September 24, 2006

The Challenges of Tolerance

by Julianne Stokstad

As Christians, many of us have been deeply concerned by the ways Christianity has been defined and used by fundamentalists. We find our children and youth confused about what it means to Christian today. We find ourselves disagreeing with much put out in the media about Christianity that is mean spirited, intolerant and divisive. Yet it is the fundamentalist churches that are growing rapidly while our own UCC, like all other mainline Protestant denominations, is continuing to shrink.

I have felt a yearning for us to find a vision for Christianity that is not a defensive response, one that is open, generous spirited that articulates what we try to live here in this church. The little book The Phoenix Affirmations by Eric Elnes is built on the three great loves of the Bible: love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self is a place to start. Some thirty of us studied it this past summer. For the next year, on the fourth Sunday of the month, I will focus our worship on one of the twelve affirmations. I don't necessarily think that these are complete or perfect vision but they are a place to begin our conversation about what is important to us as Christians.

The first affirmation is about respect and tolerance of other religions. Tolerance is defined in the dictionary as a fair and objective attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality differ from one's own. It has just never made sense that all those good people of other traditions or of no tradition aren't loved by the God I know. "Walking fully in the Path of Jesus without denying the legitimacy of other paths that God may provide for humanity" is the first of the affirmations.

There are several challenges tolerance presents. One is the PC - political correctness - challenge. It came about in an effort to be civil and deal with differences without offending anyone. You know what I mean, schools no longer had Christmas vacation, but winter vacation. In my school, we went to great extremes and threw out all mention of any religious holidays. This, to me, is a swing of the pendulum too far to the secular. Perhaps the increased interest in fundamentalism is a backlash to the increase secularism. I think to learn about and honor all the holidays, as we have done today, is a better way.

Another challenge of tolerance is that of implied moral relativism. By that I refer to the idea that all religions are really saying the same thing. One is as good as another. While one can compare Buddhist texts to Jesus' sayings, for example, and find many similarities, they are not the same. Each religion arose in different cultural contexts, in different places and have evolved in different ways. The three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam share many beliefs, texts and practices but are not the same.

Tolerance does not mean we are empty headed about what we do believe. It does demand that we learn more and study the Bible and our beliefs deeply and carefully. Many fundamentalist Christians take literally the passages, especially from the gospel of John, that say Jesus is the only way to God. In careful exegesis, the context of that saying must be taken into account. Jesus was talking to his disciples and telling them how they can find God. It doesn't mean that he is saying he is the only way for everyone in the world. Respect of other religions demands we learn more about our own.

There is an analogy that is very helpful in understanding. I don't remember where I first heard it or even if it was God-given. If we say that God is like a mountain, then there are many paths up the mountain. Different paths, although they might all end up at the top, have different views, travel different terrain and different advantages and disadvantages. The point is that in order to get to the top, one must choose a path and keep on it.

There are many forms of tolerance and many ways to avoid being tolerant. One used often in our churches is passivity. There are many reasons for intolerance. Perhaps the most common reason is fear. Fear is a fabulous tool for manipulation and control. The Bible speaks over and over about not being afraid. Jesus spoke about it. Yet fear is our first response to anything, anyone new and different. We fear change. We fear conflict over new ideas or practices. We fear becoming corrupted if we encounter anything that is other. We fear being good enough. We fear being wrong. Psychologists will tell us we project out our fears on to those who are different from ourselves and make them our enemy. We must not allow ourselves to be duped into making enemies out of those who practice different religions. It too easily allows wars to happen in the name of religion.

Religions arise as ways is to make sense of the world, to respond to the great mysteries that lie beyond our understanding and to give us ways to live together in harmony and justice. So to learn about other ways might even help us to see and understand ourselves more fully. Through learning about other ways we might see our own assumptions. The more we learn about science, about the world, about other religions the more humility, not arrogance, we have.

Running deep through all humanity is the commonality of being alive. Deeper than all differences, deeper than all brokenness, deeper than all hate and violence is our common humanity. God is in each of us and the wonder of the world is that each one of us is a unique expression of life, of God, no matter what we call it.

God has created us with freedom to choose to think and act as we choose. We are not required to love God. This way when we choose to love God, we are doing that freely because we want to and that is the kind of love God wants from us. It is a natural response to God's love. Children know this and we adults forget it. There are many paths to finding a relationship with God that is alive and vital within us and finding that is what really matters. Praise God for the beautiful diversity of sacred paths.