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| Tuesday, 1 March 2005 |
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How 'Our Father' relates to a complex world Review by Lakshman Kadirgamar
Judge C. G. Weeramantry's book, The Lord's Prayer: Bridge to a Better World was reissued with an updated introduction on February 25 at a ceremony at the Postgraduate Institute of Management in Colombo. On that occasion the following review by Lakshman Kadirgamar, Minister of Foreign Affairs, was released I did not think it was possible that a 268 page book, even by an erudite religious scholar, could be written about the 56 words of the Lord's Prayer. This is exactly what Judge Christopher Weeramantry, Sri Lanka's pre-eminent jurist, former Vice President of the International Court of Justice has done. The notion of relating the Lord's Prayer to the varied complexities of modern life is startlingly original. The book has a breathtaking sweep. Judge Weeramantry has devoted to each word of the celebrated Prayer a whole chapter or sub-chapter of the book. In analyzing the text of the Prayer he has rigorously applied the powerful analytical skills acquired over a lifetime of immersion in the law - as counsel, national judge, university teacher, prolific author, international lecturer and a member of the highest Court in the world. Gargantuan task But why did he embark on this gargantuan task? Can the Lord's Prayer really support the far-reaching theses that Judge Weeramantry proposes? The book has a fascinating variety of features that make it compulsive reading. I would like to concentrate on two that have great appeal for me. One is Judge Weeramantry's assertion that the developing principles of international law need to be nourished by drawing continually upon equity, ethics and the moral sense of mankind. Here, the Lord's Prayer as one of the foundations of Christian thought and civilization has a major role to play. Judge Weeramantry points out that every word resonates with law and justice. The word "our" casts all humanity in one group without difference of race, sex, colour, language, learning or rank. "Father" implies love, brotherhood and sisterhood, peace, dispute resolution, collective responsibility, impartial justice, affirmative action, cooperation, non-violence and social rights. "Kingdom" denotes a kingdom of justice, equality, dignity, compassion, fair dealing where there is no forced labour, no discrimination, no exploitation, no torture, no slavery. "Come" is a call to action, to end moral paralysis in the face of injustice. "Thy will be done" involves another commitment - but this one would only be acceptable to those who believe in God - not only to accept God's will but also to do God's will; not merely to abstain from evil but to do good. "Daily Bread" clearly embraces economic rights - food, clothing, shelter and by extension fair wages, employment, the right to development and as the author points out the need to conserve our environment because we cannot stretch out one hand for food and with the other destroy the environment that creates it. "Trespass" comprises the whole domain of moral conduct. "Forgive" cleanses social poison through forgiveness, no retaliation, no vendettas, no lingering hatred, no blood feuds. "Temptation" tells us that we enjoy free will - to do good, to abstain from evil or to commit evil actively. The choice is ours. "Deliver us from evil" highlights the need for spiritual values, to guide us away from the multifarious sources of evil that beset modern society. Sharp spotlight The Judge directs a sharp spotlight on the relationship between the Lord's Prayer and human rights. He has identified and formulated a large number of concepts derived from, or tangentially related, to the Prayer - 30 relating to basic human rights, 21 relating to judicial process, 18 relating to social rights and responsibilities, 28 relating to individual conduct, 19 relating to international law. As Judge Weeramantry says in the first paragraph of his preface; "this book is about justice - justice for all peoples, justice at all levels of society, justice that avoids tension and war, justice that is the path to peace. It finds its inspiration in a concentration of practical wisdom, unrivalled in the width of coverage and brevity of expression: the Lord's Prayer." Judge's belief The second feature that attracts me is the Judge's belief, and who can challenge it, that "tomorrow's world order will be based on active cooperation, seeking to fuse out of the world's different historical and cultural backgrounds a set of common principles. All must cooperate, or all will perish. This era of cooperation demands that the legal essence distilled from each culture be brought to the common service of the international order." He has a deep commitment to the law in all its varied facets. Having spent a lifetime of work on the dissemination of the basic principles of law culled from all the judicial systems and philosophies the world has known, he argues that "law need no longer distance itself from the values of religion (as opposed to dogma and ritual)". Only the irretrievably prejudiced could argue against the validity of that proposition. Thus, in the search for the practical wisdom underlying the Prayer his book draws upon the literature of all religions. The book is replete with apt references to the literature of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism which reinforces the argument that there is a central core of beliefs shared by all the major religions of the world that will unite millions of adherents of separate faiths if only they know that the beliefs which unite them far outweigh those had divide them. For a student of comparative religion his book is a treasure trove of citations and insights. Judge Weeramantry has succeeded admirably in producing a work devoid of the slightest trace, even unwitting, of evangelical bias of favour. Hope Judge Weeramantry answers the question I raised at the outset. Why did he undertake the monumental task of writing this book? In his words: "In the hope of reaching people of goodwill of all faiths and walks of life this book has been written free of doctrinal assumptions. It does not claim to be a theoretical and juristic work and it requires no theoretical and Juristic knowledge of its readers. It is addressed to humanity at large, and not to Christians alone, for the Prayer is the common inheritance of all sections of the human family - not the exclusive possession of some." Those who turn away from this book because of its title will only be doing themselves a great dis-service. |
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