Over the past several decades, it has been observed that the younger generation in Western civilisation, while still demonstrating interest in the practice of virtue, became lukewarm toward the idea of participating in weekend religious services. This is not primarily because they find such routine services boring. Their alienation is due to the fact that they are not getting from church services the moral leadership that they feel they need.
The younger generation in Western society is fully aware of traditional moral teachings relative to the biblical Ten Commandments, which go by different names in other religions. They cannot understand why the preachers of churches they attended would refer to those who terminate the life of the unborn child as murderers and, at the same time, they would refer to those who kill in cold blood women, pregnant ones included, children, the elderly and the sick through gunshots and indiscriminate bombing as heroes!
They cannot understand, in the USA for example, why preachers pray to God openly to save the lives of Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq but they hardly make any mention to God about saving the lives of innocent Afghans and Iraqis. They cannot comprehend why preachers would not hesitate to condemn brutal and abusive actions when performed by individuals, domestic and foreign alike, and, at the same time, they all remain silent when identical brutal and abusive actions are instigated by their government.
The younger generation senses there is something seriously wrong. This explains why more young men and women are replacing their church attendance with eventual humanitarian activities. They seek to participate in religious services offered by more peaceful religions like Buddhism. While in Christianity, for example, we find preachers who speak of the legitimacy of wars, the spiritual masters of Buddhism condemn violence of any kind and, instead, they advocate kindness, generosity, humility, and dedication to the service of others.
Young men and women are increasingly feeling more secure with this kind of spirituality than with their former traditional religious rituals. Ironically, the vast majority of young men and women were born and brought up in the Christian faith. They learned from early childhood that God sent the promised Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, to suffer a cruel and harsh death as to redeem all human beings, thus making them all spiritual children of God. They learned that Jesus was adamantly against violence of any kind. In fact, when Peter drew up the sword to fight for his Master's safety, Jesus rebuked him, saying: "Put the sword away because he who kills by the sword will die by the sword."
Evil of vicious killing
Young men and women in Western civilisation feel confused when they hear their church preacher saying: "The termination of the human life through abortion is an intrinsic evil but the annihilation of the human life that is taken away in wars is an extrinsic evil." The younger generation finds this theological distinction quite mysterious! Some of them begin to wonder what theology is all about after all. The termination of innocent human lives is always an evil and there are no further discussions on this point.
Playing the devil's advocate, we may perhaps try to excuse the confusing moral teachings of Christian preachers in Western civilisation by saying that, after all, they were all born and raised in a culture of war. The war language was the predominant, if not the only one, that they learned since they were born. Probably the word they heard most in their upbringing was the word "fight", like, for example, we should be always ready to fight to safeguard our human rights, to get what we want by all means and to fight to preserve our democracy and freedom. In Western civilisation, "fight" and "war" are probably the words used and heard most in one's lifetime.
If we analyse the speeches of Western political leaders, we are virtually guaranteed to hear these two words more than once. The reason is simple. Such political leaders, like the church preachers, were all born and raised in a culture of war. If they were born in a culture of peace, instead of saying: "We want to wage war on terrorism and we will pursue this war until we kill every terrorist," as we heard US political leaders say on television, we would say: "We want to find remedies to the causes of terrorism and we will not stop until we witness productive results." The younger generation wants to distance itself from the culture of war and align itself with the culture of peace. They view the preachers of their churches in general as being deeply entrenched in the culture of war, which is viewed as dangerous to their future.
When St Thomas Aquinas was asked by his students what he would advise them to do to see things clearly in perspective as he does and to develop the wisdom he had, he did not hesitate to say: "If you want to see things as clearly as you say I do and if you want to develop the kind of wisdom that you say I have then you have to do something I have been doing since I was a young man."
Spiritual advice of wisdom
St Thomas continued saying: "When you hear a statement never ask: 'Who made the statement?' But always ask: 'What does the statement say?' If the statement is conducive to the welfare of all people without exception, then follow it, even if it comes from a garbage man. On the other hand, if the statement is conducive to the welfare of some to the exclusion of the welfare of others or is not conducive to the welfare of anyone, then disregard it; do not follow it, even it comes from the king." Ironically, most of the preachers in Western civilisation have studied St Thomas Aquinas or they feel somewhat familiar with his writings. We would expect them to follow his footsteps in some way or another.
However, when a statement that is misleading and detrimental to our earthly society on the whole comes from the king, the President, or the prime minister, the vast majority of churchmen, if not all, tend to remain completely silent. They do not utter one word of condemnation. They do not urge the members of their congregation to disregard it. And to add insult to injury they even have the courage or arrogance to defend the political leader's stance.
