Cornerstone No. 183, page 8 Book review:“ Not In God’ s Name” by Jonathan Sacks
“ Too often in the history of religion, people have killed in the name of the God of life, waged war in the name of the God of peace, hated in the name of the God of love and practised cruelty in the name of the God of compassion. When this happens, God speaks, sometimes in a still, small voice … What He says at such times is: With these words, the respected British rabbi and philosopher Jonathan Sacks begins his exploration of the roots of violence and its relationship to religion, focusing on the tensions that have always existed between the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The fundamental question at the heart of the book is why followers of a God of peace and love pervert that message to kill and hate in His name. Because to invoke God to justify violence is to take God’ s name in vain. Sacks turns first to the connection between violence and identity. It is a human instinct to form groups, he notes, and groups divide as well as unite. We see ourselves as Us and Them.“ Violence has nothing to do with religion as such,” argues Sacks.“ It has to do with identity and life in groups.” Most of the conflicts and wars the world has known are not about religion but about power and territory. It is the same today. In exploring the narratives common to all three faiths – the stories contained in the book of Genesis – Sacks identifies sibling rivalry as a prime source of strife. The very first murder is the killing of Abel by his brother Cain. That is followed by the story of Abraham’ s two sons Ishmael and Isaac, and the poisoned relationships between Esau and Jacob, Rachel and Leah, and Joseph and his brothers. A superficial reading of these texts leads to the conclusion that God chooses some and rejects others. Isaac is chosen as Abraham’ s heir while Ishmael is sent away. But Sacks points out that the text goes to great lengths to insist that Ishmael too is blessed. The Isaac / Ishmael story is not about who is‘ in’ and who is‘ out’ with God. Both have their own calling and their own blessing. And this is not the end of the story: the sons are reconciled by the time of Abraham’ s death, burying him together( Gen 25:8-9). Brothers – and the fraternal faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam – can live in peace by showing generosity of spirit and through active efforts of reconciliation, he argues.