What Would Gandhi Do?

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." -Gandhi

Nietzsche once said, "If you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss stares into you." I once thought that faith would be a way for me to finally turn away from the abyss and for the abyss to finally turn away from me. Yet Gandhi's experiences with Christians remind me that what's wrong with a life of faith isn't the act of faith, but having to deal with the people of faith. We are the weakest link in the chain.

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most respected leaders of modern history. A Hindu, Gandhi nevertheless admired Jesus and often quoted from the Sermon on the Mount. Once when the missionary E. Stanley Jones met with Gandhi he asked him, “Mr. Gandhi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?”

Gandhi replied, “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Apparently Gandhi’s rejection of Christianity grew out of an incident that happened when he was a young man practising law in South Africa. He had become attracted to the Christian faith, had studied the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, and was seriously exploring becoming a Christian. And so he decided to attend a church service. As he came up the steps of the large church where he intended to go, a white South African elder of the church barred his way at the door. “Where do you think you’re going, kaffir?” the man asked Gandhi in a belligerent tone of voice.

Gandhi replied, “I’d like to attend worship here.”

The church elder snarled at him, “There’s no room for kaffirs in this church. Get out of here or I’ll have my assistants throw you down the steps.”

From that moment, Gandhi said, he decided to adopt what good he found in Christianity, but would never again consider becoming a Christian if it meant being part of the church.

How we treat those others tells people MORE about what we believe, and what following Jesus means to us, than all the fine sermons we deliver.

Found at John Mark Ministries
(original source unknown)

In visiting a number of blog posts and their accompanying comments over the past several months and particularly in recent weeks, I see an unswerving dedication of the believers making said blogs and comments to following the example and traditions of the Christians who threw Gandhi out of church in South Africa. If someone who doesn't fit the mold or says something that doesn't fit the prevailing theology of the group, they are insulted, belittled, and cast out.

I had a somewhat similar (though not as intense) experience in a church I used to attend once I started studying the Old Testament in a new way and started trying to grasp what the Torah must look like from a more Hebraic point of view. I no longer fit the mold and could not be accepted in the group while I asked questions the group wasn't prepared to answer. I did that just a few days ago and drew a lot of comments and conversation.

Don't get me wrong, the conversation is very worthwhile and I think there is much to be learned from such a dialog, but along with the interaction, some people found it necessary to get hot under the collar about the topic.

Why?

Are you so sure that your opinion is the only opinion and that it is the absolutely right opinion? Can you learn from no one else outside of you?

I ask these questions of myself all the time and this blog is the continually developing result of my attempt to answer those questions. Hopefully, my struggles, which are primarily with me, won't eventually degrade into developing and expressing a disdain for others. One of the things I am sure of is that putting people down because they disagree with me isn't the right thing to do:

There are other ways in which we are forbidden to injure another with words. Thus, we are commanded not to slander, gossip, or talebear, as the Torah states, "Do not go around as a gossiper among your people" (Leviticus 19:16). Concerning a slanderer, the Psalmist entreated, "May God cut off all slandering lips, every tongue that speaks distortions" (Psalms 12:4), thereby warning us that this is among the most serious of sins.

It is likewise forbidden to cause pain, anguish or suffering, or tease another, or embarrass him in any way, as the Torah states, "Do not vex your fellow man, but rather fear your God" (Leviticus 25:17).

It is forbidden to cause dissent and argument, as the Torah states, "Do not be like Korach and his party" (Numbers 17:5) -- who wrought dissent in Israel.

From Respecting God in Speech
Aish.com

The Master gave us a new commandment to "love one another" (John 13:34), which I've mentioned before, and I've also said that we don't seem to do a very good job at obeying this commandment. We also know this:

But the word love in Torah is primarily an activist commandment: Love your neighbor and the stranger; love God. Even to love God (says Talmud Yoma 26a) means we should behave divinely toward others, “making God beloved, through us.” And Maimonides brought an almost ecological consciousness to loving the One in the Mishneh Torah: “When we study God’s many wondrous works and creations, and thus comprehend God’s infinite wisdom, immediately we love, and praise.” The prophets warn us to pair every prayer with acts of love. As 20th-century Jewish philosopher Martin Buber taught: “Love of the Creator and love of that which God has created, are finally one and the same.”

Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb
Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation
Bethesda, MD
Found at Moment Magazine

I question my faith a lot and sometimes I wonder, given all of the problems we seem to have with each other, if a life of faith is worth it. Wouldn't I be happier if I just dropped a life that no one seems interested in actually living, and simply devoted myself to things like art, philosophy, literature, and music? Many people find great rewards in those pursuits and they don't hassle each other about it.

However, there's nothing wrong with God, Christ, and faith. As Gandhi's famous experience points out, there's something wrong with us. We are not being a light to the world (Matthew 5:14) and we are salt that has lost its taste (Matthew 5:13). What good are we if we don't actually live out the teachings of the one we are supposed to revere?

Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep what I command" (John 14:15), but we don't keep his command to love one another, at least as far as what I can see.

Is there no humility and a desire to reconcile among the disciples of the Jewish Messiah? Is our faith and love that small?

The well-known Torah scholar Hillel (ca. 60 B.C.E.-C.E. ca. 10) famously summed up all of Torah by saying, That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the commentary; go and study. (Tractate Shabbat 31a). Yeshua taught, Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:39), very much mirroring Hillel, but our actions in the blogosphere prove we don't give much consideration to either Yeshua or Hillel.

I like the text found under the main title at Lev Echad:

Jewish unity is possible - really! It begins with acting decently toward one another, it follows with tolerating others as they pursue lives of goodness; it culminates with many different Jews, but just one heart.

Why can't we do that?

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark...