The attempt to dress violence in the language of divine
will is as old as empire – and just as morally bankrupt. The recent bombing of
Iran ordered by US President Donald Trump, and the chorus of justification from
self-styled Christian Zionists, is more than a geopolitical act. It is
something far more dangerous: the fusion of racism, militarism and theological
distortion into a single, combustible ideology. (This is an adaptation of an
article by Kua Kia Soong in Aliran)
The bombing of a sovereign nation is not “God’s
intention” to punish an “evil regime”. It is blasphemy. It reduces God to a
tribal war deity, conveniently aligned with the strategic interests of one
superpower. This is not Christianity. It is a propaganda as good as the
Crusades!
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org
The Easter message delivered by Pope Leo XIV offers a
stark moral contrast. Easter, at its core, is about sacrifice, redemption and
the triumph of life over violence. It is a reminder that the Divine cannot be
invoked to sanctify destruction. A God worthy of worship cannot be conscripted
into bombing campaigns. In John 10:10, Jesus was explicit about the thief who
comes to steal, kill and destroy. Isn’t it religious hypocrisy to preach love
on Sunday and justify war on Monday?
What we are witnessing is not just hypocrisy. It is a
deeply racialised worldview. Iran is cast as inherently “evil”, its people
reduced to caricatures, its society flattened into a target. This is the same
logic that has justified countless injustices across history: the
dehumanisation of ‘the other’ as a precondition for violence (including the
Holocaust). There is no rationality to racism. There never has been and ever
will be.
The same irrationality underpins the demonisation of
Iran. Entire populations are judged not as individuals but as embodiments of an
abstract “evil”. Once that narrative takes hold, violence becomes easier to
justify. Bombs fall more readily when those below are seen not as human beings,
but as enemies of God.
It is worth remembering, too, the historical irony –
indeed, the moral inversion – at play here. Today, some Christian Zionists
present themselves as defenders of Jewish destiny, invoking biblical narratives
to support modern political agendas. Yet history tells a different story. For
centuries, Christians in Europe were among the worst oppressors of Jews –
subjecting them to persecution, expulsion, forced conversion and massacre. The
legacy of Christian antisemitism is long and brutal. It should instil humility,
not self-righteousness.
To now claim divine authority in matters of war, while
ignoring this history, is not just ahistorical – it is dangerous. It suggests
that lessons have not been learnt that the machinery of exclusion and violence
can simply be repurposed with a different target.
The real Easter message – the one worth holding onto – is
not about vengeance or punishment. It is about the refusal to answer violence
with violence, the insistence on the dignity of every human being, rejection of
hatred in all its forms and the power of the Cross to redeem all lost souls.
Nothing violent in that!
If faith is to mean anything in the modern world, it must
stand against the weaponisation of religion. It must challenge the narratives
that turn people into enemies and wars into holy missions. And it must remind
us that there is nothing divine about dropping bombs on human beings.
What we are seeing is not the will of God. It is the
failure of humanity, dressed up in the language of righteousness – but exposed,
ultimately, as what it is: racism, power and the tragic refusal to learn from
history.
Reference:
Easter against Empire: Why God cannot
justify the bombing of Iran, Kua Kia Soong, Aliran, 5 April 2026
No comments:
Post a Comment