A person forced against his will is of the same opinion still. This is an old saying that is true – sometimes and false at other times. Northern Africa was deeply touched by Christian faith in the half millennium plus after the Crucifixion of Christ. The cities and land areas were then conquered by a marauding Islam army, an army that moved forward until it was stopped in Spain after sweeping west over northern Africa. During the invasion, the people were often subject to horrors even to death for their Christian faith, and forced to become Muslim. Two or so generations later northern Africa was virtually all Muslim by choice. Similar methods are used today relative to force so to maintain purity of faith in some countries – not only for religion but for governments, or economies, or cultures. Not even the Christian faith, given by the peaceful and loving Jesus Christ, followed exclusively the concepts of persuasion and model as the means of evangelization. The old way of humanity has been to gain military power, use it to gain land areas, and then impose faith or non-faith in this or that on the inhabitants. The approach of Communism in its first decades was to enforce religious non-faith, and to treat faith as an enemy. The tension remains although not quite as openly expressed as once it was. In actuality, persons of Christian faith make the best citizens (or are expected to do so) under any government that respects the legitimate interests of the governed – and to be obedient to loyalty in any government that holds power. If the nation does not respect that peace, the Christian is to shake off the dust of sandals and move on to another environment. If all effort for decency fails, the Christian is to find integrity in his or her faith, and accept, perhaps suffer, whatever imposition even unto death, for the duty and privilege of faith’s open witness. Martyrdom witnesses to something.
God offers to all mankind, good will. Good will does not mean approval, but is necessary to peace and respect. Respect is related to love, but is also related to duty. I have a duty to respect all human beings because there is some spiritual feature related to humanity that we identify with the image of God that generates a human person found in a physical body. It subjugates human physicality. The only persons we will ever know are God and those beings given something from his person so to make them persons. Animals have physical bodies, are even soulish, but they do not have that invisible factor of god’s gift to mankind identified with his person. Personhood is to be treated with good will. If treating in ill will, we have violated the image of God in some way. Even without acknowledgement from wholly humanistic persons, there is the seed of something divine in us that is preserved in God’s kingdom if we follow the plan of God for perpetuity. But we are concerned here with the meaning of the point in nature’s setting.
One factor is compromise. So good will directs me to compromise/tolerate – not my convictions, but in cooperation with other human beings sharing the same contexts of daily life. My early years as a Christian in formulation, I was often instructed not to compromise. Compromise was taken as a form of weakness, as a dilution of my faith, perhaps even as an uncertain person about my faith and duty. Compromise has fallen on bad days as a word, and there is reason for it if persons are compromising their beliefs. But the word can also mean that I will cooperate with others with whom I do not share the same vital ideas of our lives. We need, if we are to become mature, to adjust without violating that which is vital to us. This is strengthened in the belief that we are not the judges of others. God is the only judge of our lives. Responsibility relates to him. My compromise is in the assumption the person before me belongs where he stands, deserves my respect for the creation factor, and proceed from there – perhaps with neither of us changing any ideas we hold dear to us. If the creator doesn’t want either of us he can take us away. No one else deserves that authority. The rigidity with which persons or societies hold themselves superior in the natural setting to others is evidence of a reduced opinion of humanity. The divine gesture is lost. We should respond to others, even those of ill will, with good will. We share the same planet. We were meant to be persons of good will toward all others. God blesses it when genuinely practiced – for all. When accosted the Christian reply is Stephen’s: Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020