Religious Violence Kills Love

 

News reports show in graphic details Buddhist monks attacking Muslims in Burma. Christians fighting and killing Muslims in Syria indiscriminately. Islamist extremists blowing-up Catholics in Nigeria. Sikh’s and Hindu’s battle each other in India.

Religious violence is a common factor in today’s world.

The face of the twenty first century is deeply scarred by radical religious movements constantly evolving and emerging it would appear from all the world’s cultures. Whether they are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh or Hindu they all share one basic common denominator…MAN!

The key factor in all these outrageous inhuman acts is man fostering and perpetrating violence because of a deeply held belief that their God hates the other people’s belief and will go to extraordinary lengths to crush and destroy the opposition.

This has little or nothing to do with religion. It has all to do with man’s prejudices and self-interest. I am not an expert on all religions, but I am sure that most faiths, and certainly the Christian faith preach tolerance, peace, love and charity to fellow human beings. It seems that in the very DNA of man is the proclivity to act violently towards each other, especially when our beliefs are trammeled upon and offended. What is this to do with God?

I know from my own understanding of Christianity that it has nothing to do with God. My personal knowledge of God is that he is an inclusive God reaching out to all faiths and all peoples, rich or poor, black or white, Jew or Gentile.

At times it seems impossible that man, having made contact with a gracious super-powerful creator, can remain silent long enough to hear from God how he wants us to live and not rushing off with sword and gun in hand to construct our own ill-founded versions of religion.

Do Angels really have wings?

Early Christian Art did not depict angels with wings. Often angels were not shown in human form at all but instead were illustrated as doves or even as the hand of God.
It would seem that the whole idea of showing angels with wings is simply a device in Art, especially in painting, so that the observer could distinguish between the earthly and celestial figures depicted.
It was after the Roman Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD that angels were commonly shown as having wings in all forms of Art. This is not surprising for most observers of early art were illiterate so the symbolic use of wings and other images to denote spiritual or godly persons was a key element in reading the story in the painting. Haloes were used to depict holy people.
If you think about it, why would angels, who are spirit beings and therefore not subject to the elements of the universe, and in particular gravity, need wings to enable them to move. Angels after all are spirit beings and are not subject to ordinary matter as we mortals are.


When angels appear in scripture they are generally described as men, as in the passage in Genesis 18 where Abraham welcomes three angelic travelers. Later we read of two angels visiting Sodom and the people there assume them to be human.
Ancient gods of Babylonia and Egypt and other pagan deities often were shown in sculptured images or stele as having human form with wings or part human with a bird head and even as horses with wings; the familiar Pegasus of mythic tales. Other god like creatures such as Cupid, Hermes and Perseus all appear with wings.
In my books, following biblical truth, none of my characters who are angels or demons are ever described as having wings. It would be wrong I believe in Christian writing to continue the trend and artistic portrayal of angels having wings to propel themselves through space and time. To do so would be to sentimentalise the true nature of these celestial beings which would after all detract from the truth.