Monday reflection - the kind of righteousness of leadership.

Monday morning reflection.

Sometimes you think about church, and you wonder, is the blind pursuit of righteousness what makes some of us unbearable, insufferable? 

If you see an atheist living his life, you see someone who lives it the best way he knows how. He is not going to cite scriptures, but he is going to live by them, even without knowing it. 

Love thy neighbour. Check. Be patient, be kind. Check. Do not envy. Check. Give cheerfully. Check. Turn the other cheek. Check. Persevere to the end. Check. 

I am not saying that every atheist will live all that up. But, I have read and seen enough to know that some of them do live a scriptural life without professing to believing in a God of the scriptures. 

It is sad that we as Christians sometimes get more obsessed with how to be right than how to do right. 

The best example here is the crowd who caught the woman with a man, and was brought to the public square before Jesus to be stoned. 

The experts of the Mosaic law questioned Jesus, saying, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”

I can sense their jubilation when they smoked out a sinner in their midst. Compound that with a woman sinner caught in an act most of them are guilty of - if we would to apply Jesus’ standards concerning adultery or murder - and we have the perfect storm of the blind pursuit of righteousness, or better known as self-righteousness. 

Just as we inherited the seed of Adam, we also inherited this seed of self-righteousness, which is still very much alive in the church today. 

The irony is that self-righteousness is a very Christian thing because we often boast about how we are saved and how the rest are not. We see atheists as in need of help. We treat them as outside of the favour of God. We judge their every action as an action a person who is lost would naturally think about and unthinkingly do. 

It is almost like a one-upmanship whereby the believers perceive themselves as standing on the right side of history while the rest are, well, still groping in darkness. 

We may openly denounce such mindset, distancing ourselves from it, but in our daily living, especially when we are holding positions of leadership, we subconsciously show such prejudices not just against those who are unsaved, but also those (if not more so) we perceive as not living it up, that is, not demonstrating Christlikeness. 

The mob led by the respected teachers of the law demanding to stone the adulteress is a good example of how self-righteousness can turn into an obsession. 

In the modern church, such pursuit of what one think is right with unabated zeal has often turned tribalistic. 

One may have many hidden motives for it, whether it is for self-preservation, self-glorification or self-enrichment, but ultimately the means to achieving it is to use what is right (thy shall not commit adultery) to do what is wrong (stone her). 

It is often quite primitively binary, that is, if you sin, stone, if you fall, condemn, and if you threaten my position, raise a rebellion. 

In essence, it is the blind pursuit of righteousness in order to showcase how right one can be about it, not knowing how insufferable we have become as we allow the obsession to overtake or consume us. 

Let’s return to how Jesus managed the mob. 

We know what he said to them. “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." 

While they challenged him to condemn, he challenged them back to reflect, that is, to do some soul searching. 

In a way, you can say that he turned the stone in their hands into the bread of a possible new life, a life that He led and died for; a life of overcoming, and not one where one is overcome by his petty quarrels, territorial contests and egoistical jostling. 

When one by one they left, some I believe realising the errors of their ways, and others disappointed that their zeal had backfired, Jesus turned to the woman and said, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, sir." And he said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again."

My takeaway is this. Jesus did not monopolise righteousness, albeit embodying it. Faultless, he did not use it as a means of oppression. He reversed that order: Righteousness is the end goal, and the means towards it is to exercise or demonstrate the fruits of the Spirit.

In that order, the pursuit is no longer a blind one, whereby it is turned into an instrument for self-glorification. And in that order, the pursuit is about submission, humility and dying to self, so that one may subject oneself to the ends of righteousness and not to lord over others by riding on it. 

This is my Monday morning reflection, and I hope to leave you with this impression - whether we claim to be believers or not, without love, that is, the love shown at Calvary, we are nothing, we still fall short.

Does God hate women?

