News Brief

Williams says revenge betrays God

-13/9/04

ëThe greatest challenge today for our world is how to react to circumstances in a way that is faithful to Godís willí, declared the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in Egypt this weekend, in the aftermath of more bloodshed in Beslan, Darfur and Baghdad.

Speaking at al-Azhar al-Sharif, Cairo, Dr Williams called for inter-religious understanding and cooperation, in spite of differences.

ëUndoubtedly, greed and revenge affect all of usí, he said. ëWe feel that we want to defend ourselves in the way that a person without faith or hope or love would understand ñ in anger and bitterness and unforgiving cruelty. But when we act in such a way, we show that we do not really believe in a God who is living and self-sufficient. We do not believe that Godís will is enough; we act as though the circumstances of this world could so change things that cruelty and fear could become the right tools with which to defend ourselves.í

Dr Williams, who sought to explain import of the traditional Christian understanding of the Trinity against the backdrop of misunderstanding and misrepresentation, stressed the practical significance of belief.

ë[W]hen the Christian, the Muslim or the Jew sees his neighbour of another faith following the ways of this world instead of the peaceful will of God, he must remind his neighbour of the nature of the one God we look to, whose will cannot be changed and who will himself see that justice is done. Once we let go of justice, fairness and respect in our dealings with one another, we have dishonoured God as well as human beings.í

He continued: ëSo whenever a Muslim, a Christian or a Jew refuses to act in violent revenge, creating terror and threatening or killing the innocent, that person bears witness to the true God. They have stepped outside the way the faithless world thinks. A person without faith, hope and love may say, If I do not use indiscriminate violence and terror, there is no safety for me. The believer says, My safety is with God, whose justice can never be defeated. If I defend myself, I seek to do so only in a way that honours God and Godís image in others, and that does not offend against Godís justice.í

ëTo seek to find reconciliation, to refuse revenge and the killing of the innocent, this is a form of adoration towards the One Living and Almighty Godí , declared Dr Williams