Living Truthfully:
Cultivating Peace in a Violent World
Decade to Overcome Violence in Australia
St.Mark's Theological Centre, Canberra
7 August 2003
The importance of living truthfully and sharing our stories was a central element of the Cultivating Peace in a Violent World event held in the nation's capital, Canberra, on 7 August 2003. Indeed, jointly arranged as it was, by the Australian Theological Forum, St.Mark's National Theological Centre, NSW Ecumenical Council (with partuclar leadership by Gillian Hunt) and the NCCA's Decade to Overcome Violence staff, the gathering also included music, food, good fellowship, silence, prayer and inspiring addresses. Deliberately coinciding with Australian remembrances of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this combined for an evening of encouragement, tender sharing of pain, and healing hope.
On arrival, participants were entertained by a music group from SCM (Student Christian Movement) and offered the opportunity to mingle and get to one another a little. After an Acknowledgement of Ngunnawal Land, a beautifully service of Evening Prayer, led by Heather Thomson, was then held in St.Mark's Chapel. Speaking of the story of Jesus' greeting of peace to his disciples at the end of Luke's Gospel (Lk.24:36), Heather reflected on how, despite the sufferings he had endured, Jesus greeted them, not with an angry tirade, or threats of murder and revenge, or laying on guilt and blame, but with peace and blessing. How could he have done this?
I have read somewhere that violence is better understood as a sickness to be healed than as behaviour to be punished. I think this might have been the way that Jesus saw things. He seemed to see beyond the behaviour, behind the violence and hatred that he had borne, through all that to something on which he had compassion. Something sick that needed healing. Some lost, sin-sick souls that had gone astray, that he still loved and cared for, because they were human.
Perhaps it is on this basis that we are able to love our enemies - not as a decision in our heads or an act of sheer will, but a heart-felt care that something has gone terribly wrong for anyone to have enemies at all, and a compassion for all concerned.
If we are enabled, through Christ, to love others as he did, then we too will not be overcome by evil, but will overcome evil with good (Romans 12: 21). Rather than living in fear and hatred, we pray that we, like him, may be bringers of peace, compassion and blessing.
As signs of this compassion, candles of hope were given to those who came forward for them.
Jon Inkpin and Emily Ninnes of the NCCA DOV Unit then spoke about the work and resources of the Decade to Overcome Violence in Australia, sharing stories expressing something of the challenge and hope of DOV, and formally launching DOV in the Australian Capital Territory.
Food and further hospitality followed, with a simple shared meal of soup, bread rolls, rice cakes and fruit.
The second half of the evening began with an address by Winifred Wing Han Lamb.
Winifred spoke about the challenge of Living Truthfully - Facing the Violence Within, and the need for Christians as well as others to face up to the dangers of self-delusion, learning from great critics of Christianity such as David Hume and Nietzsche, as well as Christian thinkers such as Coleridge.
(for) as Christians we must wherever appropriate, acknowledge and confess the machinations of our own hearts. Are we self-deceived, inauthentic, unreal, manipulative and burdened? Do we live untruthfully? And do we, striken by the burden of this self, long for freedom?
I believe that if we listen honestly to people like Hume and Nietzsche, we become sharper in our spiritual focus. Hume and Nietzsche can sharpen our understanding, not only of ourselves, but of the Christian Gospel. If they convict us, they also remind us that there is good news. They can drive us into the arms of grace. Hear these liberating thoughts:
* Christ calls us beyond Pharisaism
* God's love takes us beyond Pharisaism and introduces us to the radically different logic of grace
* Grace affirms our worth without condition. While instrumentalism - the demand to be productive, to be better than someone else, to look good, to be a success - infects the human condition, grace affirms 'the demonstrative value of [our] being' (F.J.J. Buytendijk) and frees us from the instrumentalism which is the warp and woof of human society and culture.
* As St Paul declares, it is 'For freedom, Christ has set us free...'
So in response to Nietzsche, we turn to grace because it is the source of a healthy self-love. This will free us not only from violence to others but also from violence to ourselves. As Nietzsche has insightfully shown, a healthy self-acceptance enables us to be truthful. If we accept ourselves we do not need to practice deceit. As Karl Rahner argues,
... [t]he need no longer remains to hide behind devices of deceit and manipulation. There is no need for interior deceitfulness with one's self, dishonesty, "putting up a façade" ... affectation and other forms in which a man tries to avoid facing up to his own nature.
* So grace frees us from violence to ourselves. But it also frees us to practice genuine care. Pastoral care does not have to be self-featuring. We can love like God, to set the other free. So too must we in the way we care. We may not always get it right because as Kierkegaard notes, only the omnipotent God can love to set free, but still, we must practice what Kierkegaard calls 'the art of power' which consists in the capacity to set free.
* We are thus enjoined to the ongoing practice of truthfulness. We will discover that it is not the life of slavishness as Nietzsche maintained. For the practice of Christian weakness requires courage and a robust character. If God desires 'truth in the inward part' we will discover more about ourselves and the fragility of truthfulness not only in ourselves, but also in others. But God's love covers a multitude of sin.
That God knows our hearts and is not scandalized by what is there is partly what we mean by grace. This gives us courage to accept ourselves as we are in the ongoing life of truthfulness. Perhaps it is fitting to end with this meditation and prayer of Michael Leunig:
In order to be truthful
We must do more than speak the truth
We must also hear truth
We must also act upon truth
We must also search for truth
The difficult truth
Within us and around us
We must devote ourselves to truth
Otherwise we are dishonest
And our lives are mistaken
God grant us the strength and the courage
To be truthful. Amen.
(The full text of Winifred's address is available from the NCCA DOV Unit - email: dov@ncca.org.au)
The first response to such a challenge was a period of shared silence and some poignant music of lament from the music group. This then led into a sharing of moving personal stories of experiences of violence by Johanna Sheehan (speaking about the experience of child abuse) and Margaret Bearlin (on the violence of war and the silencing of women's voices and experiences). Sensitively guided into further reflection by David Neville, those present were then invited to come forward if they wished to share something of their responses to what they had heard or the violence they themselves had encountered.
After such rich and powerful reflections, the evening then concluded with a short liturgy of healing - Towards Wholeness - led by Bishop Owen Dowling.
Jon Inkpin
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