1. Introduction
The primary purpose of this research is to study the theology of The Crucified God of Jürgen Moltmann and bring its theological application for Myanmar context. Firstly, Jürgen Moltmann is not a Burmese, but German Liberation Theologian. The author himself has never met him. The purpose, however, is to introduce his central theology of Crucified God into Myanmar context, and by doing this, the author expects that we can find applications for contextualizing and reinterpreting the suffering of Myanmar people in the light of his theology.
2. Background
In doing this research, the author assumes that it will be appropriate to describe the brief background of Jürgen Moltmann and main theology of his Crucified God in the first; the second biblical concept of suffering, the third background of suffering in Myanmar, and theological critiques and research questions. In order to do research, we should know these respective backgrounds.
2.1. A Brief Background of Jürgen Moltmann and His Theology of ‘Crucified God’
Jürgen Moltmann was born in Hamburg, Germany, and pressed into the army in 1944, Moltmann spent three years as an internee in British prison camps, an experience which shattered his nominal Christian upbringing.[1] He saw his home town destroyed in an air-raid in 1943. Both his Christian faith and the roots of his particular theological perspective date from his experience as a prisoner-of-war; he was captured by the British in 1945 and not repatriated until 1948. On his return to Germany, he studied theology at Gӧttingen and served a pastorate in Bremen-Wasserhorst. He is best known for a trilogy of writings comprising complementary perspectives on theology: Theologie der Hoffnung (1964; Eng. Tr., Theology of Hope, 1967); Der gekreuzigte Gott (1972; Eng. Tr., The Crucified God, 1974), and Kirche in der Kraft des Geistes (1975; Eng. Tr., The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 1977). The Crucified God sets the cross in the context of the theological problem of suffering, presenting it as God’s act of loving solidarity with the suffering.[2] This trilogy seeks to reexamine theology from a radically eschatological perspective. Moltmann rejects the classical theological propositions of divine impassability and immutability in favor of what he sees as a more biblical understanding of God as revealed in an “apocalypse of the promised future.” On the cross God enters into human suffering, sin, and death not only in the experience of the Son, the crucified one, but also in that of the Father, who suffers in giving the Beloved over to the cross. The resurrection brings the promise of a new creation, giving meaning to human suffering, and hope for God’s final triumph over evil in the future, and impetus for Christian involvement in overcoming suffering in the meantime, through the power of the Spirit.[3]
2.2. A Brief Biblical Concept of Suffering
The self-revelation of Yahweh—as described in Exodus 3—happens in response to the cry of the people who are toiling as slaves to build the store-cities of the Egyptian empire and the gigantic tombs of the divine rulers, the Pharaoh’s. ‘And the people of Israel groaned under their bondage and cried out for help, and their cry under bondage came up to God’ (Ex. 2:23). Yahweh hears the cry, he sees the oppression (Ex. 3:7, 9), and initiates the Exodus. Yahweh hears cries; the voices of the victims of violence and oppression while the Israelite being driven by cruel taskmasters, their exploitation for the splendor of the Egyptian empire which cries out. Just as the blood of Abel, slain by his brother, cried out (Gen 4:10).[4] Salvation in the Bible, as we have seen, is something concrete: it is liberation from slavery or from starvation, from deadly disease or murderous enemies. There is a very powerful word in the Hebrew language which expresses what is common in the experience of all such situations: ‘tsar’, ‘tsarah’. The RSV renders this with a variety of words, such as distress, adversity, affliction, anguish, trouble, tribulation. The root means ‘to be narrow’, ‘to be closed,’ to be ‘encircled.’ It is the opposite of ‘yasha’, to make wide, to set free in wide space, to liberate. It can be used of the besieging of a city by enemies closing in from all sides. In the depth all experience of anguish is the confrontation with death, whether the ‘trouble’ is caused by enemies or famine, oppressors or sickness.[5] The first view in the Old Testament that corresponds to the problem of suffering is the understanding of suffering as the just punishment of God that is inflicted on those who had disobeyed his will. This view has a direct relation to the Covenant experience at Mt. Sinai where Israel agreed to obey Yahweh’s Law and to live according to his holy ways. The idea of suffering as the punishment of God or as the consequence of the past sins can be found not only in the Old Testament but also in the New Testament. The blind man from birth in the New Testament (Luke. 13:1-5, John 9:2) is an example for such a Jewish conception of sin as the punishment of God. The second view on suffering in the Old Testament is the understanding of suffering as ‘a test of faith’ (Job 1:6-12), a theme also found in Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac (Gen. 22:1-19). This idea can also be found in the New Testament in different expressions such as “faith of endurance” (James 1:3-4), “test under trials” (James 1:12-15); and “chastening of father” (Hebrew 12:7-11). The third view is the understanding of suffering as redemptive (Job 42:10), a theme that is dominant in Second Isaiah: “By his suffering shall my servant justify many, taking their faults on himself” (Isaiah 53:11).[6] The suffering addressed in the Old Testament is linked with the Deuteronomistic teaching and Torah (instruction) which correspond the concept of proverbial instruction—wicked will be judged and good will be rewarded. Suffering was regarded as Divine judgment in the Old Testament; and a test of faith. Just as sinless were suffered for the result of injustice, God immediately heard their cry.
