According to Wikipedia, persecution is defined thusly:
… persecution seems to be the expression of a more general trend in human social behaviour, (perhaps related to tribalism ), which seeks to impose or enforce conformity.
Persecution is not recognised as such by persecutors, only by their victims or outside observers. Persecutors either see no wrong in their actions, or rationalize it as a small or short-term wrong to counter what they see as a larger, more serious wrong, as in The ends justify the means. Most commonly, this is expressed as seeking to protect themselves or their families or society from what they see as the harmful influence of the persecuted group.
Persecuted groups are often labelled using pejorative terms which reinforce their social alienation. For example different races are called inferior or sub-human; different religions are called infidels or heathen; political groups are called subversive; homosexuals and drug users are called immoral. Use of such terms with strongly negative connotations allows individuals to avoid examining the true nature of their relationship with the persecuted group.
Since people are, in general, incapable of recognising their own prejudices, compiling a full list of all forms of persecution is inevitably controversial. For almost anything which could be cited as an example of persecution, there will be those who claim it is legitimate personal or social self-defense.
Hmmmm …. having recently been involved in some personal conflict, this description gave me pause. During the conflict I often felt persecuted. So did some of the others involved. Since we were at odds with one another, the question arises who were the persecuted and who were the persecutors. But, then again, perhaps that is not the important question. The far more important question might be, does the end justify the means?
We are very familiar with this concept. It was first published by Niccolo Machiavelli in his political masterpiece, The Prince in 1515 … In a brutal world, where every man is out for himself, being something other than what one actually is, for fun and profit, as long the ends are worthy, is a valuable tool:
For this reason a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality, inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them; and in the actions of all men, and especially of princes, which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges by the result.
The above quote comes from chapter 18 entitled “Concerning the Way In Which Princes Should Keep Faith.” I read that chapter at least three times. I could not find a tiny piece of it which glorified God, or spoke of learning to walk with Him. So I wondered who the prince was keeping faith with? Was it God, the people, his betters, himself?
The more startling issue is that I had to read several chapters before finding this. I was amazed at how ingrained in our culture Machiavellian thinking has become. We have all become little princes, looking after our fiefdoms. Far from being the polemic on evil that I thought it was, it merely outlined poltics and living as we have come to know it in the late 20th and early 21st century. Are we running late for an appointment? Then sure, cut someone off and potentially cause an accident (or at least cause their heart rate to go up). Our good and/or necessary ends justify the means. We’ll do penance through helping someone else out later in the week. Or slip a little extra in the collection plate at church.
Pulling back the lens a little we look at our farming practices which are causing havoc in creation and the animal kingdom. But the good and/or necessary ends are that we can feed so many more people so far away now. Do those means really add up? Do those means truly justify the ends? Are we merely gaining something in the short term which will cause greater long term damage?
Then I look at the example set by God. I see that He never, no never, not one time followed this line of thinking. Granted He is God and as I believe Him to be, He has more and greater knowledge of the way things are than I do. But He does not take the route of ends justifying the means. If that were the case, we would not celebrate Easter each year. He would have found an easier route to our salvation than condemning a part of Himself to death. He is endlessly patient, never willing that an event should happen before its proper time. Knowing when each seed needs to grow to fruition and when it needs to lie waiting.
The longer I walk down this road with my Saviour, the more I am coming to think that every time we act in line with “the ends justify the means,” we are working against the will of God and become the persecutor. But if we lay that down and earnestly seek His will for ourselves and our neighbors (whoever they may be) we continue to walk in His will. Will this open us up to becoming the persecuted? Probably. But that is a story for another day, my beloved.
Here are the rest of the Synchrobloggers and their masterpieces … which are actually more worthy than mine:
