今日、彼女から、テロ事件が、どのようなきっかけを与えたのかをお尋ねした。彼女はもともと、ゴスペルのクワイアーに属していて、ゴスペルを歌うことが大好きであったそうである。そして、あのジェット機が世界貿易センターに突っ込む映像を見て、「人間がここまで悪になれるのか」と思われたそうである。もし自分と同じ人間がこんな悪を行なうことができるのであれば、人間は救いようもない存在である。だから、キリストが十字架にかけられて、自分の心にもこの十字架が刻み込まれた、と話してくださった。人間がここまで救いようもないのにも関わらず、自分がこのようにして生き、またゴスペルを歌うことができるのは、神の恵みとしか言いようがないと、教えてくださった。

　私は心の中で、本当にうれしくなった。まさに、そうである、この世界が今、福音の真理を明らかにしてくれている。人間がいかに悪であるかを、目で見えるかたちで示してくれている。これは、人間がいかに暗やみの中に生きているかを教えているので、絶望を私たちにもたらすが、と同時に、キリストによってのみ、私たちが救われないことを教えてくれている。救われるのは、私たちに何か良いものがあるからではなく、ただ神の恵みとあわれみによることを教えてくれている。

　ゴスペルということで、私もクリスチャンになる前に、黒人指導者であったキング牧師の本を読んだことを思い出し、そのことを分かち合わせていただいた。私が大学の英語サークルでのrecitation contest（朗誦大会）にて、キング牧師の“I Have a Dream.”を選び、それで賞を取った。黒人霊歌が天からの躍動に満ちているように、彼の演説も震え上がるような感動と興奮をもった抑揚のある演説であったことを、覚えている。聖書個所をたくさん使って、そして自分の夢を神に託しているその内容は、人の心を動かさないでいることはない。私はただ朗誦するだけでなく、彼の考えと思想にも触れてみたいと思って、大学図書館の書庫にある洋書を引っ張り出して読んだことがある。そこに、今でも深く納得できる言葉が書かれていた。「キリスト信仰者は、現実主義者であり、かつ理想主義者である。」という言葉だ。キリスト者は、物事をきれいに片付けることはしない。ありのままの姿を見つめ徹底的に現実を追求する、現実主義者である。米同時多発テロも、人間の罪性を如実に現わしているものとして、それを直視できる。しかし、他の現実主義者と異なり、キリスト者は希望を持っていることができる。神の御国が間もなく訪れるという希望に満ちており、私たちはその意味で理想主義者である、ということだ。このことを彼女の分かち合ったら、とても納得しておられた様子だった。

　上に引用したパウロの言葉は、そうした救いようのない人間の姿を、写実的に描いている。これが、キリストから離れた私たちの、ありのままの姿なのだ。私たちは自分たちを欺き、その邪悪に満ちた姿から幾分、引き上げたセルフ・イメージを持たせようとする。その典型的な人物として、列王記第二に登場する、ハザエルを挙げることができる。８章にて、ハザエルは、自分の主人であるシリヤ王に委託されて、エリシャのもとに来た。エリシャはハザエルをじっと見て、泣き出した。なぜなら、ハザエルがイスラエルの人々に害を加え、彼らの要塞に火を放ち、若い男たちを剣で殺し、幼子たちを八裂きにし、妊婦たちを切り裂くからだ、とエリシャや言った。ハザエルは、シリヤの王に忠実に仕えていたしもべであり、また何でもないものであることを、認めていた。「しもべは犬にしかすぎないのに、どうして、そんなだいそれたことができましょう。」と言っている。しかし、彼がエリシャのもとを去って、病気のシリヤ王のところに戻ったら、その王を殺して、自分が代わりに王となった。

　私たちの希望は、私たち自身の内にはない。キリストのうちにいるからこそ、私たちは神の愛によって人を愛し、善を行なうことができる。大事なのは自分ではなく、キリストなのだ。今の時ほど、キリストの栄光がますます明らかにされて、キリスト中心の説教、キリスト中心の信仰生活と教会生活を強調しなければいけない時代はない。

　わたしはぶどうの木で、あなたがたは枝です。人がわたしにとどまり、わたしもその人の中にとどまっているなら、そういう人は多くの実を結びます。わたしを離れては、あなたがたは何もすることができないからです。（ヨハネの福音書15:5）

追記：以上は、先日メールにて送られてきた下のエッセイを参考にして書いたものです。本当はこれを訳そうと思いましたが時間がかかるので、下に英文を掲載させていただきます。

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Thoughts on the Fundamental Goodness of Humanity

