Common
Themes
“Yet
this, in a nutshell, is the monumental spiritual challenge of living with
religious difference—and more centrally than that—of living with anyone who does
not happen to be me. ‘Love God in the person standing right in front of you,’
Jesus of my understanding says, ‘or forget the whole thing, because if you cannot
do that, then you are going to keep making shit up.’”
Barbara
Brown Taylor (Holy Envy, p.195; Harper One, 2019)
Barbara
Brown Taylor always speaks truth to me. She is such a grounded and spiritually
inspired person that anything she says comes straight from Mother Earth to my
ears. In Holy Envy she writes about her personal experiences while taking
her Comparative Religion students from Piedmont College to worship services of
various other religions. To sum it up, she finds reason to be envious and
respectful of every other religion. She identifies common themes, such as
compassion and community, which are as strong or stronger in temples, mosques,
and synagogues than in our current Christian churches. Direct experience
changes minds and lives when we are willing to confront our biases.
It’s
human nature to see one’s own religion as best, and to wonder why anyone would
believe the others. But it’s safe to say, that as many humans as there are (some seven billion now),
there are also that many versions of religious belief—including none at all. All
Christians do not hold the same beliefs, and the same is true for all Muslims, Jews
and Hindus--even Athiests. We all pick and choose what speaks to our hearts and minds—and the holy
scriptures allow for that. All the stories in the Bible, for instance, were adlibbed
and added to because they were originally from an oral tradition. Several
versions of the same story are sometimes included because they came from two different
sources. The creation story is one of those—two versions from two traditions.
One is not better than the other. And there are other creation stories from
other religions based upon their particular beliefs. Where we run into trouble
is when we make laws that demand everyone follow the same religion—which is why
America was founded on the concept of separation of Church and State.
In
order to maintain an artificial barrier between us—something we humans seem to
prefer—we make up things about people of other religions and insert them into
our personal beliefs. “All Muslims are terrorists” comes to mind. That’s absurd,
of course, but some people are steadfast in clinging to it because it helps them
feel superior. In other words, we take the teachings of the Christian religion,
which are all about love and service to others, and turn them upside down, so
that we can, as Barbara Brown Taylor says, “keep making shit up.” That
does not make it true. And it’s time for it to stop.
In our
heart of hearts, we know that all people are the same, and all religions are
equally beneficial to believers. They provide a code of conduct, a moral
structure, and a community of like-minded people. They instill within us a
moral compass and give us the tools to confront the multiple devastations that
life can inflict. We need all of them and we truly need for each of us to acknowledge
that Holy Spirit speaks in many tongues and that the Source of Love loves us
all as equals. It’s time for us to do the same.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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