2.3. Who the Poor Are
Poor is a simple, direct term used for those who lack, the resources for reasonable comfortable living. It means lacking material possessions; having little or no means of support oneself, needy, impoverished and so on. Although there is a common understanding of the term, there are differences in detailed explanation of the term among the economists and sociologists. Economics see the poor from the economic perspective and evolve their own criteria to determine the extend of poverty of a person as well as the nation. Todarao defines it as follow,
“Absolute poverty is meant to represent a specific minimum level of income needed to satisfy the basic need of food, clothing, and shelter in order to assure continued survival.”
Social scientist defines poverty basically in three ways: absolute poverty, relative poverty and culture of poverty.[7] Poverty is seen as the Result of the Unjust Structure. In this approach, the root cause of poverty is injustice, unjust social order which makes the poor both in the national and international levels to depend on the rich. [8] In the socio-economic realm today the gulf between the rich and the poor is ever widening due to the structures of injustice. In the feudal system, the slaves were ill treated, but they knew that they were wanted. Today the worst thing is happening with the globalization and market economy; the poor are told that they are not wanted and that they are a burden and that they are simply redundant. The cry of the poor is today breaking the heavens.[9]
2.4. A Brief Background of Suffering of the Poor in Myanmar
Poverty is perhaps one of the more sever setbacks many of the Asian countries face. About two-thirds of the chronically undernourished in the world are found in Asia. South Asia alone accounts for one-third of the World’s undernourished. There are about 500 million Asians who are said to be in absolute poverty and therefore not able to have a minimum standard of living.[10] Myanmar (Burma) is located in the region of south-east Asia. 54 million people from 137 ethnic groups live there. 68% of them belong to the Burmese majority group and the rest 32% are from the other ethnics groups including Chinese, Indians and Europeans.[11] Another crucial Asian reality is the issue of the violation of human rights. The rights of workers, women and children, the destitute, the lower castes, and ethnic minorities are being snatched away. Violations takes place in almost all realms of life, be it cultural, social, civil or political. The irony of the Asian situation is that in terms of natural and human resources, even in culture, heritage and history, Asia is one of the richest continents in the world. But this very continent is at the same time plagued by misery, hunger, disease, despair and suffering.[12] People in Myanmar face terrific political, economic, and environmental disasters. Politically, people have been suffering from ethnic conflicts and political instability in the country. Violence, rape and power abuse are occurred and experienced.[13]
The Chin are mainly Christians, having converted to the faith when the British ruled the area before independence after World War II. The persecution of the Chin dates back to the military takeover of Burma in the 1960s. According to the US State Department, Burmese troops and officials have tried to forcibly convert the Chin from Christianity to Buddhism. They have also destroyed churches, and arrested and even killed Christian Chin clergy, who now often work undercover. The Chin also suffer from acute food shortages.[14] Since the Burmese military took state power by killing thousands of innocent people in 1988, gross violations of human rights is committed by the military regime including political suppression, arbitrary detention, torture, rape, disappearances, extra-judicial killings, oppression of ethnic and religious minorities, and use of forced labor.[15] Many villages were bombed and countless people were thus suffering under the bombs during the Vietnam War. Moved deeply by the compassionate love (metta) for those vicitimized and massacred during the same war, Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, immolated himself in direct protest against the devastating war in 1963, hoping to protect innocent men, women, and children from more possible destruction of that war.[16] Aung San was a revolutionary nationalist leader of Burmese origin. He took the initiative to set up the Communist Party of Burma and played a vital role in the independence of Burma from the British rule. At the beginning of his political career in national politics, be became a 'Thakin' after joining the Dobama Asiayone or Our Burma Union. He worked for the establishment of the All-Burma Peasants League. Along with Dr. Ba Maw, he was instrumental in setting up the Freedom Bloc. He led the Burmese National Army in a revolt against the Japanese occupiers and helped the Allies defeat the Japanese. His successful negotiation at the Panglong Conference was an important step towards the independence of Burma. Unfortunately, he was assassinated six months before Burma attained independence.[17]
The environment today is characterized by climate change, air pollution, noise pollution, water pollution, loss of habitat, and loss of biodiversity, of farmland and forests. In the process of globalization aimed at attracting foreign capital to bring in more economic gain, the environment is being destroyed.[18] Cultivating the earth for many years has caused the earth to be infertile and barren land. The hills of the Wa region is barren and rice cannot be grown which creates food shortage. Precious stones, ruby, jades, gems and jewels are amazing natural minerals in Myanmar; these precious natural products are exploited by elite people for their economic benefits. The earth’s erosion is often occurred in Meinshu, Mogoke and Phakant areas where precious stones are produced. The cyclone Nargis extremely hit Irrawaddy and Yangon Division in May 3, 2008 were one third of the whole population is resided. 6000 villages were destroyed, 4000 schools and many houses were totally damaged. The dead and missing people amounted to 1.5 million and damage cost was 13 trillion kyats. The Nargis areas and its shortage, and serious health problems.[19] Why these happen? How can we response these?
