A PRIMER ON CURRENT CHURCH CONFLICT – Part 2 (for Part 1, see preceding blog entry). Now, what’s all this about, anyway? Are all the conflicts and divisions and litigation in the church really worth it? We’re losing market share in this current ongoing conflict because other churches especially the non-denominational churches are sitting on the sideline, either not taking a stand on behalf of the rights of gays and lesbians or are themselves violently opposing them. Their appearance of peace and growth is in part premised in our just cause conflict. Yet no one stands outside of this action because it involves all of us. Conflicts and differences, where do they come from, what gets us into them, and how do we can go about resolving them. In a word more importantly, how can we relate better with one another?
First, I would argue that the absence of conflict is not necessarily a good thing or said in different words, peace is not simply the appearance of the absence of conflict, and not all conflict is all bad. One of you for example, might come forward and put your foot on my throat and demand, “Peace! Be still! Do as I say or I will hurt you.” I can assure you if your foot is big enough I will give every appearance of being at peace. Yet in the presence of such persuasion, coercion, hostility, violence or abuse there can be no real peace. These ways of imposing one person’s will or one group’s will over another are evil, plain and simple.
Peace can only exist where there is social justice and freedom of will and respect for the dignity of every human being at work in the relations of society and among the people, and peoples and nations of the world. Here in America, the Episcopal Church realized gays and lesbians deserve to live in true peace, or at least deserve the full support and empowerment of their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to seek and demand peace. We acted as a matter of social justice, and I say this in all humility because it was a thing long overdue.
Some in the church would have us pause over this action and think about it some more, or hopefully in their way of thinking, disown this action altogether. And they have tradition and scripture to support them. They quote the bible, especially the Old Testament. This is the core of the problem for the church today. This is the root source of our predicament. We all don’t read the bible in the same way, and this makes all the difference in this current and forthcoming religious conflicts. Stay with me here.
Whatever your moral compass in life is, it comes from some authority or power or relationship outside of yourself. We are not born as moral beings. We become moral beings. In the church our primary moral authority is the Bible. Now, if you read the Bible literally, literally word for word, you will get one outcome of moral directives. “The Bible says it, and I believe it, end of conversation.” If however you are a literate and not a literal reader of the Bible, you will get another entirely different outcome of Biblical directions for decision-making. I once told my son when he was young and took everything I said literally, “Here, take this hot pan of frying grease and throw it on the side of the house.” He did, literally throwing it on the side of the house! We’re on to something here.
Both you and I can say we believe the Bible contains all things necessary to living a moral life, but because we read and interpret the Bible differently, one a literate reader and the other a literal reader, we will disagree on the ways and means of what constitutes a moral being. This applies also in a larger sense to how members of other religions in the world today read and interpret their own sacred scriptures. This is a very important point I am making. It explains both current conflicts and differences in religion, and why they will remain intractable globally well into this century and beyond. It is a problem we ignore at our own risk.
This all is not just a squabble over differences between conservative and liberal Episcopalians here in America. This action resonates throughout global society, as evidenced by the virulent reaction of primates in Africa and Asia to alternative lifestyles. Our greater problem has to do with culture and religion, and our common humanity.
In a world of six and a half billion people, with two billion of those people Christian and one billion Muslim, and another three-quarters of a billion Hindu, nearly half of the world’s population today is triangulated by embedded differences in culture and religion, and therefore in world view. Conflicts and differences, we haven’t even begun to own the underlying tensions out there today, coming to a head in our time, threatening hope for the future.
We’ve got to find a way forward. The good news is many people of good will in all world religions are awakening to their responsibility and duty to step forward and be heard for justice and righteousness’ sake, for all people, everywhere.
The bad news is many really bright people still think and act as if religion is irrelevant to the future, as if religion is not an integral part of humanity. They treat the global world as a political or social engineering problem to be solved, and seek to reduce the world to manageable parts. Absolute truth and ultimate reality however, the stuff of religion and the mystery of humanity, transcends limited and flawed human governance and polity which tends to focus only on what is attainable and practical. In this pragmatic, even cynical approach the rest of humanity, those who are not part of the elite ruling order become problems to be solved or if necessary, eliminated.
True religion sees the global world today as a mysterious, beautiful, complexly harmonious mix of ethnicities and identities, regions and locales, genders and orientations, theologies and ideologies. We’re not objects to be fixed or commodities to be brokered in the market place or infidels needing to be converted. We’re people with differences that need to be respected and treated with sensitivity and understanding; having different needs that must be addressed because we’re all in this together.
In the past at the table of world dominance nation states like the U. S. and Russia have had national interests foremost in mind in their decision-making. Trans-national corporations like Microsoft and British Petroleum have had profit and market demand in mind. World organizations like the U. N. and the World Bank have had human law and protocols foremost in mind in their decision-making. True religion alone has mystery and beauty and harmony in mind for theirs is the vision of God. This voice must be also be heard in the future at the table of world decision-making if we are to progress toward world peace.
For an authentic voice, the leaders and peoples of world religion for their part must be truer to their divine call to worship God and to become the compassionate presence of God for one another and the people they are called to serve. Governments and foreign policy leaders for their part must admit religion matters and take counsel equally from world faith representatives. Whereas before politicians and their diplomats simply denied religion has any practical place in world governance matters, they are now realizing that peace in our time can only grow in a soil that has representatives of the world religions in the mix, all working together.
