Social Affairs

Thinking Anew – Courage in the face of evil

God will stay with us at all times, in all places

Members of the Russian community in Rome protesting the imprisonment of Alexei Navalny and other Russian political prisoners. Photograph: Simona Granati/Getty Images

Gordon Linney
Sat May 13 2023 - 09:00

According to one of tomorrow’s readings (Acts 17), St Paul is in Athens, one of the great university cities at that time. Famous for its temples, statues and monuments, its people had a keen interest in religion with gods to deal with various aspects of life. Athena, for example, who gave the city its name was a goddess of war as well as an overseer of domestic matters. Hera, a powerful goddess, was worshipped as the queen of heaven with responsibility for matrimonial affairs, while Ares, the god of war, personified courage, and military success. Then there was that other altar that caught the apostle’s eye – to the Unknown God. Paul didn’t belittle their traditions, indeed he acknowledged that they were a very religious people, but went on to say that the God they considered unknown had been made known in the person of Jesus. If they – or we – wanted to know what God was like they need look no further than the person of Jesus Christ.

But the unknown God made known in Jesus Christ has often been the denied or ignored God by dictators and fanatics throughout history. It happened recently in a town called Malindi, in Kenya where a cult leader, Paul Mackenzie Nthenge, allegedly encouraged his followers to fast to death in order to “meet Jesus”. Police intervened and so far have uncovered the graves of almost seventy people, including small children, and he has been arrested.

The preciousness of human life and the value of every single person to God as taught by Jesus were ignored with catastrophic consequences for those easily led.

The same thing is happening in Russia today as Vladimir Putin pursues what he claims to be a holy war to defend the Motherland. In this he seems to have support from the Russian Orthodox church and many of his people. His war has cast a long dark shadow across Europe and beyond but as Leonard Cohen sang in Anthem, “There is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” And that is seen in the incredible courage of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, the man some say Putin fears most. He was recently given a long sentence in a Russian penal colony in an effort to silence him. At his sentencing he said: “Even though our country is built on injustice and we all constantly face injustice ... we also see that millions of people, tens of millions of people, want righteousness.” The former atheist then spoke of his Christian faith, ending with a reference to the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed.

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Tomorrow’s epistle reading from 1 Peter 3 speaks in a special way to Navalny’s situation: “Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed . . . Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” But what kind of hope can anyone have in such a seemingly hopeless situation? Fr Henri Nouwen explains: “Being neither an optimist nor a pessimist Jesus speaks about hope that is not based on chances that things will get better or worse. His hope is built upon the promise that, whatever happens, God will stay with us at all times, in all places.”

Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker who worked with her father and sister and other family members to hide Jewish people from the Nazis during the second World War. They were caught, and she was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp where she shared her faith and hope in the known God with other inmates. She explained later: “When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away your ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”

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