2.5. Theological Critiques and Research Questions
After looking at the experiences of Myanmar people in the previous section, it is unavoidable to ignore the suffering of innocent people in Myanmar, poverty and exploitations in the country. Myanmar people are fallen in the crisis of poverty, spiritually and physically as assuming resulted from economic corruption, political instability and exploitation, the shake of natural disaster, dehumanization and marginalization around our environment. Today looking around our environment, we can see the poor who are in need for their daily bread, who have not enough food to eat, who are ethnically suppressed by the elite. Our indigenous people, our own citizens are marginalized and exploited by the power holders. In this sense, when one innocent suffer brutally, the first thing what we recall is proverbial assertion that tells wicked will be condemned and good will be rewarded. Most Myanmar people suffer from the economic exploitation by the power holders, diseases illness from unjust using of biochemical, political oppression, natural disasters caused by the riches, poverty caused by crony, human trafficking and ethnocentric favoritism, and some person were martyred for justice, assassinated, and imprisoned in order to get freedom, e.g., Za Ga Na, Daw Suh Kyi, etc..., and General Aung San was unforgettable martyr who was assassinated for the country. Many people do not understand why these exploitation and corruption are allowed in our lives, and why God do not rescue them or why God allow them to suffer. And we assume that God is far away from this suffering as contrasted with the concept of impassability of God. However, Moltmann rejects the classical theological propositions of divine impassability and immutability which try to seek the unchangeable of God. Moltmann argues that a God who cannot suffer is a deficient, not a perfect, God. Stressing that God cannot be forced to change or undergo suffering; Moltmann declares that God willed to undergo suffering. The suffering of God is the direct consequence of the divine decision to suffer, and the divine willingness to suffer.[20] However, most of Myanmar Christians are worried and become to forget God when disaster, suffering and poverty come into our lives. In addition, we sometime blasphemy God and accused Him for bring sorrow and disaster in our lives. The author is going to contextualize ‘the Crucified God’ who suffers with His people, to the poor, marginalized and captives in Myanmar. (1) Can we contextualize the theology of Crucified God of Moltmann in Myanmar context? (2) Can God identify with Myanmar people? (3) Why Does God Allow Suffering? (4) Who is crucified today? (5) How the Earth Suffer (ecology)?
3. Research Methodology
In this section, the author is going to decide which methodologies will be used for this research. Jon B. Cobb insists that one’s theory, or systematic theology, cannot be developed in one context, such as the history of Western ideas, and then “applied” to another context. The theory must be developed out of reflection upon the context one is concerned to transform, or it will probably be irrelevant or even counterproductive.[21] And there are related interpreting tools such as Epistemological Privilege of the Poor, God’s Preferential Option for the Poor, Spiritual Approach, Exhortation Approach, Identification Model. Out of these, the author chooses “Identification Model” as interpreting tool for this research. As Cobb expresses, however, the author sees that identification model will be relevant and enough to contextualizing the related problems of this research in Myanmar context.
3.1. Identification Model
As Oxford Dictionary defines, the word ‘identification’ comes, mid 17th century, originally from Medieval Latin identificat- 'identified', from the verb identificare; later from identify. It can be defined as the action or process of identifying someone or something or the fact of being identified; a person’s sense of identity with someone or something; the association or linking of one thing with another.[22] In this research, Jesus Christ is identified with the suffering people of Myanmar, linking of them, associated with them, being in Christ. In addition, there is theological definition in identification with Christ. The believer is identified with Christ in His death (Rom. 6:1-11); his ascension (Eph. 2:6); his reign (2 Tim. 2:12); and his glory (Rom. 8:17).[23] Therefore, this research will try to reinterpret the suffering of Myanmar people is identified, associated and being in Christ respecting crucifixion on the cross, as developed by Jürgen Moltmann.
