I CHOOSE TO LEARN FROM THE PAST

“Some men say the earth is flat. Some men say the earth is round. But if it is flat. Could Parliament make it round? And if it is round. Could the king's command flatten it?”

This was the argument made by Thomas More when he was tried for treason for his refusal to acknowledge Henry VIII as the head of the Roman Catholic Church of England. The handpicked jury found him guilty and was beheaded on July 6, 1535.

More's last words were - "The king's good servant, but God's first."

The Roman Catholic Church canonized him as a saint in 1935 and the Church of England recognizes him as a "reformed martyr."

What do you think was going on back in the 1500's? Clearly you wouldn't think of beheadings in the western world on religious grounds today. We know ISIS is still doing it but not Christians anymore. But we once used to. Thank God we have learnt from our mistakes, grave mistakes!

Winston Churchill is quoted to have said, "Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it."

Edmund Burke echoed - "In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind."

George Bernard Shaw, in his blunt statement, said, "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." 

If the human desire to dominate is still present in our hearts in the 21st century as it has always been since the Fall, surely we, as failing mortals, will continue to try to suppress and beat up every opposition or anything we perceive to be unyielding or non-conforming. In fact, we see this in many ways. The bullying in the school. The ungodly parenting. The unapproachable attitude of a public servant. The unloving nature of the clergy. The list can go on. The most deadly of all is, perhaps, when the power to decide a person's fate lies in the hands of a temporal authority, religious or secular. Several hundred years ago, in Christendom, the religious establishment claimed to have this authority. And they actually used it. Exactly 475 years ago, on the 30th July 1540, Robert Barnes, William Jerome and Thomas Garrett were burned at the stake. No trial, no jury. Just like that.

Today, in most enlightened societies, religious authorities mostly confine the use of authority within their own religious institutions and establishments. However, the overlapping of this desire to dominate and assert has not left religious institutions, including the church.

History has proven time and time again that humanity can and has erred. The one thing we can do is to look back and learn from the past mistakes.

One of the wrongful ways the church in Mizoram has been blinded to tread is the usurpation of power and authority both within and outside of the church. Much like the assemblies of church leaders back in the dark ages, today, our churches are, for the most part, dominated by ungodly and unreasonable ideologies. The belief that divine authority rests in all our decisions, right and wrong, hasn't left the building. In fact, it has secured a very warm and cozy place in the very heart of the church.

Take for example, the demonizing of alcohol and anything or anyone associated with it in any way. The biggest church denomination in the state - the Presbyterian Church of India, Mizoram Synod - has consistently opposed, without proper reasoning, the idea that alcohol should be free and not banned. In fact, most churches take similar or identical stand on alcohol.

Church discipline, temporary and partial excommunication is becoming a favourite tool by extremists in the church establishment and it has been recently employed by some local churches against certain government officials whose office/department the government has unceremoniously used to sell alcohol under the new liquor law.

An extreme case of abuse of church authority and power is what happened to a landlady in the town of Lunglei. Her property happens to be rented by one of the government's liquor sale outlets. While her church constitution clearly mentions those the church can discipline, she does not fall within the category of "wine sellers and wine makers" because she does not sell nor brew any alcoholic drink. Yet, her local church wrongly invoked the disciplinary powers given under the constitution a while ago and put her under church discipline, an embarrassing situation to be in. The headquarters of her church has not issued any clarification as to why a constituent local church wrongly used its authority and abused its member who has done nothing to be considered eligible for such discipline.

Now, back to the really really extreme case of abuse of power by religious authorities, in bed with government authorities, who deem themselves right and having divine mandate to go as far as taking the life of another human being. You might think this only happens in ISIS land but, like mentioned earlier, the Church has not been clean on this. We have had blood on our hands too. It is a real sad fact.

I can tell you with confidence that the church is Mizoram is one of the most fervent churches but it is also one that is characterised by ideologies of the past, in style and substance.

In the Bible, the apostle Paul clearly mentions the heart of God in 1 Timothy 2:4. According to Paul, the God of the Bible is a God "who wants all people to be saved." Did you note that? Not just some, not just a bunch but ALL. And the Bible also mentions that when one of the very evil ones die, quite contrary to what we might think, God has no joy in it. If you doubt this, read Ezekiel 18:23.

In 2006, a mob of organised men rounded up an individual, beat him so badly that his mortal body could not sustain the God-given life in him. He was killed in cold blood. This happened not somewhere in Pakistan or Nigeria or some dangerous neighbourhood in Chicago. It happened right in the heart of Mizoram. And, may I add, under the very watch of the church. There was no outcry loud enough, no tears, no regret. And the church was silent or it was so quiet nobody heard her protest. In fact, the law that empowered those organised men to illegally carry out what they believed was a social-cleansing duty was and is still praised by many church leaders today. We're talking about the failed Mizoram Liquor Total Prohibition Act. (Sounds like 16th century Europe all over again.)

We know that men in positions of power and authority have the tendency to abuse their power. We donot doubt for a second that this is true when it comes to government authority because we have examples after examples. The fact is, it is also true in the religious establishment. In some cases, religious leaders abuse their power to either cause the deaths of their fellow man or to withhold their power so that lives would be saved. We need to be always vigilant when men exercise power - religious or governmental. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

We can repeat the horrible mistakes of the past or we can, like Burke suggested, take history as "a great volume...for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind." Or we can be damned, like those with no understanding and perfectly make Shaw's words come true, "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." 

I choose to learn and not repeat mistakes. What do you choose?