It’s been a long and hot summer. It’s been hard for many of us personally. as well.
And then there is the world theater, the Gaza strip, Ebola, Ukraine and
the gruesome event in Iraq under ISIS.
One young person this week asked me if this is the world as it will
be. I answered I didn’t think so, but
for now this is the world as it is. Much
of this heartache has been brought on by religion or politics masquerading as
religion.
It’s a challenging time to be a
religious person these days. Faced with fundamentalism
on the right and the lack of relevancy on the left is it any wonder that so
many see religion as the enemy of civilization.
A wonder perhaps but sadly so wrong.
The reality is that every day millions of good meaning people with nothing
but their religious faith do all they can to make the world a better
place. These acts of justice, and so many more are
done in the name of religion. Our
religion.
What is broken for me, and the vision I
see for our future, is not religion but the beliefs that invade our
religions. Here I am not talking about
restrictive teachings about homosexuality and abortion so much as the myopia
that keeps people of different beliefs from talking with one another. I remember keenly when I was trying to enlist
the help of one fundamentalist church in building with Habitat for
Humanity. The associate pastor told me that not only would they not associate with
me, a heathen and atheist (neither of which is true, well… at least I am not an
atheist, a heathen I might be) he would not allow his people to support an
organization which believes there are many paths to God, quoting the Gospel of
John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and
the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
As the president of the UUA Peter
Morales claims: “Belief is the enemy of
religion… Religion is not about what you or I or Baptists or Catholics or Jews
or Muslims or Hindus believe… We are so immersed in a culture that views
religion as a matter of what people believe that we think this the way it has
always been. It isn’t. As Karen Armstrong wrote …all of this emphasis on what someone
believes is actually very modern and very western.” ("Beyond Belief", preached UU
Church of Arlington VA, Feb. 2014)
We get so lost in our beliefs. We get lost in our doctrines or even our cherished
principles. This is not what religion is for.
Religion is for living out our faith of what is right and good in the
world. And more importantly, to do it
with people who are not like you.
Because here is the brutal fact:
If we don’t start working aside other religious people to change the
world, we will die in our little ghettos of belief. We like being
around people who are “like us”. But young
people who may even share our values aren’t coming here to be around people
who go to church. They are out in the world
making a difference. One of the organizations
I work with, the Chalice Oak Foundation, a social justice group recently
advertised for a new Executive Director, we got over 10 applications, all of
them young people under forty, all changing the world and all but two having no
religious affiliation at all. Being
around people just like us is killing us and our world. We have to get beyond belief, and get into
relationships with Jews and Muslims and Baptists and Buddhists and yes, even
Mormons. On 9/11 many of us good meaning religious people will be out working for the common good; showing the world that we can love beyond belief. Will you join us?
With Grace and Grit, John
