So this is freakish. But … well, here it is. I woke up this morning from a dream in which I had been hastily summoned to a crowd that was gathering in a vast hilly meadow of tall green grass. Unprepared, I was wearing pants but no shirt. A Christian-market literary agent I used to know tells me that my turn to speak to the crowd is coming up. I have no idea what he’s talking about—but he’s on to other things.
I move with the growing mass until we come to a makeshift performance platform of dark raw timber. It’s clear that this is where the speaking will be happening. The agent, accompanied by some pastors, reappears at my side. He ushers me around to the back of the platform and tells me that I’m up next. I look at the stage and see that it’s empty. A pretty strong wind starts blowing. I begin to panic. I look out at the crowd to see people of every race and ethnicity waiting for … well, me. My acute anxiety is replaced with a deep sense of peace. These people are good and kind. They aren’t going to hurt or judge me. That’s not what they’re here for. And it’s clear that I am supposed to be speaking, that in the past I must have agreed to speak at this meeting and then forgotten about it.
I spot an old trunk in the grass. Inside are a bunch of clothes that are old but clean. I pull out a worn brown flannel shirt. I put it on. It’s soft, but crazy: the sleeves are unwieldy, the front of two different lengths. While still trying to properly button the thing I resign myself to walking on stage. I have no idea what I’m going to say. But I feel that God is with me, and that I’ll be okay if I just remember that and think of nothing else. I stand for a while dumbly looking out at the crowd. I’m hoping God will give me something to say. I don’t rush it; I can tell the people are okay with me waiting for as long as it takes. This relaxes me; I’m with friends. Still, they’re friends who are expecting me to actually say something. I stop fiddling with my shirt; it’s hopeless. I slowly scan the crowd. This is it; I have to talk. I open my mouth and these are the words that come out:
Every time you look at a newspaper. Every time you watch TV. Every time you go online, there it is: evidence that if people don’t resolve their religious differences we will all fight and kill ourselves until there is nothing left to live for.
So what do we need? How do we solve this problem? Well, what we hear all the time these days is that we need religious tolerance. But do we really? Is that really what we’re after: tolerance? Is our goal to be tolerated? Is anyone’s? No. Who wants to be tolerated? You tolerate a cold, a barking puppy, a wart. You tolerate things that annoy you. To “tolerate” a person is to look down upon them. Nobody wants that.
So what do we do? Because we do, after all, believe that our God is the only God. The best God. The right God. The exclusively right God. There’s no way to believe in God and feel any other way.
Our God is the only true and real God. Ergo, everyone else’s God is a terrible mistake. Everyone who believes in a God who is not our God is wrong.
So when we are talking to someone who does not believe in our God, we cannot help but feel that they are beneath us. Because they are. We have what they need. We are the person they should be.
How could they be so stupid as to believe in their God, we think. So ignorant. So lost. So fundamentally wrong about everything they should be right about?
What a tragedy, we think. How happy they could be if only they knew the one true God.
But they don’t. They are lost to the truth. They are stubbornly lost to the truth. They prefer their ignorant blindness to liberating enlightenment. They prefer their God over ours.
They think we’re the lost ones!
And so on and so on. This is how enemies are made. This is how one group comes to view the other as fundamentally immoral animals.
So how do we solve this ancient problem? How can we not just tolerate someone who believes differently than we do, but actually respect them for those beliefs? Because nothing less than that will do. It can’t. Simply tolerating someone who believes differently than we do isn’t enough. “Accepting” them isn’t enough. Having true and abiding peace with them means loving them. And that means respecting them. Because love without respect isn’t real love at all. It’s at best condescending patronization.
I am a Christian. How do I fully, earnestly, deeply and truly respect the Muslim? The Jew? The Hindu? The Buddhist? The atheist? How do I embrace each one of them with the same respect and love with which I want and even expect them to embrace me?
Here’s how: by telling myself the truth—and reminding myself of that truth, over and over again, for as long as it takes—that what another person believes is none of my business. None. None! The second I start thinking about someone else’s religious beliefs is the second I move out of the realm of my proper concerns and into the realm of concerns that are God and God’s alone. The moment I concern myself with what you believe is the moment that I screw up. That’s the moment in which my claim to be a person of God is shown to be a sham, since I have just proven that I am more concerned with who you are, and with what you believe, than I am with my own relationship with God.
I’ve shown that I’m not a religious person at all. I’ve shown that I’m nothing but a busybody.
If it is not resulting in harm being done to anyone else, then what a person believes about God is entirely, fully, one hundred percent their business. I must resolutely put that area of concern out of my mind. What a person believes about God is a matter between that person, God, and no one else. Anything else is a lie that I tell myself in order to feed my own ego.
Do unto others as they would do unto you? Great! How? By loving them. And how to do that when in your heart of hearts you know that you know God better than they do? By trusting the God whom you love so much to work out his/her/its relationship with everyone else in the world, the same as he/she/it did with you.
Then I woke up. That was the whole dream.
P.S. On a separate but related note, if you’re a Christian disinclined to throw out Jesus with the bathwater, consider joining us over at Unfundamentalist Christians (which for months now has been growing at the rate of 10-40 new members per day.)
P.S.S. Not too long ago I had another dream kind of like this one. See An Open Apology From Christians to Gay People.
P.S.S., etc. I know saying that I had these dreams can’t help but make me seem like I’m trying to … I don’t know, start a cult or whatever. But what can I do? These are actual dreams that I actually have and start typing as soon as I wake up. I just have to trust that most of you know me well enough to know that trying to position myself as Joe Divine Visions, or whatever, is hardly my thing.
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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Long ago I came to the conclusion that absolutely everyone alive on the planet is in exactly the right place God wants them to be for God to reach them in the next moment. This led to a few more insights. First, my understanding of “God” is pretty limited. Some days I just don’t understand the Universe. God’s working with folks in really weird ways. But if I watch, I can see God really is working! And sometimes all God needs from me is to get the hell(!) out of the way.
Love love LOVE that Skip!
Preach it, Skip!
Beautiful as always John,
From your atheist friend, with love
R
there is a profound difference between words and actions. words, even hateful ones are protected under the Constitution Actions are subject to law as well- I think re-considering MLK’s speech at the Lincoln Memorial most succinctly outlines the path forward.
AMEN ON Joseph Campbell! Was just talking about him to my Guitar Instructor!
Read Joseph Campbell’s works, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, and, The Masks if God. You’ll find them most enlightening.
I agree with the statement that another person’s beliefs are none of my business (well, except that I might learn something from them!), but I’m wondering if believing that is enough to really promote love and respect. I’m thinking also about the importance of being open to the possibility that we might be wrong. I don’t mean being wishy-washy about what we believe, but simply acknowleging that there is a distinction between reality and how any person perceives reality. I wonder if just acknowleging that we might be wrong (as you also do on your blog) opens the door to respecting another person and their beliefs. Probably a lot of other factors as well….
Humility. Yes!
While I agree with what you say, I’ve found I need to pay attention to another aspect – that I can be absolutely correct that my answer is the right one for me, and that doesn’t mean it is the right answer for everyone else, or that acknowledging that someone else’s answer is (or may be) right for them doesn’t mean I have decide my way is wrong.
What’s the right way to get to the airport? Well, for me, it is getting into my car and driving north. But you’d better not take my car, at least without permission. But you might take your car west – to the train station, and take the train in. Someone else may call a limo, or (lucky bastards) have a helicopter pick them up on their lawn and fly them there, and so on.
What is the right way to be open to the presence of God in our lives? It could be regular church attendance in the franchise of your choice, but it could be time alone in nature, or time working among the poor, or time alone in contemplation.
I don’t have to evaluate someone else’s path. I only have to honor that they get a vote about their path, and I don’t, unless they specifically ask me.
So, it’s none of my business if someone believes their God is telling them to kill gays? It’s none of my business if someone believes God thinks white people where meant to rule over people of other colors? I don’t think “none of my business” gets us out of the “tolerance” category. Sorry, our respect for others beliefs has to go far enough that we are curious enough to ask and listen to what they have to say and challenged enough to discuss the implications with them– and also, reciprocally, be willing to be challenged by them.
re: Your first two sentences. John spoke to that with this sentence. “If it is not resulting in harm being done to anyone else, then what a person believes about God is entirely, fully, one hundred percent their business.” Did you miss that?
Of course, if what another believes is potentially harmful or actually causes harm to another, then it IS our business. That’s what civil lawmaking is all about. It’s why we tell our children, as I did, to not engage in ridicule and harassment of others or lie about others, or steal or physically harm others or property.
But I get what John is saying when evoking the golden rule. Anyone who lives by that principal deserves to expect that how and if they believe in a Supreme Being or Power is none of my business. And none of yours.
Actually, no it’s none of your business what they believe. It may well be your business to intervene if their actions based on those beliefs harms others.
If someone believes that white people are inherently better than black people, but as a result is unfailingly gracious, kind, and completely fair in all their social and business dealings with people of “the lesser races” and supports complete equality under the law because the inherent superiority of white people is God’s business, is that any of your concern if they don’t ask you for your approval?
No, it’s their actions and the impact they have on others that are the issue.
They’re still wrong. And I’d hope that those fair and gracious dealings with people would gradually sink in to their bigoted heads and hearts, and those beliefs are still up for discussion, but not suppression.
Isn’t it funny how bigots don’t ever decide that others being inferior means you should be especially nice to them, since they’re suffering under a handicap? That’s how you know someone’s belief isn’t real, but just a justification for doing whatever evil they were planning on doing anyway.
This post is making Christianity new again for me, and that is a very big deal. I always strive to see things in a different way, especially when the ‘old view’ has pain and grief attached to it.
Knowing (and loving) people through other lenses, other faiths and belief systems, has made me a better human being. I don’t know how it couldn’t. To leave Christianity so long ago in abject sadness and now to turn around and see it again, maybe really for the first time with all these other world views in my back pocket, it is different this time. To see Grace from the perspective of Maitri, to understand how this all does fit together!
The power of this realization is tearfully lovely. Kinda had no idea this was possible. You just floored me again.
Without respect, there is no love. Brilliant, John. Lovely dreams, too.
I’m not part of the religious right and I have nothing against homosexuality, but I’m a consistent life ethic right-to-lifer. I guess I’m willing to concede not everything can be tolerated. I certainly don’t want to tolerate lethal child abuse against our unborn sisters and brothers.
But should a woman tolerate having her body put under state-control and violated because of your personal beliefs?
This seems to be what John is saying above. It’s not your body. It’s not your decision. It’s none of your business. If you don’t approve of abortion, don’t have one.
If you believe in abortion you believe in legalized murder. Legalized murder shouldn’t be tolerated. It is a practice only fit for barbarians and should not be legally permitted. If you have no compassion for innocent little babies who are being sliced up and dismembered you must not be concerned about basic human rights.
Dude, if you can’t tell the difference between a ball of cells and a baby, I feel sorry for you.
Okay, let’s not do this here. Jerry, stop: you’ve made your Very Dramatic Point. Allie: though of course a tad snarky, that’s a solid response. I’d really appreciate now letting this drop. This just isn’t the place for this particular debate. Thanks a lot you guys; I appreciate your consideration.
Either of these two pieces might be a good place to take this discussion:
Christians and abortion: What are we, babies? http://johnshore.com/2010/07/28/beyond-the-christianization-of-abortion/
From a Christian woman who chose abortion http://johnshore.com/2012/01/05/from-a-christian-woman-who-chose-abortion/
And it’s this rhetoric right here – the ‘I’m right and you’re an immoral bastard and I’m going to tell you how monstrous you are’ attitude – that makes John’s post so absolutely relevant. This comment is moral absolutism at its very worst.
Why do I have this overwhelming urge to cross a wooden bridge to get to the yummy grass on the other side, and have this feeling that there is someone under that bridge?
This is somewhat nit-picking, but there is no such thing as legalized murder, because murder, *by definition* is illegal killing. You can have legal killing, like in self defense, which we are generally all ok with, so it is a question of where to draw the line. Each human right is always held i. balance with all other human rights. It’s necessarily complicated because the rights of one individual and another will necessarily come into conflict.
I won’t weight in on the question itself here, to avoid the off-topic-ness, but I did want to comment on the idea of telling other people that they don’t care about human rights when they view that balance differently. There is space to disagree on how human rights should function in practice.
It doesn’t hurt to ponder: in the creation story, Adam’s body was complete, whole and functioning. But he was still not a human being. It wasn’t until God breathed life into him that he became a living soul. God brings life. Not us.
Good point!
I’m with you there Mike. Unless you’ve ever found yourself at the difficult crossroads, then it is best to reserve your judgement and/or condemnation.
I also shake my head in frustrated wonder how people can pick and choose their pet intolerable, and just run with it, never considering that there is almost always more to the story.
Amen!
I think the point was to more than tolerate *people*, which you can do while simultaneously being less than tolerant of things, behaviours or practices, whatever they are. John is intolerant of lots of terrible things, which is great.
It’s good to be religiously tolerant. Therefore if we think homosexuality is okay and others don’t we have to tolerate the position taken by others, right? Doesn’t tolerance go both ways?
Really? That’s your response?
Okay, well, no, Jerry, we don’t have to tolerate the idea that homosexuality is in and of itself a moral abomination, because that “religious” belief brings a great deal of harm to a great many people. You must have missed the part where I wrote, “If it is not resulting in harm being done to anyone else, then what a person believes about God…”.
thank you, John, you said it better than I.
No. We do not have to tolerant certain positions taken by others. The Christian right has proven that tolerance does not go both ways.
I’m content to live and let live. The Christian right is not willing to do same. They believe their religious values ought to be codified into law in a way that emotionally, materially, and even physically, harms my family and me.
I will not tolerate and will fight any attempt to legislate my life.
mike moore, exactly. ‘Christians’ who want to codify discrimination into law will say over and over again ‘It’s because we love you’ – but they don’t… and there’s no way to possibly even believe that they do.
John, mike, Oz– sheer perfection that.
I’ll take the bait.
I’m perfectly happy to tolerate someone’s belief that I am immoral and perverted. Well, maybe not “perfectly happy” – they do tend to tick me off.
But I’ll be happy to tolerate someone who believes that way, by avoiding them when possible and letting them live their narrow-minded lives in peace.
But tolerating a bigot, or the knowledge that their belief is bigoted, is entirely different from tolerating being treated badly, or being discriminated against. When I go for my marriage license as an equal citizen of my state and country, I expect them to do their job professionally. They don’t have to gush with well-wishes, but they do need to do their job.
The same at the grocery store, or even on the street. I am willing to tolerate someone who disapproves of my marriage, but that doesn’t mean I have to put up with being called names by total strangers.
And none of this happens in a vacuum, especially today, because “disapproving of homosexuality” isn’t just a viewpoint – it is tied into legal and financial systemic actual harm being done to LGBT people every day. Discrimination is written into law, into corporate policy, into the very constitutions of many US states, and one major political party has made it a party platform to write it into the US Constitution. That’s not merely “a position.” That’s an ongoing an concerted set of concrete actions intended to harm people.
Show me the person who says, and actually means, “I disapprove of homosexuality, but that has nothing to do with civil equality. I will work tirelessly until there is not a single law or corporate policy which in any way discriminates against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, and then and only then will I start to have the discussions with people about why I think that they can and should choose differently.”
That would be a person I could not only tolerate, but respect. The probably wouldn’t have either been invited to or shown up at my wedding, but that’s a different issue.
The question of whether something goes both ways presupposes that the playing field is level and that “both ways” are essentially equivalent. They aren’t.
But you know that, and you think you have a way to use our principles as a “gotcha.” Doesn’t work that way. Because we actually have thought this through. It isn’t just some bumper sticker we’re quoting.
Oh hell yes!
I won’t tolerate being tolerated.
Dear John,
It seems appropriate to say that, in this post, you really nailed it. Stuck it. A perfect 10 with no mental gymnastics required. The Gold Medal goes to the guy in the hilly meadow with no shirt.
An interesting concept, but ultimately, the question has to be, ‘Do I respect this other person and their beliefs about God?’
If the answer is no, as it seems to be from Christianists and Evangelicals, then you get into their face and browbeat them. If the answer is yes, then you leave them alone. One question I’ve always had for these two groups, from whom I’ve never received a satisfactory answer is this:
From what, precisely, am I supposed to be saved?
Oh, we’re still trying to figure that one out ourselves. Seriously. I’m taking a class at my church right now and last week we were supposed to attempt to define what we meant by salvation. Of course no one had the same answer. And so it goes.
I don’t think the question really is “Do I respect this other person and their beliefs about God” but rather, “Do I respect this other person and their right to have their own beliefs about God?”
And that seems to be the clog in the drain– respecting someone else’s belief is NOT the same as respecting someone’s RIGHT to have said belief.
Since you asked… speaking for myself I never had any trouble understanding what I needed to be saved from. It may be you have no habits you wish you didn’t have and at all times treat other people well and do good in the world. I don’t. Even when I try really hard, much of the time I am mean and lazy.
If you have no similar troubles within yourself and you always do what you wish you were doing, I guess you don’t need saved.
Eh, the last really interesting dream I remember having involved nuclear disaster and superintelligent apes Planet of the Apes-style trying to kill all humans…
Call me cynical, but I’m not sure it’s possible. People discriminate and treat each other badly over things that they’re *supposed* to be far more accepting of than religion (which most people think is a “choice.” ) I’ve had to defend my adult-status to the most well-meaning people who, because they’re dealing with someone with a “disorder,” speak to me like I am a child. (In some ways, I kind of am, but it does get frustrating to *know* that I’ve got a status in their eyes of “less than them” even if they would deny such thinking up and down of it were brought up). And those are the people who *don’t* fire me when they find out I have a “something wrong with me” because they’re scared and find some other, non-sueable excuse why they wanted me gone…
I think with religion, it can get even trickier. I’ve been friends both on and offline with people with different beliefs than me, but it always seems to me like (though it may just be my personal paranoia and non-inclination to truly trust *anybody* )… that as much as they respected and liked me for many areas I shared interest with them in, and as much as they respected my brain, that was always an area where it didn’t apply, an off-limits area where, as smart as I was, I was mildly delusional, or just a tiny bit dumb/gullible, or “weak” enough to need a crutch. Even though they never spoke in such language to me, in my own paranoia, I’ve suspected that kind of condesencion… Maybe it *is* just me.
When around fellow Christians (who aren’t on this blog), I feel weird becuase I haven’t gone to church in years and have a few “heretical” Unfundamentalist beliefs now – this makes me “not enough” or “fallen” in their eyes I suspect. On the other hand, believing in a spiritual dimension to life or anything I’m willing to call “God” makes me a dumbass in a lot of eyes, or emotionally and morally “weak” or some kind of “enemy” because of the clinging shreds of affiliation… It seems these days when I speak of my beliefs (offline) to anyone because I find myself in a position where I have to… I feel… well, very much like I do when I talk about my bipolar disorder (a thing that is an indellible part of who I am that I can manage but cannot cure but is something “wrong” with me that makes me “wrong” in society), or like when I talk about being a one-time-criminal (I did something stupid once that had me in and out of court for a while)… It’s like I have to explain that *despite* this aspect of my life that will not go away, I’m actually not a threat and not a horrible person who wants to hurt you.
Leaves me feeling like I want to die sometimes. I’d say I won’t hurt anyone when I’m dead, but I know that I’ll be hurting the people closest to me, so I guess I’m trapped in life for the time being.
Shadsie, I have found my changing beliefs and identity really painful too. I really struggle with shame, and I know what you mean about feeling judged everywhere you turn, and about the most personal things–things we feel so, so vulnerable about. I hope it’s not out of line that I’m replying to you, but your last paragraph caught my eye, and as a person who has suffered from severe depression, I wanted to say that I hope you choose to live–not because you’d be hurting people around you, but because you are valuable and worth loving, because there is something beautiful in you even if you struggle with deep shame, and because you are loved even when you are too depressed to feel it. I don’t know if that is meaning ful to you, but I am sending you a big hug and wishing you light and love.
John, I feel just as you do, that trying to get God to see things are way does two things, displays our arrogance and fails to consider that God’s interaction with us silly people is quite likely far more expansive than we can begin to fathom. I think we should be thankful that we do understand the divine, just a little bit, and have a desire to discover more and more and more…accepting we’ll not figure it all out this side of heaven. You are so right, being concerned with our relationship with God should matter so much more, than our assumptions on what others think when it comes to faith. Sure sharing the love of Christ with others is important. How better than by simply being loving to them? Which reminds me of my favorite quote “preach the gospel daily. If necessary, use words.”
“Belief” is defined by some as a “Non-experiential way of knowing…” It’s what we think about something, and what we think is colored, shaded, informed or misinformed by our filters, worldview, environment, etc. “Tolerance”, to me, interprets as “I think I’m right but because I’m polite I’ll be kind in my response to what YOU think…” I’ll “tolerate” you.
The mystical Christian tradition (curiously enough, so similar to OTHER mystical traditions) offers us the insight that we are, behind our individual identities, ONE Self. St. Chrysostom, writing in the 4th Century, reminded us that bread is made of many individual grains merged to form one substance. Likewise, wine, many individual grapes shed of their “outer skins” is merged together to form one substance. Hence the important symbolism in the Communion story.
What happens when we all move to a place where we recognize that our model of God is simple that – a model of God. It isn’t God; it’s an image or view. And, it may be unique to each of us. Would it be helpful to ratchet up our views to something more unifying?
As Rumi wrote, “Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase
‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense.”
*God/dess belief (DYAC!)
you are so right, it’s time to stop shooting for “tolerance” like that’s the best we can do…LOVE & RESPECT must be the standard!
Barbara, I find the idea you are advancing just as bigoted as anything coming out of Westboro Baptist. No, ALL “god beliefs” do not compel bigotry. Bigotry happens when you view all members of any group as exactly alike and equal to the groups lowest common denominator. There are those in every group (including yours, apparently) who have no respect for the right of others to believe as they see fit. Bigots are those who see only themselves as possessed of the TRUTH, and are dead set on converting everyone else to their view point. The guide-post of my God/dead belief is, “And it harm none, do as ye will. Pretty difficult to foment war with that one.
Lovely, John. And something I have to work on every day. It’s especially hard when the other person is visibly miserable in ways that it seems to me a relationship with God would fix. But, I remind myself, God knows where he lives.
Re: evangelism. My policy is based on the truth that every since person I have ever encountered in my entire life knows who Jesus is. I have no duty to inform people of what they have already chosen to reject. If someone ASKS me about my beliefs, I tell them.
edit: since every, not every since. I swear I feel dyslexic sometimes!
dyslexics of the world UNTIE! You are in good company Allie. Fortunately most of us are quite fluent in typo.
Some would say, “What about evangelism? Aren’t we told to spread the truth?”
I would love to hear your thoughts on that subject as well. Maybe another dream?
I tend to think evangelism has been turned into an ego-feeding monster that holds people hostage. Then again, in saying so, I make myself a prisoner of the same monster of judgement.
I believe the most effective proof that anyone believes in the one true God is a life that shows it. A life of compassion and genuine love for all people.
I think it was best quoted by Saint Francis, “Preach the gospel at all times, use words when necessary.” I hope I quoted correctly…
I wrote a whole book about this issue and how it relates to evangelism. It’s I’m OK-You’re Not: The Message We’re Sending Nonbelievers and Why We Should Stop.
