longinus, was being ordered to report to Pilate again and it was interfering with his conduct of military business. Longinus hated dealing with politicians and diplomats and though he respected Pilate who he felt to be as decent of man as any politically appointed diplomat as any Pilate was still not a military man. He did not always understand military matters.

Longinus looked at the messenger and asked: “Tell me. what would the Governor need of me at this hour?”

“Centurion,” the messenger replied. I was only told to have you report as soon as possible.”

Bothered by the lack of detail Longinus told the messenger to go and tell Pilate that he would be there shortly. He then looked at Decius, and shook his head. “My friend, I am afraid that I will be delayed. Take care to conduct today’s training and be ready in case any trouble arises.” With that he put on his armored breastplate and cape and left the room.

When he arrived at Pilate’s headquarters the Governor greeted him cheerfully. “Centurion, it is good to see you.”

“Likewise sir…” Pilate stopped him before he could continue.

“I don’t suppose that you know why I called you here do you?” Pilate asked, irritating Longinus who feeling even more irritated by Pilate’s levity kept his feelings to his self and simple replied: “No my Lord, your messenger only told me to report here, he did not give me a reason.”

Pilate smiled. “It was with good reason, had he done so I am sure that you, like any other Centurion in the province would have found some “pressing military duty,” isn’t that what you call it? to avoid coming here.” He paused for just a moment and before Longinus could respond continued: “Of course I know the answer, you need not say anything and I suppose if I was in your position that I would feel the same way.”

Longinus knew this was the case and had no answer to Pilate who continued.

“Centurion, this week will unfortunately be a week where we must conduct some rather unpleasant business, less than soldierly business but necessary.” Pilate paused again and motioned for Longinus to take a seat at his desk and Longinus did so, looking about the room and noticing Pilate’s civilian staff and several soldiers assigned as his personal bodyguard.

Longinus, decided to hasten the length of the visit and asked: “My Lord, may I ask why I am here? After all I do have pressing military business to attend to.”

Pilate immediately caught the sarcasm in Longinus’s words and smiled. “Centurion, you amuse me, because I know how you military types think. You see I may not have served with a Legion, but I have served with enough officers to know that you would rather be fighting the enemies of the Empire than doing police work, but we are in Palestine, not the Teutonic Forrest.”

Longinus stared back at Pilate and said nothing.

“Centurion, this week we will dispense justice to three Jewish prisoners. Men of your unit will conduct the crucifixions this Friday.”

“Yes my Lord.” Longinus’s muted response spoke more than any protest could.

Pilate continued. “Centurion, I want you to see the prisoners and in doing so know in your heart why this must be done. These men are violent criminals, and one of them is the infamous Bar-Abbas.” Longinus looked at Pilate, and asked “the insurgent who has attacked and killed our soldiers and officials?”

Pilate nodded and replied “so you know why this is important, in an environment as volatile as Judea we cannot let a man like this remain unpunished, it would only encourage more men to rise up like him.” Pilate smiled and continued. “We cannot forget how the Jews rose up and overthrew the Seleucid rulers underestimated these Jews when that Judas Maccabee fellow led that bloody revolt.”

Longinus replied “No we could not let that happen on our watch.”

Pilate nodded in agreement and continued. “So you understand Centurion, it is an unpleasant duty, but mind you history will thank us for it, as will any God that you believe in.” Pilate finished by telling Longinus to visit the prison for himself and begin to choose his soldiers for the crucifixion detail with care.

Longinus rose and saluted Pilate, turned and left the room without another word. He was not happy but proceeded to the dungeon where he met the Jailer of the Fortress, a rather obese and dirty looking man named Alexander, a Roman citizen of Greek origin hailing from Antioch.

When Longinus reached the dungeon he immediately noticed the stench and again realized why he was a Legionnaire and not a policeman. The prison was dark, and by Palestinian standards dank and moist smelling of human excrement and body odor.

“Well Centurion, welcome to my kingdom” said Alexander, a smile pressing through his grimy face.

