Armodoxy for Today: The Forgotten, Part 2 – Silence of the Friends

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., made this observation during his struggle for Civil Rights: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” As a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he did not understand how a Christian, follower of Jesus Christ, could stay silent and be apathetic in the face of injustice and violence against others. In April of 1963, while arrested for civil disobedience, he penned the remarkable “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in which he echoed the Call of Christ, 2,000 years after Jesus walked the Earth, to care for your fellow human being. (https://letterfromjail.com) “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he said.

The “anywhere” in his case was the United States, particularly in the South. He lived through the injustice of bigotry and discrimination, manifesting itself in violence, hatred and apathy in the face of that injustice.

The “anywhere” at the turn of the 19^th century was the Ottoman Empire where the Armenian population would come to be known as the first victims of Genocide in the 20^th Century. One-and-a-half-million Armenians were slaughtered and killed in a mass program of systematic annihilation and ethnic cleansing. The headlines on the world’s largest and most widely circulated newspaper screamed the news of massacres, rape and murder – hangings, beheadings, death marches photographed. The Ambassador of the United States to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau Sr. painstakingly detailed the atrocities committed against the Armenian and Greek populations. Despite the horrendous details of barbaric acts, the world stayed silent.

The Armenians were overlooked by the world. They were the forgotten. Seemingly good Christian people, who attended church regularly, and listened to the stories of Jesus, probably shook their heads in disgust of the atrocities, but were quiet about these things. So much so, that the silence was deafening.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The “everywhere” was not too far away. In 1939, Adolf Hitler on announcing his plans to invade Poland, was questioned by his military personnel about the feasibility of such an invasion. What would the world think? What would the world say? What would the world do? Hitler infamously responded, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

Forgotten. Yes. It didn’t take long. Only fifteen years after the end of the Armenian Genocide, it was forgotten, because it never entered the consciousness of the people.  It makes us think about our reaction to violence, war and even genocide today, in Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Ukraine today. We’ll get there, tomorrow.

For today, I’d like to share with you a prayer which is my answer to Shnorhali’s nineth hour of prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, you who opened the eyes of the blind man, open our eyes which are blinded by hatred. You who gave hearing to the deaf man, open our ears which can no longer hear the cry of babies. You who loosened the tongue of the mute, open our mouths so we may share our voice for justice. You who restored strength in the legs of the paralyzed man, give us the stamina to walk to bring aid. You who opened the hearts of those who hate, open our hearts to give to those in need. Amen.