Not in God’s name

On this day, May 4th, the Church of England remembers the English saints and martyrs of the Reformation era – a period which lasted from the 14th-17th centuries and was most intense during the 16th century.

During that turbulent time, many holy Christian men and women suffered for holding fast to what they believed to be the truth of the gospel. Protestants and Catholics alike were martyred for their faith, with those inflicting the violence doing so in the belief that they were the keepers of truth and their victims were heretical.

That is, of course, an over-simplification of the complex political, religious, and social factors of that time of persecution. But it does remind us of how religious belief can be warped and twisted to such an extent that the most appalling acts of cruelty and violence can be conducted ‘in God’s name’.

History is littered with such examples. While Christians were killing each other during the Reformation, today it is Muslims who are killing each other in various parts of the world. No religion is immune from the danger of convincing itself that it alone is the arbiter of God’s truth, which can lead to the slippery slope that moves from exclusivism, though authoritarianism, and eventually to persecuting those who do not comply.

The fact of the matter is that the persecution and killing of anyone for holding different beliefs can never be authenticated by claiming that it is in God’s name – whoever makes that claim – and such actions are always an affront to the God whom the perpetrators claim to serve.

At such terrible times the nature of God is visible not in the the persecutors but in those who bear witness to their faith and trust in God by facing their suffering with courage and dignity, revealing the moral and religious bankruptcy of their oppressors. In one of the readings appointed for today, St Paul puts it this way when speaking about the persecution of the early followers of Jesus at Corinth:

‘We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4.8-12)

So on this day when we remember the Reformation martyrs, it is important to remind ourselves of two things.

• Firstly, with sorrowful hearts, we recall how easily religion can be distorted into a platform from which violence is perpetrated – allegedly in God’s name but, which in fact flies in the face of all that God is. Killing ‘in God’s name’ is nothing more than evil disguised.
• Secondly, the martyrs remind us that in every age there are godly men and women who are prepared to stand firm in the face of evil because they know the love of God in their lives and that it transcends the misguided actions of those who would do them evil. Death, for them, is not the worst thing that can happen.

May their example encourage us in our own lives to live with God’s love, compassion and mercy as our guiding principles in the face of whatever comes our way.

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