4. Contextualizing the Crucified God of Jürgen Moltmann in Myanmar Context
This section will deal with the Crucified God of Moltmann and contextualize the theological significance to Myanmar context. In the first, the central theology of the Crucified God will be introduced, and the second will be God’s identification with the suffering people in Myanmar, and the third will be the primary question—who is crucified in Myanmar today?, the fourth will be how the earth is suffering from pain from ecological perspective, and interlinked with the crucifixion of Christ on the cross, and the fifth will be concluding remarks of the whole research.
4.1. Introducing the Central Theology of the Crucified God
Moltmann was only seventeen when he was sent to war in 1944. The beginning of the second half of this century, as far as theology is concerned, can be dated from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Considered from this reference point, at the time of Bonheoffer’s execution by the Nazis at Flossenbürg in April 1945, Moltmann was himself a prisoner of the Allies. As Bonhoeffer was meeting his death in hope—“This is the end; for me the beginning of life”—the young Moltmann was just beginning to face a life of seeming hopelessness.[24] Moltmann expounds the doctrine of God from the perspective of the cross. The Christian God is a suffering God of love. Moltmann accepts that God is unchangeable and impassible in one sense: unlike his creatures, he cannot be forced to change or suffer by something external to himself.[25] This second perspective is conveyed through such New Testament references as God’s so loving the world that God “gave his only Son” (John 3:16), or as Paul radicalizes this self-giving, “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Rom. 8:32), for our sake even “made him to be sin who knew no sin” (II Cor. 5:21), “a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13). This reciprocal depiction of the suffering intrinsic to the cross, in Moltmann’s view, reaches its most profound expression in Jesus’ cry of dereliction in the words of Psalm 22:1, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34). To acknowledge this cry of the Son to the Father as incarnate reality is to acknowledge God’s calling out to God in suffering for the vindication of the will and way of God.[26]
Consequently, it will be relevant to look at the variety of theology of Suffering God in the history. The notion of perfection dominates the classical understanding of God, as it is expressed in the Platonic dialogues such as The Republic. To be perfect is to be unchanging and self-sufficient. If God is perfect, change in any direction is an impossibility. If God changed, it is either a move away from perfection (in which case God is no longer perfect), or toward perfection (in which case, God was not perfect in the past). Aristotle, echoing such ideas, declared that “change would be change for the worse,” and thus excluded his divine being from change and suffering. Philo, a Hellenistic Jew whose writings were much admired by early Christian writers, wrote a treatise entitled Quod Deus immutabilis sit (“That God is unchangeable”), which vigorously defended the impassibility of God. Biblical passages which seemed to speak of God suffering were, he argued, to be treated as metaphors, and not to be allowed their full literal weight. To allow that God changes was to deny the divine perfection.[27] Moltmann continues to say that the Son of Man is not then an ideal superman, who makes an end of misery with violence which creates new misery. He transcends man, in that he includes himself in the sicknesses and errors of man gone wrong. He is the Son of Man in that he receives the lost and accepts the untouchable. His dominion has nothing in common with the type of a universal ruler. It consists not in superlatives of dominion (‘King of Kings’, or ‘Superstar’), but in the transformation of dominion into service, of power into love, and of demands into vicarious suffering.[28] Moltmann argues that a God who cannot suffer is a deficient, not perfect, God. Stressing that God cannot be forced to change or undergo suffering; Moltmann declares that God willed to undergo suffering. The suffering of God is the direct consequence of the divine decision to suffer, and the divine willingness to suffer.
A God who cannot suffer is poorer than any human. For a God who is incapable of suffering is a being who cannot be involved. Suffering and injustice do not affect him. And because he is so completely insensitive, he cannot be affected or shaken by anything. he cannot weep, for he has no tears. But the one who cannot suffer cannot love either. So he is also a loveless being.[29]
More significantly, he is free to allow himself to be changed by others; to allow others to make him suffer. This does not prejudice God’s sovereignty. God’s suffering is not a suffering imposed from outside, caused by weakness, but the suffering of love, an active suffering.[30] Moltmann concludes that we are enabled to recognize God’s triunity not as some idealist abstraction of threefold self-enclosed being divorced from the pain of this earth, but as in truth the ultimate reality of this earth’s pain and its overcoming in which we all participate.[31]
4.2. God’s Identification with Myanmar People
One of the primary resources of theology is people and their experience. God’s self-gift or self-communication or revelation is directed to all people, irrespective of caste, creed and nationality. After the Cornelius episode Peter said: “The truth I have now come to realize is that God does not have favorites, but that anybody of any nationality who fear God and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35). The histories of people, their civilizations and cultures, religious traditions, their struggles and movements against evil powers, oppressive forces, injustice, their freedom struggles etc are valuable resources for theologizing.[32] There emerge scholars in Myanmar who are struggling to get freedom for the poor, seeking theological application for the unjust in the country today.
The crucial issues in the heart of Myanmar Christians are the cry of the poor who thought themselves as forsaken by God when suffering is inserted. Military dictatorship, economic exploitation, human trafficking, ethnic discrimination, religion conflict, dehumanization and marginalization, black-market cannot be still exterminated in Myanmar country. The poor cannot jump in the higher level while the riche jump constantly. People are forsaken by freedom; injustice become as instrument for others. However, God is watching and listening to us from everywhere. That Yahweh hears the cries of the oppressed has become an essential element of Israel’s faith. It is part of its creed along with the confession of the liberation from Egypt (Deut 26:5-11; cf. Josh 24:7 and Nehemiah 9:9). It is reflected in the legislation:
‘You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. If you do afflict them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry; and my wrath will burn (Ex 22:22-24; 26-27).[33]
This verse makes it clear that the suffering of Myanmar people was never ignored by God of the poor, and God always listens to us. The one issues most frequently make questions is why God allow this suffering instead of constant joyful. Let us take a look at the case of Job’s suffering. Throughout Job’s suffering, God was silent. When God finally answered Job’s complaints (Job 10:1 ff), God did not answer and explain the reason for Job’s suffering. Rather, God declared His sovereignty over all creation in heaven and in the whole universe (Job 38:4-39:5-30) and expressed his omnipotence, justice, and fairness over all of His creation. God revealed also how human beings do not have power to manipulate God to gain blessing (Job 40:7-41:1-7).[34] Gustavo Gutiérrez notes that Job learns some kinds of language, “the language of contemplation”, especially from the Yahweh speeches. It gives voice to the wonder that arises in the face of God’s wisdom and power at work in the created world, a creative activity characterized by God’s free and gratuitous love. The free and gratuitous nature of that love is especially obvious in God’s preferential love for the poor.[35]John Wesley states in the section of “The Study of Providence and Suffering Yields Only Partial Knowledge of God”:
“Why does God permit pain? “Pain is necessary to make us watchful against it, and to warn us of what tends toward it, as is the fear of death likewise, which is of use in many cases that pain does not reach. From these all the passions necessarily spring . . . But if pain and the fear of death were extinguished no animal could long subsist. Since therefore these evils are necessarily joined with more than equivalent goods, then permitting these is not repugnant to, but flows from, infinite goodness. The same observation holds as to hunger, thirst, childhood, age, diseases, wild beasts, and poisons. They are all therefore permitted because each of them is necessarily connected with such a good as outweighs the evil.”[36]
From now, this statement proves that Christ the God is not thoroughly separated from human beings, but connected with us constantly. If God is not connected with human beings, there will never be any reason why He sent His begotten Son to suffer on the cross. God is constantly connected with His people, wherever we are, however we suffer in our lives. I Peter clearly indicates that God allows suffering, and does not exempt it from the lives of believers. Although Christians claim to obtain salvation in Christ, it does not help them delivered from suffering (I Peter 1:3,6; 2:21; 3:14; 4:1,12-13). Moreover, salvation expresses ‘the great mercy of God through the blood of Christ” (I Peter 1:13,19). Suffering in I Peter is not regarded as divine punishment but as something that God intentionally permitted for His people (2:21; 3:17).[37] Therefore, God permits suffering in our lives, all are connected with each others, and God never intend to perish the cost of our suffering. Moltmann insists that this Son of Man is Jesus who was crucified. His power is the omptence of grace, the reconciling force of suffering, and the dominion of self-denying love. His kingdom lies in the unpretentious brotherhood of poor, of prisoners, of the hungry and of those who have sinned. Those who have been driven out by the kingdoms of the world become in his society the bearers of the human kingdom of the Son of Man.[38] The poor were always the beloved of God as seen both in the Old and New Testaments. God always took the side of the poor and the victims of the society. Poverty, slavery and oppression are not willed by God; they are the consequences of human sin, and they are not compatible with Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God, which called for radical conversion and the creation of a new society with justice, freedom, equality and love for all. The Church and theology today, therefore, have to take an unambiguous option for the poor, and to listen to their cry. [39] To receive the Love of God is not easy, we cannot receive His Agape (Love) with luxurious, and Christ Himself was crucified on the cross, not for His, but for the world. To love one another is to share our love as He shares His Love for the world.