By Dr. Larry Taylor

April 4, 2002

In the decade of the 1990's, Americans enjoyed unprecedented prosperity in booming financial markets, which produced ubiquitous headlines heralding the latest batch of high tech dot com millionaires. Even when Japanese markets slumped, their occidental counterparts soared, leaving Americans with the distinct impression that unlimited abundance and even opulence was a sacred right. The unspoken tenor of feeling in this country was that nothing could stop us, that our enormous wealth could buy all the material goods, health care, scientific advancements, technological achievement, and goodwill needed to make the world a happy place in which to live. Self-absorbed and self-focused, Americans were shocked by a new millennium that, so far, has brought headlines of the child of a marijuana smoking, wife-swapping San Diego County couple being kidnapped from her own bed in the middle of the night and brutally murdered by a neighbor; of dogs being kept by two San Francisco attorneys for their incarcerated  "three way marriage partner" mauling a lesbian neighbor to death; and of the aforementioned attorneys being convicted of manslaughter (in his case) and second degree murder (in her case) in a State that was unable to convict either O. J. Simpson or the Menendez brothers of murders they clearly committed. Additionally, our newspapers are filled with stories of homosexual Roman Catholic priests sexually preying on innocent young boys throughout much of the world, of bishops and archbishops implicated in homosexual scandal, and of a New York priest being arrested and charged with rape in the state of Massachusetts. Meanwhile, a Superior Court judge in New Hampshire was recently brutally assaulted while sleeping by his alcoholic adult son; two happy-go-lucky teenagers pled guilty to impersonating college students to gain access to a home where they brutally murdered an Ivey League college professor couple; and a member of one of America's most powerful political families is on trial for murder in Connecticut.

Simultaneously, across the sea, emperor worship and atheistic materialism are threatening to undue Japanese culture; the People's Republic of China, home to fully 25% of the world's population, continues to force abortions on its citizens and torture and imprison Christians; and poor believers in Christ are being sold as slaves for $50 a piece in the Sudan. The conglomerate of Arab nations that controls most of the world's petroleum continues to persecute and execute Jews and Christians who share their faith with others, and to teach anti-Semitism and hatred for Christians in general and western American Christians in particular, to their children from the time they can walk. Teenagers and young men and women, radicalized by Islamic hatred, are championed as "martyrs" for blowing themselves up in public places where innocent people are simultaneously slaughtered. In America and in Israel, democratic ideals are assaulted by terrorists bent on the deliberate destruction of innocent life, and good people live their lives in fear and bereavement as a result.

In a recent editorial (April 8, 2002; Vol. 132; No. 11), David Gergen, Editor-at-Large of U.S. News and World Report, referred to some of these events, and remarked that we are now "seeing the grisly underbelly of human nature". Indeed, the news of this era is convincing evidence that human nature is not all goodness and light, that human beings will not, through their own prosperity and skill, lift themselves into a new age of utopian tranquility, and that there is a dark side to us that we would prefer not to recognize. This is nothing new. Nearly three millennia ago, God sent the prophet Elisha to speak a word to a general in Aram (modern Syria) concerning his ascension to the throne of that nation. God had previously predicted through Elijah that Hazael would be the king of the land, but Hazael was impatient to assume his role, and murdered the current king to solidify his power. Later, he used that position to brutalize the Jews in Israel, something Elisha saw and predicted with tears:

2 Kings 8:11 Then [Elisha] set his countenance in a stare until he [Hazael] was ashamed; and the man of God wept. 12 And Hazael said, "Why is my lord weeping?" He answered, "Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel: Their strongholds you will set on fire, and their young men you will kill with the sword; and you will dash their children, and rip open their women with child." 13 So Hazael said, "But what is your servant-a dog, that he should do this gross thing?" (The New King James Version, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers), c1982)

Although Elisha was clear in what he saw, Hazael refused to believe that he was capable of such a thing - "But what is your servant-a dog, that he should do this gross thing?" "Surely", Hazael reasoned, "a cultured and educated man like myself is not capable of the nefarious and treacherous slaughter of innocent people". Nevertheless, he not only was capable of murder and terror, he later practiced it as well, and went to his own grave with his hands stained with the blood of innocent women and children.

In a country steeped in the philosophy of the Enlightenment, which insists as almost a core value that humanity is fundamentally good, the headlines of today's world are a shock. For several centuries many Americans, and their fellow freedom and democracy loving counterparts in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, have insisted that all of humankind's ills can be cured by education and understanding. If we will all simply dialogue long enough, or teach tolerance of others diligently enough, we can then take our remarkable economic prosperity and use it to make the world an almost perfect place. Humanity, we are told, is fundamentally good, and therefore in need of enlightenment and education, but certainly not salvation. A popular conservative talk show host in America continues to insist that if everyone is given the opportunity to be economically free to achieve material success, evil will disappear. Many people firmly believe, for example, that if Israelis and Palestinians would simply talk to each other with understanding as a goal, and if dictatorships like the Palestinian Authority would open their territories to capitalism and economic opportunity, peace would be achieved. Conservatives insist that free markets are the answer to the world's ills, while liberals insist that understanding and dialogue will do the trick. Both are sorely mistaken.

