Together

Monday, March 18th, 2019

Brenton Tarrant’s manifesto is unbelievably offensive.

It talks about the supremacy of the European people and deporting all non-Europeans. He says he decided to take a stand to ensure a future for ‘my’ people.

‘The White Genocide’ is how he refers to his actions; he labels himself as a part-time kebab removalist.

Tarrant says he carried out the attack to, most of all, show the invaders that our lands will never be their lands, and to directly reduce immigration rates to European lands by intimidating and physically removing the invaders themselves and to incite violence, retaliation and further divide between the European people and the invaders currently occupying European soil.

He says he’s taking revenge in New Zealand for events that happened elsewhere in the world.

The manifesto ends with: “Europa arises.”

Difference

As a Church, over the years, we’ve had our issues with differences in creeds.

Catholics were told there was no salvation outside the Catholic Church and interpreted this as there were only Catholics in heaven.

We make light of it now; I’m sure we’ve all heard or read Irish comedian Dave Allen about St Peter showing a person around heaven and saying to be quiet around the Catholics because they think they’re the only ones there.

For most of her life, my mother was an Anglican.

As an Anglican, she was the one who heard our Catechism questions and knew more of the Catechism than either my sister or me.

My mother was also an excellent cake decorator, and not long after Vatican II, the ecumenical Council, the Brigidine Sisters at St Benedict’s school in Wellington, asked her to decorate our first Holy Communion cake.

A non-Catholic decorating the first Holy Communion cake! It raised some eyebrows in the parish.

I consider having a non-Catholic mother as one of the greatest blessings in my life.

She and my father taught me religious differences could work.

Differences often make us look twice.
Differences make us think.
Differences may even confront.
Differences were part of the reason for Jesus’ crucifixion.

And, just when you thought the examples were over, “that was then, and this is now”, our church’s dealing with difference is perhaps not so historic; for example, relatively recently, we changed the words of consecration, so now Jesus’ blood is not shed for ‘all’ but just for ‘many,’ the few.

Thumbs up to Egg Boy

Whatever the liturgical semantics, being different does not give anyone the right to senselessly slaughter another. Nor does it give Australian senator Fraser Anning the right to blame Friday’s mass murder on Muslim migration. Please, Mr Anning. There is no excuse.

Australia, you can keep Tarrant and Anning. Whereas there is an open invitation to “Egg Boy”, the 17-year-old William Connolly, to come to New Zealand any time.

The people who died in Christchurch on Friday were in what they thought was a safe place with their God.

Tarrant’s actions crossed religious lines.

Tarrant crossed ethnic lines.

He also crossed the line of what it means to be human.

The impact of Tarrant’s actions was also felt beyond the Christchurch boundary line, and friends of mine, immigrants, here long enough to be New Zealand citizens, but who on Saturday were so scared they were holed up in their Wellington home.

They didn’t come to New Zealand for this, nor did they come to see other people on social media “liking” Tarrant’s live video stream and witness others giving a “thumbs up” to his manifesto.

What can we learn from Friday?

Is there something we can learn from what happened?

In time, there are bound to be many “learnings”, but as a start, as fellow human beings, let’s use this Christchurch horror as a reminder to be less judgmental, to understand a way of life that may seem foreign to us and in a society dominated by fences and boundaries, let’s try to appropriately reach out.

Christians familiar with the letter of St James will remember that faith, without actions, is dead.

On Sunday, we heard God, The Father’s voice, in the scriptures. The account of the Transfiguration ends: “This is my Son, the chosen one. Listen to him.”

At no point does Jesus condone murder, racism, or hate.

We are all different from each other but are together in this world.

Let our actions speak volumes.