4.3. Who Is Crucified Today?
Daniel Sang expresses the experience of a family what he saw in their village. At first, the daughter fell down into a 40-feet deep well while drawing water. Though she was rescued, she remained disabled. After a few months, the train ran over the father and he died on the spot. Some more months later, a mad dog bit the mother and she later passed away. The immediate reaction of the neighbors was, “What was wrong with that family? What sins did they commit that such terrible circumstances happened to them? Are these wut (Burmese word for retribution) that the family suffered as a result of their sin?” He reacted;
"People thought that their sufferings were God’s punishments for the family’s wrongdoing.” However, I asked myself, “Was God the one who brought suffering to that family as a form of punishment? Where does God fit in all of these?”[40]
Job was the one who suffered from physical and spiritual pain, accused of neighbors. He did not understand why he suffered, and asked himself why he suffered from that pain. Certainly other cries of agony which are not directly caused by oppression are also mentioned in the Bible as reaching Yahweh, who liberates from all anguish. Most diseases have social, economic and therefore also political causes. Many people suffer and die because of malnutrition or unsafe water. Thus people die because of unjust structures. Children are killed by the diseases of poverty. Their death cries out for liberation from killing conditions of society.[41] In history, innocent people were died because of unjust structures, and assassinated for justice and freedom. There will be no one who does not know Abraham Lincoln who liberated slavery from bondage, and he can be recognized as the father of freedom. Lincoln pushed the “The Thirteenth Amendment" freeing all slaves everywhere, through congress in late 1864/early 1865.[42] An astute politician and proficient lawyer, he played a vital role in unification of the states and led from the front for the cause of abolishing slavery from the country, eventually giving people equal rights, irrespective of caste, color or creed. He was a savior of the Union and an emancipator for the slaves. The tragic incident of assassination occurred during the screening of the play, American Cousin at the Ford theatre, which Lincoln went to watch along with First Lady, Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris. His main bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon was not present and John Parker took to the temporary vacant position. Joining the driver for drinks at the interval, Parker left Lincoln unguarded, a setting which John Wilkes Booth capitalized on. He shot Lincoln at point-blank range on his head mortally wounding him. He then stabbed Major Henry Rathbone and escaped.[43] And the well-known person who opposed racism between white and black, liberation of black people, was Martin Luther King Jr. He was an African American clergyman and a well-known leader in the American civil rights movement. He devoted his time in working for the civil rights of black people. Martin Luther King Jr. organized several campaigns and protests to abolish the segregation of people based on race. He is fondly referred to as the human rights icon. He was assassinated when he was 39 years old. He was shot dead on April 4, 1968, as he stood on the balcony of his motel room.[44] There are countless people who sacrificed their lives for justice, and for religious and their country in history. They sacrificed their lives for their country, the right for people, freedom from slavery, and justice from injustice. In this point, the frequently questions raised from people is “Why?,” “Where is God?,” “Why this happen?” Moltmann himself experienced such kinds of questions with two Jewish:
"The SS hanged two Jewish men and a youth in front of the whole camp. The men died quickly, but the death throes of the youth lasted from half an hour. ‘Where is God? Where is he?’ someone asked behind me. As the youth still hung in torment in the noose after a long time, I heard the man call again, ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice in myself answer: ‘Where is he? He is here. He is hanging there on the gallows ..."[45]
As Jesus Christ was crucified for sinful human on the cross, He felt the reality of suffering fully, not as divine, but as a human. In this sense, as Jesus did on the cross; they also were crucified for justice. Moltmann provides:
The God of hope is for Christian faith at the same time the God of concrete acts of deliverance from guilt, misery and law. Faith understands itself as a creative freedom for love, and the memory of the crucified Lord brings him into solidarity with the ‘alienated’ of a society. It is not as the authority of authorities that God’s reality is experienced, but as the power of the release of the bound and the power of the future for the hopeless.[46]
Christ was crucified on the cross in order to redeem the sinful world for He so loved the world. John tells us that the Father gave His only Begotten Son for the world because He sincerely loved His people. Moltmann explained that in order to redeem the godforsaken world God enters the godless space created by his self-limitation and suffers it, thus bringing it within his divine life in order to conquer it. This, then, is the point of the Trinitarian history of the cross in which God constitutes himself through suffering and death: “By entering into the Godforsakenness of sin and death (which is Nothingness), God overcomes it and makes it part of his eternal life: “If I make my bed in hell, thou art there.””[47] In her book “She Who Is the Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse”, Elizabeth A. Johnson claims the mystery of God is here in solidarity with those who suffer, and the significance of the suffering God from feminist theological perspective, saying:
“Only a suffering God can help. The compassionate God, spoken about in analogy with women’s experience of relationality and care, can help by awakening consolation, responsible human action, and hope against hope in the world marked by radical suffering and evil.”[48]
