Tolstoy and a Simplistic Christianity

First off, great discussion the other night. The size and make up of the group is great. Everyone ad great comments and thanks to Allison for hosting and thansk to everyone who brought the eats, my belly thanks you.

Now on to Tolstoy.

I hope none of you mind but Tolstoy was my suggestion and I as hoping to give a little background on why I picked the book. It gets a little or very repetitive bu the general idea of it is a much needed lesson in todays, and tomorrow's, moral philosophy.

As we briefly talked about in the last meeting, Tolstoy puts forward a very simple idea in his book, namely that Christ told us to love our enemies, bless them that curse us, turn the other cheek, and that if a man takes you to law for your coat, give him your cloak as well. The question we are left is why don't we?

For me it is extremely refreshing and embarassing to think about this as we seem to spend alot of our time talking doctrine, religious organization, etc., and very little time on these simple truths that came straight from the Master himself, and are widely considered to be the apex of his commandments.

It is the simplest of things yet it is the most abused and in many ways, always have been. I would argue that the primary reason these commandments are largely ignored is that people feel the complexity and lack of universal morality in this world gives ample reason to ignore these high commandments. The argument that "if I give my neighbor my cloak in addition to my coat then my neighbor will be toasty warm, since my neighbor not only took me to law but makes a of living out of doing it to everyone, and I will be left naked in the cold".

It is precisely this argument that serves as a great way to introduce to kind of heritage that Tolstoy inherited and passed on. The idea of non-violence is the heritage and was built on by each predeccesor and gave us the like of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Both of whom gave their unjust neighbor their coat and cloak but made the neighbor watch them shiver naked in the cold as they sat in the plush surroundings with their ill gotten coats piled high.

In the mid ninteenth century New England saw the abolitionist movement fall under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrision. I must admit that I do not know Garrison philosphy as well as i do Tolsoy, Gandhi and King but Garrison was a man ahead of his time when he came to race and gender equality. However Garrison was no pacifist, he cheered on John Brown and sought the coming of the Civil War to purge the U.S. of the sin of slavery in blood, and perhaps even to perpetuate the second comming of Christ.

Tolstoy began a correspondence with Garrison's son as Tolstoy was goign through a deep depression and questioning of the fundamental doctrines of what he saw as a Christianity that had lost its way in ceremony, riches and pomp. Religion had become a tool of Kings rather than salvation for the masses. But beyond that Tolstoy developed a philosphy of non-violence that was to be see its culmination in the next generation to receive this heritage.

In my mind, Gandhi stands next to Christ in finding a way to communicate to the very essence of humanity, in developing a dialogue with the souls of men and defining all that it is to be human. Gandhi took the principle of non-violence and made humanity confront its own ugliness. He took the coomandent to turn the other cheek literally.

Of course America was the home of the latest holder of this legacy in Martin Luther King Jr. I would really suggest reading Louis Fischer's book on Gandhi along with Tolstoy, Gandhi took Tolstoy's philosophy and built upon witha philosophy of his own and then lived it to it's fullest. Fischer wrote a nice little 150 page book that talks about both.

A couple of questions I think about when reading Tolstoy:

If we want to look at Tolstoy through the lense of political philosophy, we must ask ourselves wether it is just for states as a collective enterprise to live the sermon on the mount? Of course an individual can fully live the sermon on th mount and Christ and Gandhi did, but lets say Gandhi is elected or appoint head of the Indian government, is it just for Gandhi to have his personal views to become the law of the land? We saw Thoreau go to prison in refusal to pay taxes which he thought woudl go to a unjust war (ironicalliy the Mexican-American war or Polkes War which Lincon considered to be unjust and in which the Mormon Battalion was created for).

It is a a long philosophical debate that has gone for centuries on whether the morality that rules an individual should rule a state. Every religious tradition has its history of being persecuted at the hands of state that imposed its own mode of morality. But is it an imposition to not retaliate for a 9-11? If we are going to talk about pragmatic Christianity this question seems extremely relevent as 9-11 has galvanized a militancy and at the very least, a passive attitude by the population towards the military actions of its own government.

So again the question, would it be immoral for for a democratic govt. not to respond to a 9-11 attack when a majority of its population wants it to? Would responding to a 9-11 attack violate the sermon on the mount?