A House Divided

There was a time when the UN was synonymous with ‘never again’, when the five major powers responsible for defeating Hitler determined that the horrors of the Second World War would never be repeated and that they would stand as a body to remind the world of this fact. Before that, after the First World War, an international treaty was drawn up declaring that the use of gas (or chemical weapons) in conflict situations was to be deemed illegal. But the Security Council, whose job it is to make sure that international laws are respected and obeyed, is divided against itself, and a divided house cannot stand.

Picking up on my last post, there are two things Christians can do about this: The first is to use every means available to persuade the United Nations to act in such a way as to prevent the Syrian people from being further harmed by their despotic leader. The second concerns the manner in which Christians and other people of faith address this matter in prayer. The difficulty lies in the fact that there is justifiable concern on all sides concerning how best to resolve this conflict some of whose origins lie in the beginning of the colonial system, and perhaps even earlier than that. 

Nevertheless, the chief obstruction to resolving the crisis lies in the attitudes of two key powers, Russia and China. (The perpetrator of this slaughter is a psychopath, which puts him in an entirely different category.) These are the two nations which need our prayers most at present, along with the Syrian victims themselves. Given the purpose of the United Nations, and of the Security Council in particular, it is becoming clear that there needs to be some real change of heart within the family of nations, some real ‘give’, beginning with these two powers if this situation is not to go into global meltdown.

It is therefore once again a matter of people of faith standing together. But now we need to stand in two ways at once. First, in the deep knowledge that the love of God contains and holds all people, along with all the hatred generated within the present conflict situation, deep within itself, within deep time, or eternity. In other words, it is the love of God which ultimately ‘controls us’, to quote St. Paul. That is not a conviction of the head but one of faith, the kind of faith which is shaped from a different kind of intelligence, one which senses the power of God’s love at work at all times and in all places and knows that the darkness has not overcome the light – and never will.

The second, which follows from the first, is a matter of our love for the Syrian people being expressed as determination to put an end to this slaughter now, and to prevent it ever happening again in the future. Here, we see ourselves standing alongside Russia and China as brothers and sisters in the same human family, along with Iran and Al Khaida, and all its associates wherever they happen to be. As we do this, we ‘steady’ them all within that same divine love. This requires that our own personal feelings and convictions be set aside, so that the transforming work of God’s grace can be worked through us as a single human family. For Christians, only two words are needed, ‘Kyrie Eleison’, Lord have mercy. Those reading this post who are from other faith traditions might want to substitute them with their own equivalent prayer.