Today's paper (4th Nov) tells of two grim tales. A Pakistani woman was doused in petrol and set on fire by her jilted lover. She was only 20. She refused his marriage proposal and the price she paid for it was her life. 50% of her body was burnt. She died yesterday morning from wounds infected.

Another tale is about stoning in Afghanistan. She was another young victim around 19 to 21. In a video recording, the young lady was seen stoned to death by religious Taliban men. Her crime? She was forced to marry someone much older than her against her will and she eloped with a man her age. It reports that she "can be heard repeating the shahada, or Muslim profession of faith, her voice growing increasingly high-pitched in the nearly 30-second clip."

Alas, the reality is this, misogyny is the world's oldest prejudice and the religion of men has been used against women for centuries. In the Biblical account of the creation of Adam, are women really an afterthought? Are they really the impure sex? Are they Pandora's daughters? The beautiful evil? Because life being a woman in some religiously straitjacketed countries - ruled by a form of self-righteous theocracy under a male-dominated holy groupthink - can be a living hell.

In the name of their gods, women suffered genitalia mutilation to preserve purity and wholeness, incarceration for revealing their ankles and nape of their neck, cruel torture and beatings for driving, talking to men and going out unaccompanied, repeated rape with absolute impunity, and unspeakable abuse, even death, in the name of honor.

Sometimes, driven to near insanity, one is tempted to ask: Does God hate women?

Lesson? I hold up three in earnest and hope.

1) God has nothing to do with it. Many will burn with anger with this statement. But the truth is, humanity will do what they want to do to satisfy their own lust for power, domination and control. They will use whatever that works - religion or otherwise - to perpetuate their fraud, their greed and their evil. We are not only social animals, we are also beasts of violence, and at the same time, priests of purity. The two asymmetrical roles, that is, beast and priest, work hand in glove in an enraptured shadow dance because they are joined as one by an egregious purpose that no words can describe.

Needlessly to say, God does not endorse their thoughts and actions but they are delusional enough to think otherwise. For Blaise Pascal has said it before and I will say it here: "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

2) The culprit is identity, tribalism, dualism, and dehumanization. We as social animals seek a group identity; however perverse. When we find it, we congeal together as "tribal" blood is thicker than "outsider's" water. We then put on a veneer of religiosity to add inflammatory credence to our belief, creed and practice.

From there, it is about us versus them, in-group versus out-group, name of our god versus name of their gods. Dualism pits good against evil, but the problem is that evil and good are often used interchangeably as long as it suits the tribal leader's purpose of self-perpetuation.

With a core identity, tribalistic hunger, and dualistic justification, dehumanization of the others come almost second nature to men who are hell bent to make evil a divine decree from heaven above.

And...

3) Jonathan Swift once said: "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another." Notwithstanding the backhanded compliment, I choose to believe that only religion can tame our inner desires and lust and redeem us once again.

For example, the narratives in the Bible are all about reconciliation, restoration and redemption. Sure, wars and carnage are aplenty but that is because we confront ourselves by confronting our most depraved thoughts and actions. The Word doesn't do cosmetic/superficial changes.

The Bible is true to form and substance. In its form, humanity can do unspeakable evil. But in substance, they can perform the greatest act of kindness, love, sacrifice and repentance. The bridge between them is the Biblical narrative's conclusions, that is, when Isaac and Ishmael made peace at their father's funeral, when Esau and Jacob reconciled in the end, when Joseph and his brothers (and father) were united, when David repented, when Jesus' disciples sacrificed their lives, and most of all, when God himself was crucified.

James Arthur Baldwin once said, "I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain." And after the pain, I sincerely believe, comes a heart of brokenness, contrition, repentance, forgiveness, hope, strength and love.

Let me end with William Blake’s teaser, "Both read the Bible day and night, But thou read'st black where I read white." I guess the Bible remains unchanged. Its narrative speaks of love and of reconciliation when we have confronted the worst of our nature. But it's the human heart that needs changing. For our heart may be above all deceitful, but when wholly transformed, our selfless deeds will stun, amaze and inspire us all. Cheerz.

