After ‘stupid god’, what?
I’ve been asked repeatedly about my take on the
“stupid God” issue, and all I’d say was, “Maybe I’ll say it in one of my
columns.”
Initially I dismissed the remark as I would his
typical outbursts—something issuing from a form of verbal diarrhea that the
president apparently has been suffering from.
His foul language is legend by now and so what’s new? Bothering would be stooping to level of a
stupid remark—“Hindi na pinapatulan yan!”, I’d say, and add that we can expect worse
pronouncements from him as long as he lives.
But when someone tried to drag me into voting for the “better shepherd”,
I said, Oops, time to speak. Instead of
just jumping into the fray, I think we should step back and examine where our
zeal is taking us.
Mr. Duterte’s “stupid God” remark disturbed the
believers’ beehive, and the bees, taking
offense, went abuzz with fervor—some more noisily than others, many inclined to
rabble rouse, and a few poised to sting with justifiable anger and
heart-rending prose.
I am not about to stop Christians who fight tooth
and nail to “defend our God.” I honestly
believe all of them sincerely feel that it is what God wants them to do. If militant types want to attack the
president with swords and clubs, whether in social media or the pulpit, I’m
okay with that. But when these zealous
fighters sneer, hoot, and call “cowards” other Christians for not joining them
in the combat zone, then they’re playing into the devil’s trap. That’s exactly what the devil wants, isn’t
it? See Satan licking his chops over
that! Nothing empowers the devil more
than a divided Church, and no one is more qualified as a collaborator of the
devil than the self-righteous believer himself.
We let the devil score when we idolize our shepherds
and pit them against one another: Francis vs. Benedict; Benedict vs. John Paul;
Archbishop This vs. Cardinal That. It
saddens me to see that in the midst of this “stupid god” hoopla, some people—
members of a praying community, at that—would compare Church leaders and cheer
those whose fighting stance is to their liking, and sneer at those who appeal
for sobriety. “I admire Fr. So-and-So
for his guts. Fr. Etc. is too soft,” is
a typical remark. (Hey guys, are we
watching a boxing match here?)
We Catholics profess the same Credo, we share
fundamental beliefs, and the beauty of it is we are free to express and defend
our beliefs in an endless variety of ways and styles, all of which are valid,
given that we are proceeding from a place of Love—Love as our Lord Jesus
taught.
Look at the apostles: Peter in anger cut off the ear
of a Roman soldier, remember? John was
not heard from then, in Gethsemane. But in
Golgotha, at the foot of the cross as Jesus hung dying, John was there, Peter
was not. This doesn’t mean one apostle
is better than the other, or that one is brave and the other is a coward; it
just shows we have been given different gifts as individual as our
fingerprints, and so we must trust that our Creator knows how to use them all
for His purpose.
Those who feel offended by Duterte’s “insulting our
God” and tend to react by hitting back may need to ask themselves if they
really believe anyone can insult God. Really! It is possible that they feel “offended”
because their belief in God is so fragile that it can be threatened by a
“stupid god” remark. Is it really God
who’s been insulted or just the God they think is God? And why say “our God” when there is only one
God? People who bash God in anyway do it
because they do not know God, and if we Christians are truly doing as Christ
asks us to, shouldn’t we care enough to bring God to them?
Let us not bite the devil’s bait and be carried away
by the presidential fireworks. Even at
prayer the devil comes to distract us, but we must hold on to God’s hand. In dealing with this matter, let us balance
emotion and devotion with calm and an effective trust in God; turning our anger
into an inward look at ourselves.
Allow me to share an insight that came through years
of persevering in prayer even when I thought God was not listening. You may have known how competitive the media
profession is, how fierce professional jealousy can be, and how vicious some
practitioners could get to cling to the perks and power of position. After years of often being maligned, thought
of as ambitious, suspected of sowing intrigues, I would wring my mind dry
asking the Lord, Why? “Why, when all I
want is to serve You?” No answer. I would cry, but still, no answer came. For years.
Just the pain inflicted by a silent God.
But I hung on. Then one day, the
words crossed my mind, but I swear they didn’t come from me: “Lord, please help me see what it is about
myself that is making these people sin by maligning me. I don’t want anyone to sin because of
me.” Those words changed my suffering to
inner peace. Because God finally
answered by opening my eyes.
So it’s the same with this “stupid god” issue. If Mr. Duterte is bashing the Church, calling
us hypocrites, mocking our theology, and maligning our priests, instead of
bashing him back and calling him the nastiest sinner of all, shouldn’t we as
Church keep on praying and waiting in silence for God to show us what it is
about ourselves that is making him sin?
A silly remark should concern us, but not cause us
to panic and fall into a trap. As the
great St. Teresa of Avila wrote in her Autobiography,
“Do we not know that Satan cannot stir without the permission of God?” Over the centuries, the Church has been
demonized over and over again, Dutertes have come and gone, and surely they
have done so with an omniscient God’s permission? Perhaps in all humility we who claim to
belong to God’s Church should in a spirit of penance fast and pray, not only
for three days, but for as long as Love demands. And that’s the truth.