The Rabbi Saul of Tarsus, better known to Christians as Paul the apostle, strings together a long list of quotes from the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, saying in the third chapter of his letter to the believers in Rome:

What then? Are we [i.e., Jews] better than they [i.e., Gentiles]? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks [i.e., Gentiles] are all under sin; 10 as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;
11 THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS,
THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;
12 ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS;
THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD,
THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE."
13 "THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE,
WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING,"  "THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS"; 14 "WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS"; 15 "THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD, 16 DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS, 17 AND THE PATH OF PEACE HAVE THEY NOT KNOWN."  18 "THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES." (The New American Standard Bible, (La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation) 1977)

Paul's point is that humanity is far from basically good - conversely, the Bible insists that we are fundamentally evil, capable of gross sin of all sorts whenever we disconnect ourselves from the only universal source of goodness, godliness, and altruistic, sacrificial love - the true and living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who created the universe. Any human being disconnected from God is morally depraved by a nature inherited from our primeval ancestors in Eden. Yet, like Hazael, we cannot imagine that we are capable of real evil, and we are surprised to learn of an Osama bin Laden or a Yassar Arafat who is. Clinging to our unbiblical Enlightenment philosophic roots, we continue to insist that the pedophile priests, wife-swapping parents, terrorists, and teenage killers we read about in our newspapers are an anomaly, exceptions to the otherwise sound rule of thumb that humanity is good at its core. In so doing, we not only deceive ourselves, we set ourselves up to be victimized repeatedly in the future.

In the speech that Abraham Lincoln himself considered to be his greatest (his second inaugural), President Lincoln did something no president had ever done before and none has done since - he courageously insisted that the scourge of a terrible civil war that cost 600,000 American lives was the fault of both North and South for the practice of slavery in the Confederate States, and the benefiting from and allowing of slavery in the North. Lincoln pointed to a malady, an essential sin, that lay at the heart of the American family - he saw slavery as sinful evil, and the war as God's judgment on all of America for that sin. As the pastor of the nation, he declared the holiness of God, the depravity and evil of humanity, the resultant judgment of God in the form of civil war, and exhorted the nation to genuine repentance, which would produce a new kind of hope and forgiveness that was unprecedented, where victor and vanquished would forgive and embrace one another without malice or hatred. That forgiveness never occurred. Instead, Lincoln was assassinated and the nation was plunged into an aftermath of reprisal in which the northern states sought to punish their southern counterparts without taking responsibility for their own part in the national sin. Had Lincoln lived, the civil rights movement of the 1960's might never have been necessary, for he envisioned the kind of equality and opportunity of which Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed and spoke eloquently.

Today we are confronted with an entire world that has become as Sodom and Gomorrah - a world filled in every corner with hatred, violence, terrorism, persecution, licentiousness, debauchery, and perversion; a world in which all that is good, moral, decent and right is undermined and cast aside, while all that is evil and depraved is openly embraced. We live in a world where the majority of our race are rejecting God and all He stands for, refusing to be under His authority or obey His directives. The result is international chaos. Rather than self-righteously pointing the finger at those obviously engaged in outright evil whose lives fill our news media on a daily basis, it behooves us to heed Lincoln's counsel and ask God to search our own hearts and purge away any sin found therein. It behooves us, like a teenage Daniel of old, to purpose purity in our individual lives, families and communities, embrace responsibility for our individual and national sinfulness and depravity of nature, recognize that we as individuals are capable of gross sin and kept from it only by the grace of God, and cry out to God for healing. Only when humanity returns to God and embraces Him in His way, will righteousness cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

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ORA PRO NOBIS

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The Jesus prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

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© 2002 by Lawrence Russell Taylor, Ph.D. All rights reserved. However, readers may copy and distribute this message as desired, without restrictions in number, as long as the content is not altered. Forwarding this e-mail to friends is encouraged. If you have received this message from a friend and are interested in receiving future essays by Dr. Taylor, please contact us at DrLarryTaylor@aol.com and ask to be included in our mailing list. If you would prefer to be removed from this mailing list, please send an e-mail marked "remove" in the subject line to DrLarryTaylor@aol.com. Dr. Taylor and his family live in Massachusetts where he is the senior pastor of a growing interdenominational church. We deeply covet your prayers.


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