A world without self-righteousness?

What would living in a world free from self-righteousness look or feel like? Well, I guess the first to go is that all too familiar holier-than-thou attitude. Essentially, you will feel or act no better, smarter or holier than your neighbor or that person standing beside you in the train or that man begging for extra change on the street or that candidate voting against you in a campaign or that churchgoer sincerely questioning your sermon or that young student raising a valid point that threatens your credibility.

A world without self-righteousness would leave most things we see today unchanged. Yet the change is nevertheless there. It is subtle and it goes far deeper. In fact, I believe the difference is so profound that many will find their relationships vastly improved, even more resilient. First impression will not only be enriching, it will be equally enduring too.

I imagine such a world will be devoid of self-conceited judgment and everyone will be a hardcore listener and not a die-hard critic. It is a world where having the last word is palpably embarrassing and most will politely refrain from speculating and prejudging. It is also a more transparent world where candid-ness is strongly encouraged and hidden motives frowned upon. There is in reality no axe to grind because there is neither any cause for wielding an axe nor grinding it.

Without self-righteousness, everyone will feel relaxed, fully disarmed, safe and secure, and completely open in sharing any feelings, emotions, hurts or disagreement that he or she may have over less than agreeable issues. Negotiation will be based on serving the interests of the whole rather than the interest of self or other dead-end ideologies used as a means to serve a self-glorifying end.
 Considering that self-righteousness is generally a delusional over-estimation of one's ability, expertise or opinion of oneself, I can expect that such a world will readily endorse this saying by the Chinese sage, Confucius, "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance." For if you think about it, in our infinite ignorance, aren't we all equal? For this reason, the starting point of any dialogue is to treat the other party with respect, understanding, and most importantly, as equals. No one will exhibit even an iota of self-superiority, pomposity or condescension. All know-it-all will humbly adopt a learn-with-all posture. 

I trust a world where self-righteousness is absent is also a world where people of all walks of life are conscious of their own flaws and shortcomings. Self-awareness will be so convicting (and restraining)  that it leaves no room for self-delusion. No doubt they will still compete with one another but the competition will be to do one's best and not to think that one is more superior than the other. There will of course be winners and runners-up but it will not result in envy or anger because when the focus is not on self but on others, the winners will generally be humbled and the rest will be duly inspired. Even those who are leaders, mentors and teachers will be scarce to flaunt their knowledge and experiences around.

The intrinsic beauty of this world is that no one is made to feel small, worthless, inadequate, inferior, discriminated, unimportant, disregarded, dismissed or insulted. Each individual is treasured for who he or she is and not what he or she is expected to become by an impersonal and capricious standard. There will no doubt be standards to achieve and performances to match but it will not be one where the winners are glorified and the losers are stigmatized.

I would never underestimate the power of change in a world where self-righteousness is done away with. I can picture a conflict-absent world where the people living in it are more self-sacrificing than self-hoarding. As personal egos are put to rest, or at least banished to a subordinated role, the world will for the first time experience a servanthood revolution. People will find more pleasure in giving rather than taking, and generosity and kindness will lead the way instead of strife, greed and exploitation.

Short of washing the feet of their people, world leaders will serve in humility, act with consideration, and lead with more heart than head knowledge. They will deal directly with the issues – however thorny they can turn out - and not the person, and they will seek to understand before they crave to be understood. Building relationship -  and not one's personal agenda and reputation - will be the overriding goal in international engagement.

A world without self righteousness is an others-first society and the unintended consequence of elevating others is that it will strangely lead to the elevation of self. But there is a decisive difference here. This unintended or indirect  elevation is not a result of mindless self-promotion, but instead it is a product of self-denial and selfless giving. As such, the discernible effect is both self-effacing and self-empowering. And that is why a world without self-righteousness is undeniably transforming, and not to mention, rather revolutionary. Cheerz.