Museums and the Reign of God

Linda and I have returned home from a 24 day southern adventure.  Since moving back to Minnesota, we have now joined the myriad of "sotans" who take time during the winter months to head south for warmth and R and R.  Travel also gives us great times of learning and reflection.  Hence, I brought along a book by Richard T. Hughes entitled Christian America and the Kingdom of God.  A great book.  He writes of how America came to believe itself a Christian nation and how questionable is this claim.  He also writes that Jesus' purpose was to usher in the Kingdom of God. In a later blog I will be commenting on his thesis.  For now I will focus on the Reign of God, the Kingdom of God.

Museums give a paradoxical insight into the character of the Kingdom of God.  We visited several on our journey.  Museums are more than a collection of artifacts.  Museums are essentially "story".  They tell us stories about persons, events, and creations.  A couple of weeks ago I shared the civil rights story and what those events say to us today, and how we can help make real the Kingdom of God by duplicating their actions. The challenge now is to learn from these stories, much like we learn from the Biblical stories, and how these stories can give us insights about making real the Reign of God.

We, or should I say "I",  visited the Naval Museum in Mobile, Alabama.  As Linda read the newspaper and organized our gear, I walked through the battleship USS Alabama, gazed upon American fighter aircraft, took pictures of a Russian MIG-15, wiggled through a submarine, and walked around a B-52 intercontinental bomber in "mothballs".  As a kid I liked to build plastic models of ships, bombers, and fighters. Now the real thing! I was surrounded by steel, gun turrets, 20mm, 40mm, 5" guns, bullets of many calibers, 16" projectiles which could travel over 20 miles, torpedos, and subsonic to mach 2.5 fighter aircraft.  Massive, sophisticated killing machines covered acres of ground and water.  I felt a cold adrenaline rush.

Likewise, when we were in New Orleans, we toured the new WWII Museum.  Hanging from the ceiling were fighter aircraft, a C-47 that flew over Normandy, tanks, a German 88 anti-aircraft battery, guns of every sort, and hundreds, perhaps thousands of pictures.  There was the moving story of the American Jewish soldier, fighting for freedom while also experiencing forms of discrimination.  The 4-D movie narrated by Tom Hanks was a visual buffet of sights, sounds, motion, and smells of the conflict.  There were about 65 million deaths in that war: 465,000 Americans, 20 million Russians, 12 million Asians, 6 million Jews, and onward on a descending spiral.  Most of the dead were the innocents, caught in the crosshairs of "honor and national justification".

Then came Tucson.  Another war.  The shooter and the victims.  The Violence Policy Center says there are 283 million guns in American homes.  It reports a direct relationship between the availability of guns per state and the rate of gun deaths per state.  An article in the Des Moines Register reports that in 2007, there were 12, 632 homicides in the United States, 179 in Canada, 42 in Great Britain, and 30 in Australia.  Americans own more guns than these three countries combined.  Indeed, if my memory is correct, gun deaths per year in the USA are more than all other nations in the world combined, unless there is a war within a nation.  As an aside, while driving through Alabama, we saw more huge fireworks stands than I have seen in any other state.  Also, there was a sign: "One Million Rounds of Ammo" for sale at a local gun store. The ritual of death had come closer to home and become more personal and possible for each of us.  Museums of the past had come home to the present.

I have never been a fan of the Just War crowd.  Violence cannot be justified.  Violence creates only victims.  Violence is a sign of brokenness, of us falling short of God's design. Violence is sin.  Violence is the antithesis of the Kingdom of God. Yes, I know we can say that we needed to stop Hitler and Tojo, that we needed to stop the Holocaust, that we needed to teach Sadam a lesson, that we needed to halt the aggression and genocide in the Balkans, that we needed to fight for our independence from England.  The arguments are strong and the justifications convincing.  But let us not allow these arguments and justifications to assuage our consciences and parade down the avenue of celebration, carrying the cross as if it were the flag of nations. The Kingdom of God, the Reign of God is about love and reconciliation  and peace and nonviolence.  If we allow for anything less we distort the life of Christ.  Jesus wept because he was saddened at the death of his friend.  Jesus wept at the  anticipation of his impending suffering.  Jesus cried out: "Why have You forsaken me?" War, death, bullets, guns are signs of us forsaking God's will and choosing our will.  It is pure nationalistic ego to carry the cross of Christ at the forefront of battle.

This is why the Kingdom of God, the Reign of God, is also about forgiveness.  Being there is no justification for war and violence, there can only be mercy.  We bend our knees, bow our heads, and open our hands to receive God's gracious forgiveness.  We confess our complicity in creating the downward spiral of death.  No celebrations.  No hymns to honor.  No twisted logic.  Just confession and forgiveness and restoration and recommitment to making real the Reign of God, the Kingdom of God in Christ.

While in Montgomery, Alabama, Linda and I visited the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Civil Rights Memorial Center.  We heard more stories of moral courage based upon nonviolence as the method for change.  Gandhi was given a significant place as inspiration for King's commitment.  Part of the SPLC was the Wall of Tolerance, a huge visual scroll of names committed to nonviolence.  You could add your name.  We did.  A small act.  A step.  Museums are about people who take steps.  It is steps that make real the Reign of God.

Peace,
Ron