Religion
is the subtext for a lot of news these days, and the news is mostly bad. All
too often religion seems to fuel the violence between different religious
groups or even within a single religious group divided by interpretations of
their common tradition. As best I can tell, virtually every major religious
tradition has been used at one point or another to justify heinous deeds. Tragically
Christianity is no exception.
Lots
of people today respond by giving up on religion altogether. Religions, so some
argue, cause more harm than good. Religions require people to believe and to do
irrational things, and too high a percentage of these irrational things are
evil. This is not my own position, but the sad fact is, religious difference
really does seem to generate a lot of violence.
Others
do not reject religion altogether but effectively reject the idea of meaningful
religious difference. They suggest that, at base, all religions teach
essentially the same thing. Different religions are simply different paths to
the same ultimate end. People from different traditions should not fight since
the other person knows the same God I know, just under a different name and in
a different way.
This
position holds more attraction for me. And yet it does not seem to do justice
to the integrity of different religious traditions. For example, Christians
generally insist that the divinity of Jesus matters. For Jews and Muslims,
however, the assertion that Jesus is divine compromises belief in the oneness
of God, which they consider vitally important. I am not prepared to surrender
on the divinity of Jesus, nor am I inclined to insist that Jews or Muslims
acknowledge the divinity of Jesus. That means we differ on a non-trivial point.
I
wish that I had a theologically satisfying solution to the question of how
people from different religions could (1) be genuinely committed to their own
religious traditions (2) without killing people who differ (3) or pretending
that they agree more than they in fact do. I do not have such a solution.
But
I would like to think that people from different religious traditions can get
along. And I have a pair of convictions that may not cohere but that have
worked for me so far.
(1)
I believe in rooting myself as deeply as I can in a single tradition, Christianity
in its Episcopal form.
(2)
But I take it as obviously true that Christians do not have a monopoly on
wisdom or goodness. I have been inspired by people from many different
traditions and from no tradition at all. Moreover I have learned a great deal
about God and about my own faith from talking to (or reading) them, even,
indeed especially, on points where we differ.
As
a result, I want to be the best Christian and the best human being I can be by
drawing on the wisdom and the practices of my own religious tradition AND by
knowing as much as I can about people from other religious traditions. In the
process, I want to grow in my respect and love for people despite religious
differences that matter.
