Healing Words?

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; 

for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Exodus 20:7 (KJV)

There is a lot of invocation of God’s name in our world of wars.  I am concerned that many of these represent “vainness”.  This is  one of those glittering vices and deadly sins!

“The worst sort of vainglory, however, according to Aquinas and others, occurs when we fail to give due glory to God as the source of our good.   We might call this glorying “in vain,” because in such cases we seek glory for the wrong end, aim, or purpose.”

The religious language we hear has been both overt and covert with narratives of fulfilling biblical prophecy.  It has been and is an underlying justification of  many wars.  These narratives create an illusion of an end that celebrates the winners.  We have all suffered by chasing these phantom ends.

What are those ends we are called to pursue?  We know it and we share it with our siblings in faith:

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; 

and what doth the Lord require of thee, 

but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Micah 6:8 (KJV)

Thanks be to God who continues to call us to a ministry of reconciliation and healing.

Marvin

References

DeYoung, Rebecca Konyndyk. (2020) Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies (p. 51).. Kindle Edition. 

Lischer, R. (2005). The end of words: The language of reconciliation in a culture of violence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.

Sacks, J. (2015). Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence. Schocken.

Hage, M. L. (2019). Healing Cultures.

http://healingagents.blogspot.com/2019/06/healing-cultures.html

Smith, J. K. A. (2022). How to Inhabit Time. Brazos Press.