Why Do Christian Tragedies Keep Repeating Themselves?

By Putt

From the enforced segregation that followed the Civil War to the recent revelations of the despicable abuses of children, we have been rudely made aware of how repetitions such inhumane horrors have become.

Were these and similar tragedies infrequent, they might easily be dismissed as the actions of a few misguided persons.

But we can't ignore them. The tragedies keep repeating themselves. Why? We must ask, if we are to have any hope that their recurrence may actually be slowed.

And who knows? If we can successfully understand the why, we may even be able to cease our warring as well as be able to avoid any kind of shameful exploitation,

There is no doubt that at the root of such tragedies is ignorance, not just on the part of those who cause those tragedies, but also on the part of those who lend their support to the instigators of those tragedies.

When Peter denounced Christ three times as Christ was undergoing imprisonment and a fake trial, Peter clearly showed his ignorance; one simply cannot truly follow a spiritual leader if one does not profoundly understand the leader's message. Peter escaped momentary punishment but not the denunciation of a living Christ, who in his resurrection confirmed the certainty of his all-inclusive Truth: love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Ever since Peter, though, time and again supposed followers of Christ have manifest their ignorance. They kept Blacks in slavery for centuries. And nowhere has similar ignorance been made clearer in more recent times than in the preservation of segregation with its subjugation of Blacks and other people of color as well as in the subjugation of women.

To slow down or actually to halt the continuing recurrence of such tragedies, we Christian moderns must not just claim to be Christian. we must actually understand and live our faith, which rightly understood means the embracing pf people who are very different and the protection of all innocents, whatever their age and station in life.