This is exactly the problem that the younger generation is facing in its desperate search for moral leadership. They want to hear good to be singled out and praised, "even when it comes from a garbage man". They want evil to be equally singled out and condemned "even when it comes from the head of state, regardless of his title". Our young men and women want to know the truth as God sees it.
Pope John Paul II had warned the US President three times, pleading with him not to invade Iraq because, he said, "it would be a grave mistake and it would breed more terrorism". At the same time, the clergymen that viewed the Pope as their spiritual leader in life opted to remain silent and not to become involved in what some viewed as politics! So when evil comes from political leaders our preachers and clergymen have no advice to give, no statement to make but to remain silent. And we know that "silence brings consent". Without perhaps realising it, the US clergymen became, in a way, morally accountable for the brutal and merciless killing, maiming and state of depression of thousands of American young men and women and of innocent Iraqis.
What would the great religious leaders of all time, above all Jesus of Nazareth, have done and said if they were living among us today? Jesus, above all, would have taken the lead to expose the hypocrisy of both our political and religious leaders. He would not have hesitated to reveal to the whole world the Pharisees of our 21st century. He would have blessed anything good regardless as to whether or not it emanated from the garbage man or the head of state. He would have condemned anything bad, whether or not it originated from the poor or the rich, from the helpless or the powerful.
Kind of moral leadership needed
Jesus of Nazareth would have warned all those who made money through the weapons and the war machinery to give God what is God's and to the people what belongs to the people. These are the poor and the helpless that were deprived of all necessities of life and virtually ignored by their government because the big corporations have taken all the money they could to manufacture endless machinery of death. Such money would have gone for the health care, education and home facilities of the people. In other words, Jesus would have made it clear that it was not fair and just for the rich to get richer by sucking the blood of the nation's population as a whole.
Those preachers who do harbour great respect for Jesus of Nazareth should take the initiative to advocate the establishment of a general fund to help solve the problem of endless suffering in the world. Such a fund should come by having all those who made millions of dollars from the manufacture and sales of weapons and the promotion of wars, to return all the millions they made to such a general fund. After all, the directors and the big shots of the war industrial complex should realise with clarity that all the money they made was blood money. That money was made through the infliction of endless suffering and pain on millions of people and it is time now to have that same money used to relieve endless millions of people from hunger and disease around the world.
The clergymen and all those who are morally responsible with the welfare of people everywhere must make it very clear to all political leaders that Si vis bellum para bellum, si vis pacem para pacem - If you want war prepare for war and if you want peace prepare for peace. They should condemn the philosophy that says: Si vis pacem para bellum - if you want peace prepare for war. This philosophy is both vicious and fallacious. The younger generation wants to see a moral leadership in the world that advocates the development of an international programme of disarmament and arms control and that anyone who puts stumbling blocks to this objective should be viewed as criminal.
Are there any clergymen in Western civilisation that are ready to assume that same moral leadership that Jesus would have assumed had he lived at this time of history? Fortunately, we do have some churchmen who are already doing that but the number is somewhat too small for the world to notice. The Maryknoll priests in New York, far example, have already taken a good step in this direction through the making of videos to help us comprehend the viciousness and cruelty of war that is promoted by the weapons industry.
World peace as a human right
Our young men and women, who want to have a direct say in the kind of future they want deserve all the assistance that we could possibly give them. They all want to live in peace, in a world that is free from turmoil, struggle and war. They all want to live in a world to be characterised by disarmament and arms control. They do not want to have their lives controlled by the military machinery any longer. They want to see clergymen and preachers condemning in the open the militarisation of space. They want to see courageous church and religious leaders who make it clear that all those trying to promote the militarisation of space should be viewed as criminals, whether they are businessmen or politicians. After all, world peace is a sacred human right.
Besides, space is the last safe and peaceful frontier we have. What the younger generation cannot comprehend is how the religious leaders of our times, when it comes to condemn governmental actions that constitute a great danger to humanity, remain totally silent. And to add insult to injury, such clergymen, in particular some TV evangelists in the US, go on television to defend the immoral, vicious and dangerous war policies of our politicians! All this explains why the younger generation has become increasingly alienated from churches which have become on the whole characterised by a conspicuous absence of moral leadership.
In conclusion, we have to keep in mind that honesty is the best policy and that our profession of truth the way God sees it should serve as the basis of everything we do and of everything we say. This is the basis of morality, which is being sought eagerly by our younger generation.
Charles Mercieca, Ph.D., is president of the International Association of Educators for World Peace and Professor Emeritus at Alabama A&M University