Tears of the Faithful
I don’t mind revealing that when I heard the news of the burning of the
Ahmed Baba Institute in Timbuktu, that I cried – I cried tears of human
frustration and spiritual pain. For
context, consider if the Louvre, British National Museum, the Vatican Library
and Archives or the Smithsonian had been bombed and destroyed by terrorists –
that is the level of cultural crimes against humanity that we are potentially
witnessing.
How can religious persons justify the taking of a life in the name of
their religion? Worse, how can they seek
to destroy the very essence of humanity, of life and of shared culture by
sacking mosques, churches and museums or burning lecture halls and
libraries? All I can note is that if
they are seeking to demonstrate their spiritual distance from the rest of humanity,
they have in fact succeeded – for in no way might such persons honestly qualify
themselves as human – their error lies in the fact that these are not the acts
of saints or angels, but rather the very essence of evil in allegiance with the
fallen ones who desire to destroy the testimony and record of God.
And no, I am not the only person to weep over such things. People all over the world were horrified as
the Arno threatened Florence. In 410 CE, Jerome
wept when he received the news that Rome had fallen. Jesus wept over the lack of insight and understanding
amongst his followers. American soldiers
risked their lives protecting the treasures and records of the Iraqi National
Museum during the US-led occupation.
A disaster-genre movie, The Day
After Tomorrow, contains a dialogue between a young student and an atheist
intellectual who is carefully guarding New York Library’s Gutenberg Bible:
