Wednesday, I visited for three hours with a group of Muslims who were studying world religions in order to become more sensitive to diverse peoples as they carry out various social justice works.
Today, gunmen opened fire in two mosques in New Zealand, wounding dozens of people and killing 49.
Wednesday, a Muslim woman told me about the connection she feels to God. “We are instructed to do good and not evil,” she said. “Sometimes, we fail, and we ask God to forgive us. And God is always ready to forgive. And so we try again.” In her words, she exactly describes the God I have come to know in Jesus Christ. The emphases are different, for her obedience leads her to experience God’s love, while my experience of God’s love leads me to obedience. The difference matters, of course; I am no syncretist. But the parts are all there. You could see it in her eyes, which lit up with joy—the kind of joy I experience from knowing Jesus—as she talked.
Today, forty-nine of her sisters and brothers have had the light taken out of their eyes. I cannot imagine a God who would not bring these people, torn from life while in the midst of worship, fully into the eternal joy that for them once lived only behind their eyes.
(My liberal Christian bias leads me to think that, upon their arrival, the Prophet Muhammad, blessed be he, will introduce them to the Prophet Isa, whom we call Jesus, blessed be He also. And they will find, with joy, that He is a great deal more than a prophet. Maybe when we arrive, the Holy Spirit will introduce us to the Prophet Muhammad as a true prophet, but having read that holy book, I have yet to discover it for myself. All that is just an idea that sticks in my head. Pay it no heed.)
Why such hate in this world? People are people, beloved of God, even those that do not know God. You are free to decide who you think fits in that category, but whomever they are, God made them. It is not only wrong for us to hate them; it is wrong for us not to love them. Love your neighbor. Love everyone. Love even your enemy. That is what Christ teaches us.
I do not wish to talk about gun control in my country or in any. I, of course, have my own ideas about it, liberal Christian that I am. But whether or not we need to take the guns away from evil people, we must see that while the guns may aid the problem, they are not the problem. Evil is the problem, and in particular, the evil we cultivate by cultivating a society of fear and hate.
Perhaps it is, indeed, time to bring religion back into schools. He says, sounding like a Conservative. Well, the Conservatives are right about this one, but not quite in that way. We should, indeed, do a better job of teaching people their own faith. We must learn that our faiths are about peace and compassion and love. All of them are, in one way or another. We must be taught to love our neighbors, not to kill them.
But that is the job of the Church, the Synagogue, the Masjid, the Shrine. No, I do not think faith should be taught in schools, but religion certainly should. It is part of the human experience, and in order to live fruitfully in society, we need to know a bit about the religious Others in order to fully understand them.
What if we were taught a bit about each tradition in our upbringing? Not enough for conversion or evangelism, but enough to understand. What if our public schools had a religion class? A month on Christianity. A month on Islam. A month on Atheist Humanism. A month on the reemergence of Paganism. What if we were actually taught that the people who are different from us are not objects of fear and hate. That they are not objects at all? That they are human? That, though genuinely different, they are not so different after all?
I have seen cars with a bumper sticker proclaiming that we should “Tolerate” or even “Coexist.” They are wrong. Absurd. Perhaps even just on the edge of evil. Because they stop at “Coexist.” And just being forced to live on the same earth, ignoring each other, is not enough. We must learn to understand, appreciate, and love. If we do not, we will never truly begin to live in the beauty of the Kingdom of God. We will continue to deny reality. Because in Mark 1:14, Jesus told us clearly: “The Kingdom of God is already here. Turn toward God, and trust in this Good News.”
O Dearest Beloved of God, the victims in Christchurch today—and every person, too, who has been and will be the victim of religious intolerance—may the light of God’s joy shine in your eyes once again. I call it “the Light of Christ.” You may call it by any name. The differences matter very, very much; but all is God.