ANGLICAN BISHOP of Barbados, Dr John Holder, has given us a rare but welcome public analysis of physical violence in the context of moral theology (DAILY Nation Guest Column, September 10). He rightly pinpoints the critical issue – that “many people . . . engage in acts of violence without . . . a sense of remorse”.
But there is another form of violence which shares the same feature, and its effects may be more devastating still. It’s a violence whose incidents cannot be weighed or quantified. It won’t find its way into court lists or be made the subject of statistical analysis – though it might just find itself nailed to the door of some great cathedral.
It’s a violence which is rarely found in the usual suspects, the “boys and young men” in Bishop Holder’s analysis, and it’s the more insidious because it works by stealth. Men are loath to reveal it for fear of being called “mad” or, worse, a “trouble maker”. Yet it’s a violence we’ve all experienced and know how devastating its effects may be. It may, indeed, gnaw at the very soul of a man. Certainly it may come from whence it’s least expected and teach us that the wilderness can be a very lonely place though the angels minister to us.
Serve a purpose
I refer, of course, to that violence which, whether by words or deeds, issues wherever one man has power over another, where the status of a man can be manipulated to serve a purpose, an agenda, whether that be through fear or envy, or to secure career or conformity, or for reasons of race or religion. It serves to frustrate legitimate expectations without good cause.
It’s a violence which strikes at the vulnerable, the needful, and like a worm, it gathers strength at the expense of all probity and integrity. High office in civic life or even the church, where men regard themselves as untouchable, invincible, is no guarantee it won’t confront us, strive to put us down or hold us back. In short, it is a violence against truth itself.
Dr Holder is right to refer to the Beatitudes. For there Jesus tells us that victims of this violence are blessed and that the Kingdom is theirs, and this most certainly. For at root, all assaults on truth are violations of the Holy Spirit and we all know the consequences of that blasphemy. In any event, if this violence closes one door, others are sure to open.
I do hope that Dr Holder will now explore this violence too “as we press forward”, for it’s as pervasive as sunshine and rain, and no glib moral cartography nor social engineering will readily break the shackles with which it binds us.
– Rev. Clifford Hall