“Thank you Alexander, where are the condemned?” asked Longinus icily.

They are in the cells to your left. Bar-Abbas is in the first and the other two, neither as notorious as he are in the next cell.”

“What are their names?”

“Dismas and Gestas, they are violent criminals of their own accord, but they were only out for personal gain. I think that one feels some remorse, but the other seems to be a rather hardened and unrepentant man.” The words came effortlessly to the unkempt jailer

“Thank you warden, I will see them now” said Longinus as he turned to look over these men as quickly as possible so he could return to his unit.

He walked past Bar-Abbas without making eye contact and went to the second cell. The two prisoners could not appear more different. One, seemed to accept his fate while the other looked at Longinus without remorse. After about a minute Longinus asked their names. The remorseful looking one answered, “I am Dismas, I stand condemned for robbery and murder. I accept my fate Centurion.” The other prisoner glared at his mate and with hatred in his voice and eyes said to Longinus “I am Gestas, and I am not sorry for anything that I did you Roman swine.”

Longinus stared back saying nothing, his continued lack of respect for such people seemed vindicated. He turned to the other cell and looked at the burly prisoner in it. “So you are Bar-Abbas?”

The prisoner snarled “So what is it to you Roman?”

Longinus began to feel better about his mission. “Well, Bar-Abbas, it seems that you have killed one too many of my comrades and it is I who will get to exact justice on you.”

Bar-Abbas smiled an evil smile and said, “The Roman that can kill me has not been born.” He laughed at Longinus who stood silently for a moment. Then, quietly Longinus replied, “We’ll see about that.” With that Longinus motioned to Alexander the Jailer to let him out. The jailer unlocked the door and Longinus walked up the steps and into the courtyard of the fortress where his unit was practicing battle drills.

Calling Decius to his side, he said. “We have a second mission this week, the mission of executing some dangerous prisoners, including Bar-Abbas the insurgent.”

“Bar-Abbas sir?” replied the junior officer.

“The same, but we have to wait until Friday. It seems that our governor wants to make a show if his generosity to the people here. If it was up to me I would have killed them in the dungeon and been done with it, we could have said that they died of the plague.” Longinus looked at his assistant and then continued “Of course that is not how we Romans do things, they will be executed in public to show these Jews that they cannot engage in such conduct, but it will only build more resentment.”

“Sir, are you saying that our methods are wrong?” asked Decius.

“Young man, look around you. You know the history of these people. They will continue to rise up until they regain their independence or we kill them all.” He paused. “That is their history and they can do no other. After all, if they were occupying our homes, establishing their God in cities and forcing our people to serve them how would we respond?”

Decius nodded his understanding and looked at the Legionnaires practicing close combat tactics that might be necessary in a pitched battle if the city was to erupt in revolt.

Longinus continued “Decius, choose a squad of men as the execution team and another as the escort. The rest of the Century is to be trained to maintain a secure perimeter and ensure that no Jews attempt to interfere with our mission.

“Sir, where is the execution to take place?” asked Decius.

Longinus motioned to a hill visible just outside the city walls. “Over there, that barren hill. The locals call it Golgotha.” He paused. “Fitting name, the place of the Skull. I perfect place to kill people that don’t want us here wouldn’t you say?” He chuckled and continued, “don’t answer, it is a rhetorical question.”

His assistant nodded and Longinus gave the order “Carry on with training, let me know which men you think should be on the execution team later tonight.”

Longinus turned and walked away wondering what else might happen, after all, the best laid plans of men sometimes don’t work out. He silently cursed under his breath the day that he was assigned to this place, which despite its history and splendor seemed forsaken by the Gods.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as Bar-abbas, Barabbas, crucifixion, fortress antonia, gestus, golgotha, holy week, insurgencies, jerusalem, jesus, judas maccabee, longinus the centurion, maccabee revolt, pontius pilate, roman centurions, seleucid kingdom, st dismas

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A Centurion Meets a Terrorist

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