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To one dear friend, the religions of the world are in
conflict, each claiming that they are right, and this creates a hostile,
war-prone climate. In contrast to Christianity, which has a fixed set of
non-negotiable truths, he offers:
- “an evolving conscious curious compassionate loving kind forgiving reasoning faithful generous non-narcissistic human being, regardless of the accident of birth or faith, or similarity of race, color or class or persuasion or pre-existing unconscious conditioning--should keep re-searching--with reason and love.”
I asked him if his faith also expresses non-negotiables –
areas where he feels that he is right and others are wrong:
- We are both concerned about man’s inhumanity to man. However, do you believe that your faith is more capable of addressing this problem than is mine? Don’t you also believe that you are right about your faith and that others are wrong, maybe even the cause of the problems?
His faith is a common and popular one. It is appealing
because it seems to remove the potential for conflict, allowing people to lovingly
live together. However, the same problems might be inherent in this
formulation.
If he believes that his faith is the correct one, then he
will regard those who do not believe this way as the impediments to peace, just
like the religions he criticizes! Such “progressives” are even talking about
eliminating opposition, as “progressives” had done during the French and
Russian Revolutions.
Even if they take a less extreme position – it’s only an “evolving”
faith, and we therefore have to be very humble and uncertain about it – such a
faith invites other problems. There is a group of Christian who call themselves
“Christian Agnostics,” because they cannot be sure of what they believe.
However, if they cannot be sure of anything, anything goes! They have become havens
of permissiveness for many things that they should not permit – pedophilia,
lying, cheating, robbing, manipulations, and hypocrisy.
To stand against evil, we must stand solidly for something.
Oddly, with the exception of the one stipulation of an “evolving” faith, my
friend has described the Christian ideal. Let us pray that we can show the
world many such Christian communities, where we put the needs of the other
above our own needs!
