Faith
Pastors preach against retribution

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer

When the World Trade Center crumbled before the eyes of millions of stunned Americans this week, the spectacle was enough to cause the faith of the most devout to collapse along with it.

Muslim Lena Beck joined in a candlelight vigil at McKenzie Park in Panama City, Fla., on Wednesday. Choices made by man, not God, led to this weekâs tragedies in New York and Washington, said Elwin Ahu, executive pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship. Associated Press

This is the subject religious leaders are attempting to address at services this weekend.

"This incident has caused such a magnitude of suffering," said the Rev. Jan Youth, a Buddhist minister at Honpa Hongwanji Hawai'i Betsuin. "Our faith has been challenged. We are torn."

Youth will remind her congregation that it is important that we not let our feelings of rage and helplessness consume us.

"(We know) that killing is not right, and that life is precious. And yet, because we are human beings, this is how we sometimes choose to respond. And we are blinded by our retribution into thinking that we have wielded justice.

"But there is a great sadness with that response."

Rabbi Itchel Krasnjansky of the Chabad of Hawai'i said that the events of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, are so horrific that they defy explanation.

"We are now preparing ourselves for Rosh Hashana on Monday, the time when Jewish people the world over ... reflect on the truths and blessings we receive from God," he said. "And this is the kind of thing that almost forces you to re-examine the deeper truths of life: What's real? What's wrong? What's right?"

Like others facing this moral dilemma, Krasnjansky said there's a temptation to question how a just God could let such a thing happen.

"Sadly, the Jewish people are all too familiar with this question, having experienced the Holocaust of World War II. And the truth is, there are no pat answers to that question. One of the things we're taught is that it is really beyond our comprehension to fathom God. But there is also a fundamental belief in Judaism that God is good."

Krasnjansky says that although we cannot encompass the mind of God, as individuals it is within us to "define and clarify what is good and evil, and what is the right way and what is the wrong way."

Elwin Ahu, executive pastor of the New Hope Christian Fellowship, would tell worshippers that God does not, in fact, "allow" such things to happen.

"God is not a God of destruction and death," said Ahu. "God is a loving God. But, man will make certain choices, and men will be accountable for the actions that they take. There are consequences.

"We can't enter into a spirit of vengeance or retaliation. That's not what God would want us to do. He would rather have us divert our anger and aggression toward compassion."

What people of faith can do to "transform their hearts," said Ahu, is reaffirm their faith, go back to the scriptures, pray alone and with others.

Father Randy Roche of the University of Hawai'i Newman Center grappled with the question of how God could permit the tragedy of New York and Washington, and concluded that that's the wrong question.

"I don't know that there's anything to be achieved by saying, 'God doesn't meet my criteria,' "said Roche. "People who have faith and then move away from it generally don't gain more peace. Usually, they fall more into the darkness."

And that darkness, said Roche's colleague, Father Marc Alexander of Sacred Heart Catholic Church, doesn't exclude members of the priesthood.

"I've had some pretty dark thoughts about this, too — about the perpetrators of this violence, and all the pain and suffering they have caused," confessed Alexander.

These are natural feelings that we need to acknowledge. But, said Alexander, the challenge from the Scriptures is to move our thoughts forward.

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8038.