The Ancient Mythology Of ISIS

It dawned on me as I recently watched a brief YouTube lecture (embedded below) given by Father Robert Barron on creation back in 2010* – long before ISIS high-jacked our unwilling attention, kicking and screaming.

Alone among the ancient gods, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – our God, our Abba Father – fought no battle, conquered no enemy, to become ruler of a people.

In language symbolic yet edifying, Genesis staked out God’s moral claim to a creation forged not in violence, but through words spoken. Through the power of Christ as the Logos. Through love.

Where the ancient myths had the gods battling one another in order to assert control over a chaotic world, our God had only to speak peaceful words of creation.

Where storied men were led into battle against their mortal enemies in an effort to make peace with their gods, our God sent His only son to lead us into peace with each other.

God has everything. God is everything.

He had no need to create. Yet, create He did.

Not for His sake, no.

But for ours.

Out of generosity. Out of love.

Dare I suggest, out of friendship?

As Father Barron so often reminds, God loved us into existence. (I hope that you find as much comfort in those words as I do.)

That peaceful, spoken creation, that loved existence, informs us that non-violence is the true primal order, “the fundamental reality,” the rightful spirit of life on this earth, Barron tells us.

Violence is the aberration.

And so, Barron asks us to go back and re-read the Sermon on the Mount with all that in mind, so that we might better understand these profound truths. And so, too, that we might better understand the dual commands that we love our neighbor as ourselves and that we bless those who curse us.

It is only in that way that we can fully become “congruent with the deepest grain of the universe.”

Now, as for ISIS:

Although centuries removed from the stories of the mythological gods, ISIS is nevertheless now engaged in an ancient battle.

It seeks to violently dominate anything that crosses its path.

It desires to make enemies of everyone – and is succeeding,

It destroys all things, and all people, it does not or cannot understand.

Make no mistake, this is 21st century warfare aimed at procuring an ancient and vengeful mythological order.

It is destruction which seeks to restore a violent civilization long-since past, avenging a deity long-since misconstrued.

It is a death march back in time.

But it will fail – for this violence shall never prevail.

Violence is congruent with neither God’s love, nor with His creation, ever on-going.

But note this:

ISIS cannot be defeated without pain, or without effort, or without sacrifice, or without more blood being shed.

And it certainly will not be defeated without our unending courage, wisdom, and prayers.

Are we up for the challenge ahead?

I pray that we are.

Peace

* My thanks to Father Barron for the inspiration which envelops this post. Any misinterpretation of the meaning of his lecture is purely mine.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain: Perseus Fighting Phineus and his Companions