It is truly the case that the import of the canonical witness for faith is that the passion of Jesus Christ is to be identified as the pathos of God, then the ontic reality of God must be said to involve crucifixion and resurrection.[49] Myanmar people are suffered from the cause of military forces, ethnically violence, economic exploitation, racial discrimination, poverty caused by power holders and cronies. However, the Kingdom of God is at hand for the oppressed, marginalized and dehumanized socially and politically. Christ is identified with the suffering by holding justice. Suffering may come in our lives, but that suffering should not be understood as the declination of our faith, and suffer-less is not the vindication of our sin. Death is not the end, death is not the eternal. But it is our bingeing of our eternal lives, as Bonhoeffer said before his execution, saying that that was the end, but for him, that was the beginning of his life. To conclude this section, let us look at what Ngun Ling exhorts us:
“An important point for us Christians today is that the Bible never teaches us a suffering-less Christian life. Rather, it teaches us the victorious way to suffering for God’s Kingdom and justice (Matt. 24:9-14). It is never the Christian belief that the believers are free from suffering. Supposed only Christians are free when others are suffering, this surely will weaken our Christian faith. The Church that lacks in the experience of suffering never grows to the will of God. A Christian without any suffering in life cannot be a good disciple of Christ. For his or her discipleship may be like that of what Dietrich Bonheoffer describes, “Cheap grace,” that is, “grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”[50]
4.4. The Pain of Earth
The survival of millions of people in tropical Asia is mostly dependent on what the earth can be coaxed to produce. In fact, it is usually the only productive asset of the people apart from their own labor. Therefore, any damage done to the earth directly affects the people who daily depend on what the earth gives them. Today, the sad situation is that, in addition to the population explosion, greed is causing massive exploitation of the earth’s natural resources. Almost everywhere in South and Southeast Asia, peoples’ relationship with their natural habitat is becoming alienated. The Asian environment is heading for a catastrophe.[51] Myanmar is one of the world’s most thickly forested countries but its forests are threatened by neighbors such as China and Thailand as well as Myanmar cronies and generals anxious to enrich themselves. According to the environmental group Global Witness, “Burma is resource rich but surrounded by resource-hungry nations and the this regime has used this fully to its advantage.” Large swaths of virgin rain forest has been cleared by Chinese logging companies, the military regime and insurgent groups to make money. Ethnic insurgents use money earned from selling timber to fight the regime, who in turn uses money earned from selling timber to fight the ethnic insurgents.[52]
During 21st century environmental issues, global warming, climate change, various pollution, deforestation, making a lot of dams, illegal timber export, mineral export, gem, jade, ruby, fossil fuel, natural gas, at the same time bear, rhino, elephant, tiger are huge decline probably already extinct due to trade. Consequently, Japan earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis were happened on March 11, 2011. In Myanmar, deforestation is made by human dominion. Man made timber exportation legal and illegal. Imbalance of planting and cutting couldn’t make compensation. Not only cutting and exporting but also uprooted trees are illegally exporting because of the very good way of making money.[53] Gradually, we are suffering from the bondage what we have made by ourselves.
This is the report of Doherty extracted from Facts and Details [factsanddetails.com], saying: "Illegal logging and destructive forest conversion are hand-in-hand with corruption, crime, cronyism and a multitude of other societal ills suffered by the people of Burma for so long," Logging has also raised conflict between local ethnic groups and the Myanmar government, an issue that the “The Environmental Investigation Agency” EIA says could lead to government instability at this crucial time. "There are no safeguards at all in place in Burma. Its forests are in crisis, as are the people who rely on them for their livelihoods and as a life-sustaining resource," says Doherty.[54] As a result, the waters in the rivers unclean, making the impure water and fish to eat have been made sick and are dying. Chemicals from the factories run into our drinking system. Fertilizers and pesticides used widely in the agricultural sector today for higher yields are drained into the rivers making the water toxic.[55] Driving fresh air out from our environment which controls our living environmental security, filling with air-pollution and changing into global warming continues to occupy in our country. Now the stewardship given by God has gone away that demands us to make fruitful and increase in number, to fill the earth and subdue, to sustain over the fish of the sea nad the birds of the air and over every living (Gen. 1:28). But God created the world to be good, and He himself saw it as good. In this sense, Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross, not only for human, but also for the animals and all His creatures—living things and non-living things.
Today the earth is groaning and crying for freedom in which human had destroyed. When the earth is declined from the original condition from higher to lower, she is forsaken by freedom which is gained from human. The earth is not itself the earth, but all creatures that exist in the earth are the world. Today people rapidly test our own made suffering, the suffering caused by injustice. Human being is the first one involved in the curing of the world. It means that to cure, to heal the world is to heal ourselves. Christ was crucified on the cross to redeem the world because He so loved the world. Without suffering, it will be difficult to perceive the Love of God. By suffering in our lives, it will convenient to grasp the full Love of God. That Love is for all, black, white, poor and rich, Jews and Gentiles, animals and plants.