Spot on. Thanks. This helps me get back on track.
I still cringe when I look back on the days I went around with other good Baptist teens, trying to convert the unsaved.
You and me both. I do not like the person I was(for a very long time) at all.
Don’t worry, you guys: Nobody every listened to you anyway. Would YOU? (And no offense intended, of course. But you know what I mean.)
Well, I did listen once, though the witnessor was a friend. I grew up marginally Catholic and ended up a very zealous charismatic through her efforts. I in turn brought a couple of my friends, who ended up on the same path. Not sure where they are now.
Hey, dan. Always good to hear from you. This is a WAY off-course tangent, but … it beats vacuuming my living room. Did did you like-like the girl who “witnessed” to you? I ask because it’s been my experience that the ONE kind of evangelizer who ever actually has any kind of real luck in that regard are female Christians evangelizing to guys who sort of basically have a crush on them. Did that happen to you here?
No, I am gay. She was kind of a mentor/big sister to me, and a neighbor. She was also a marginal Catholic prior to her conversion and quite liberal. She was brought into the church by a woman(coworker) who was very successful as a lay evangelist, and those she brought into the church often ended up mini evangelists themselves. I was pretty vulnerable as an 18 year old gay kid and no match for someone who saw evangelism as their calling.
Later I became that person. So strange, it seems like someone else’s life!
gotcha. dig it. love it. thanks for sharing.
AHAHAHAHA!! I’m still SO grateful I sucked at proselytizing and conversion! Oh man I could talk it up, but I just stunk at convincing anybody to ‘come over to the other side’.
Could it be in part because I couldn’t convince MYSELF that knocking on people’s doors with ‘the message of the good news’ was a good idea? Perhaps.
I never attempted the feat Jill. Partially cause I’m an introvert, partially cause quite frankly I suck at sales. I also never saw the need, or the point. It’s not like, at least in my neck of the south, you couldn’t find some evangelical themed aid somewhere.
The only time I ever tried converting anyone, a bird crapped on my head.
Even then, I took that as a sign
Let’s just say I didn’t really do it with a great willingness. But it was part and parcel of the doctrine, of the activities involved in that faith. And I was 10 years old, so I didn’t have much choice in the matter.
I took a digger down a full flight of apartment stairs once — that SHOULD have told me what’s what. Ah, God’s such a prankster!
10? Good Lord, you were just a kid! Don’t slam yourself for the things you did when you were too young to know any better. You learned and you changed and that’s what counts.
Yup, unfortunately my beautiful 6 year old niece is being brought up the same way, and I can say nothing in opposition to it unless I want to risk losing her from my life.
I agree– I’m much more forgiving of the whole affair many years later, but the tentacles of deception sure took a while to remove. And lots of therapy.
Talk is cheap anyway. Be the example. Be the good Christian aunt who focuses more on the Love of Christ than on Hellfire and Damnation. Ask kind, loving questions rather than making statements so that she can see that there’s more than one way to be Christian. Christianity isn’t bad, it’s just that there are a lot of bad Christians in this world.
That Holy Spirit is such a clown!
Usually the ones who do well at converting others are the recently converted, at least in my old circles. They often ended up bringing along a couple of their old friends or family members. Those that grew up in the church were rarely good at it. They just didn’t have the contacts.
When I was in my early 20′s my church lost its collective mind and decided to organize 2-by-2 teams to go door-to-door and preach the Gospel. I was the Minister of Music, so I was considered “Management” in a churchy sort of way. I had to do it. I didn’t want to do it. I had to do it.
First door we knocked on: A big heavy man in a dirty white tee-shirt answered the door. He had an open beer can in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The TV was blaring in the background and he took one look at me and my companion and looked very pissed about being interrupted. I turned around and threw up over the side of his porch railing.
They didn’t make me do it anymore after that.
The Lord works in mysterious ways!
Damn I wish I tried that trick!
Would’ve saved me years of fear and humiliation!
That was a great share Gordon.
I’m Christian whose friends come from all walks of life, be they Wiccan, atheist, or otherwise. We don’t look down on each other and treat each other with acceptance of who the other person is, not what we want them to be. Bottom line I took from this article: live and let live.
Thank you for sharing John. You have helped me get the perspective I was needing. Respect one another not tolerate.
I like your piece, but I can’t fully agree with it. Because, most god beliefs — it doesn’t matter which god — *do* cause harm to unbelievers. God beliefs compel followers to bigotry and wars. It *is* my business to try to end this.
Barbara: I think you missed the ” If it’s not resulting in harm being done to anyone else … ” part.
(and Paul, what you said makes sense to me, also)
For the past couple decades, I’ve figured that the world’s varying religions are all paths to the same ultimate destination. That’s what works for me and my brain.
Ditto Amanda… I recently have come to the understanding that I have always had god in my life… tugging, nudging and pushing me along my path… sometimes it has been uncomfortable… often it has been difficult… but I have always ended up at the right place, at the right time and usually doing the right thing… I now see god as being in everything and everyone… as not only the creator of all… but part of all creation… there is no separation between creation and the creator… we are all living in and are all part of the mind of god… every stone, tree, star, person and spiritual path is part of god… I may not agree with some people’s path… but who am I to limit the limitless… I choose to have faith… I have seen how the AIDS epidemic has led to a greater acceptance of gay people as human beings… I have seen how the Holocaust led to the formation of Israel and a greater acceptance of Jews as human beings… I have seen the world become a more open, tolerant and loving place… and I have seen reactionary forces attempting to force us back in rigid thinking and fear based mindsets… this all is part of god… and the dance of life, love, light and darkness… ever unfolding… forever surprising.
My kingdom for a “like” button! Well said
double ‘like’
I’ll see your double, and raise you one…..
Well… okay, but that’s a little insulting to people who believe they’re going to heaven, and people who believe they’re going to escape the endless round which includes heavens. If they’re both going to the same spot, someone is mistaken.
Thing is, I don’t say everyone has to believe this. This is just *my* take on the situation… it works for *me*. I certainly don’t go around telling everyone that My Way Of Handling This Is The One True Way.
I can’t control whether or not others feel insulted by my own, very personal, non-proselytizing beliefs. There are, of course, always those who will look for offense; no one can please everyone.
true!
I guess I can’t wrap my head around taking offense because I figure if I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I’ll be dead. It’s not as if there are a bunch of alternatives I’ll have at hand by that point, yanno? I’m not going to stress myself out here and now worrying about just who happens to be the rightest-of-the right. Because we can battle on this to the end of time and, ultimately, no one is going to be able to empirically “prove” any of this to anyone else.
And I don’t think it’s about focusing on where I’m ending up after I die because right now, today is all I’ve got. And God asks me to make the most of today.
Allie, I’m not sure who is it that’s mistaken from your comment, maybe I missed your point, but is it possible that no one’s actually mistaken? Heaven is spelled nirvana in the Buddhist belief and vaikuntha in Hindu.
I’m not sure I understand how that is insulting.
Me neither. And what does “heaven” have to do with anything?
this may be my favorite thing you’ve ever written. thanks.
thanks, mary june, very much.
Hope you don’t mind if I crib something I wrote a while back and put it here:
Tolerance is a noble idea, but one more often honored in the breach. It’s an ugly word when you get right down to it, and it’s an idea that, however noble, somehow manages to come up short when the time comes to put it into practice. While the idea of tolerating other cultures, religions, and ideas sounds lovely, there’s a whiff of condescension about the whole thing; it’s easy to tolerate something, after all, that doesn’t much challenge (much less threaten) what you might think is the best way of doing things. It carries also a hint that we’ll only allow you to be you, or to express yourself, to a certain point but no further; if that line–however fuzzy it may be–is crossed, you stand to be rebuked (or worse) in no uncertain terms. In other words, it’s the kind of benign neglect that suggests that those being tolerated had better know their place.
All of which is rather a long way of saying, we’ll get a hell of a lot farther with respect and unconditional love, not tolerance.
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