Hell is Other People

In light of next month, February, which is African-American History Month, I wanted to cover a tradition that, while a part of African history, still occurs in parts of Africa with regards to women.

When I was a kid my parents had huge stacks of National Geographic magazines around. I would flip through them to see scantily clad tribal peoples of Africa walking around their mud huts with spears. I marveled at how dark their skin was and how they didn't care about being fully clothed. Some of them had elaborate nose and ear piercings and jewelry. Some of the women had rings around their necks. One of the photos that stands out for me is one that I didn't understand at the time. It was a photo of several older women holding down a crying girl. When I was young I didn't know what genital mutilation was, but as an adult it makes me want to cry for those women.

For a full description of this procedure, also referred to as "female circumcision" click this link: http://members.tripod.com/~Wolvesdreams/FGM.html

In the year 2008 there is still a global suppression of female education that needs to be addressed. Waris Dirie, a victim of this procedure and a Revlon model escaped from Somalia and has been an outspoken advocate of putting an end to this "tradition".

"Female genital mutilation is a painful and unnecessary procedure with lifelong consequences for those who undergo it," says Dr Nafis Sadik, UNFPA executive director. "It exposes young girls to infection; it can cause serious injury or even death; it can damage psychological, social and sexual well-being."

Yet at the same time, it is a practice which exists in silence. In traditional Somali society women are discouraged from even discussing circumcision, or sexuality in general. "Nobody talks about it, it just happens - but it happens to all women," Dirie explains.

Until she fled from home to avoid an arranged marriage at the age of 13, she says, she did not even know that there existed places in the world where female genital mutilation did not occur.

The sad part is that women impart this procedure upon women. I wish I could smuggle these women out of their society and bring them here and tell them how their bodies are not evil and educate them. I wonder if this tradition that began over 2000 years ago was a man's idea.

I recently listened to podcast from NPR (National Public Radio) about a Pastor Carlton Pearson of New Dimensions Church (see link on my Recommended Links section). He came to know the Truth of universal salvation - the Gospel of Inclusion and prior to being labeled a heretic, had made a poignant statement during the show. While watching TV from the comfort of his home, with his daughter on his lap, he saw a news segment that showed suffering children and babies in Africa with distended stomachs, flies buzzing around their eyes and the unbelievable starvation, malnourishment, uneducation, poverty and death they were enduring. He realized that he could not get on a plane and go over to save these people from eternal hell. He meditated on this. He then realized that they WERE in hell -- the agony, torment, gnashing of teeth -- is by and large HERE AND NOW. Moreso, he realized God would never condemn those people, believers or not, a loving and sovereign God is about mercy and compassion. A loving God would never EVER impart an eternity of suffering on someone who has only lived maybe 70 years... and suffered a good portion of those years. More than the agony, Pastor Pearson realized that a loving God would deliver unto Himself even those unbelieving pagan babies dying of hunger. His eyes were opened. He realized the truth that I also found, that God saved the world for all humans, especially believers, but he saves ALL.

Inaccurately translated from the original Greek manuscripts to Latin, then to English, the word Hell was incorrectly inserted into subsequent Bibles to replace three different words in one fell swoop that mean three totally different things (Gehenna, Tartarus and Hades). The majority of Christians do not realize this. The majority of Christians take the typical King James-type version at face value and never take a scholarly approach to understanding the original Bible on their own. Anyone who wishes to do this must get their hands on a version of the Bible that is as close to the original Greek language Bible as possible. For those people, I recommend the Condcordant Literal New Testament with Greek Concordance.

My point, in relation to female genital mutilation (FGM) is this: God LOVINGLY gave women the ability to experience brief moments of ecstasy while in the throes of sexual climax (some would use the word 'heavenly'). For the women who undergo FGM, the special parts of the female body designed by God for their benefit that would allow this awesome experience are cut out, cut off from the women. Their existing Hell of being second-class, suppressed, objectified and uneducated is intensified by the denial of any natural sexual pleasure gifted to them by God.

When you are in such pain (and I cannot even IMAGINE the pain that would accompany a female circumcision) it feels like ETERNITY. Yes, I would tend to agree that an eternity in Hell is now. And I have to agree with the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre when he said, "Hell is other people". I think here and now we create hell for ourselves and for others. Our environment, actions, inactions, thoughts, internal struggles - hell is different to each person, but it is a hell nonetheless. We are weak vessels of impotence and purposefully experience the devastation of human inevitabilities (suffering, death) now so that we can truly enjoy the Life of the World to Come, where, I believe, those victimized women will be made whole again. All will return to God in the condition in which He dispatched them.

I would like to close this entry with these three quotes:

God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race — Robert G. Ingersoll

I do not believe in hell as a place of a literal burning fire. — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Ebony magazine, January 1961)

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears; they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. — The Apostle Paul (2 Timothy 4:4)