5. Concluding Remarks
To repeat the purpose, this research attempts to bring theology of suffering which was developed by Jürgen Moltmann in his The Crucified God, in Myanmar context. Moltmann argues the theology of impassibility which sees God as remote distinction from the suffering in the world—God is unchangeable and cannot suffer. However, Moltmann expounds in his Crucified God that God cannot be unchangeable means God is imperfect. So, God cannot be forced to change, but God is able to suffer, not as divinely, but as humanity. He experienced the suffering he face with two Jewish who were hung on the gallows. He believes that God Himself is hung on the gallows. In this sense, he highlights that God’s eschatological dimension is not only remotely in the future, but it is active and called promise.
History recalls the suffering of Myanmar people who are oppressed and dehumanized from the society. Injustice occupies the realm of justice, and some sacrificed their lives for justice, freedom and God’s Kingdom. Citizens are suffered from social discrimination, dehumanization, military violence, ethnic discrimination, economical exploitation, and poverty caused by unfair trade. In my B.Th thesis “Reinterpreting the Parousia of Christ and the Battle of Armageddon,” the problems deal with the suffering of Myanmar people who suffered from unjust systems of political and economic exploitation, respecting to the suffering of the 1st Century Christians who were suffered from the persecution of the Roman Empire. In this sense, I call their suffering and persecution from the Empire, their sacrificed lives and blood as the battle of Armageddon—it is not remote futuristic state, but as the real suffering of innocent people as the battle of Armageddon. In addition, I add that when there is no place for the Kingdom of God, the so-called the Battle of Armageddon immediately comes in our lives. But, they won! They won the battle by dying, because they did not give up. Today, we see and hear the news about Christian persecution by ISIS in Iraq, hanging on the gallows, cutting head, shooting and stoning death. However, they never give up, they won their battle by dying with Jesus Christ. But Moltmann says that we have the eschatological promise which is at hand, active in this day, and in the future.
Jesus gave us such promise which is active at hand in His Kingdom. He shares His life with the poor, eats with marginalized, heals the sick, and exorcises demons. Jesus gathered together the poor, the oppressed, the tax collectors, the sinners, the prostitutes and crated a community with freedom, equality, justice, love and fellowship with total openness to others and service to all.[56] Jesus proclaimed God’s Kingdom of justice and he called on his people to participate in his ministry of justice in the world. John the Baptist who had been waiting for Messiah heard about Jesus and his ministry. He was not sure whether he could be the expected Messiah and he sent two persons to inquire about him. When they met Jesus, he replied them saying: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is he who takes no offense at me,” (Lk. 7:22-23).[57] When one makes peace between two people, there is the Kingdom of God. When injustice takes the realm of justice and drive away justice, justice then is crucified.
Author : David John
[14]
Sam Bagnall, Burma's 'Forgotten' Chin People Suffer Abuse,
BBC News, Available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8626008.stm, Internet accessed on September 11, 2014.
[15]
Salai Bawi Lian, Persecution of Chin Christians in Burma [article online] Available
from http://www.chro.ca/index.php/resources/religious-freedom/363-persecution-of-chin-christians-in-burma-international-conference-on-persecuted-churches, Internet accessed on September 11, 2014.
[17]
General Aung San Biography: Childhood,
Life Achievements and Timeline, [article online] Available from http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/general-aung-san-3327.php,
Internet accessed September 10th, 2014.
[22]
Identification in Oxford Dictionary
(British & World English): Oxford Dictionaries Language Matters, available
from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/identification,
Internet accessed on 10th, 2014.
[42]
Gordon Leidner, A Short Biography of Abraham Lincoln from
Great American History, [article online] Available from http://www.greatamericanhistory.net/lincolnbiography.htm, Internet accessed on September 10th,
2014.
[43]
Abraham Lincoln Biography: Childhood,
Life Achievements and Timeline, [article online] Available from http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/abraham-lincoln-7.php,
Internet accessed September 10th, 2014.
[44]
Martin Luther King, Jr. Biography: Martin
Luther King Jr. Childhood, Life and Timeline, [article online] Available
from http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/martin-luther-king-jr-48.php,
Internet accessed September 10th, 2014.
[52]
Jeffrey Hays, Deforestation And Illegal Logging In Myanmar, from Facts and Details [article online]
Available from http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Myanmar/sub5_5h/entry-3145.html, Internet accessed on September 11, 2014.
[54]
Jeffrey Hays, Deforestation And Illegal Logging In Myanmar, from Facts and Details [article online]
Available from http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Myanmar/sub5_5h/entry-3145.html, Internet accessed on September 11, 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment