Sad but possibly true…

Posted on April 14th, 2007.

Yesterday I was attending a business meeting at which a local Bishop was giving a speech. He was very entertaining and his obvious passion for his work and for social justice is to be applauded.

A Bishop with an earthly sense of humour, social perspective and calling - inspiring stuff.

At the end of his talk, as is usual, there were opportunities to ask questions. One of the delegates asked for the good Bishops thoughts on fundamentalism (particularly religious) and whether or not there would ever be a true sense of inter-faith tolerance.

The Bishop thought for a moment then offered two thoughts, and I hope I paraphrase his comments effectively.

The first was that in a world were uncertainty and fear is on the rise there is quite naturally a desire to become more certain about what one believes. This certainty can easily translate into closed minds and the rise of fundamental beliefs and attitudes.

The second thought was in the form of an anecdote. He shared an incident in which he was trying to get two local churches to work together - to join. The churches were of the same demonination. The response was hostile and one of the respected parishoners of told him..

“It ain’t gonna work… They hates us and we hates them!”

So much for Chritsian community.

Clearly with disagrements in inflexibilities within a religious demonitaion being such as they are how can we ever see a time when intolerance and fundamental beliefs of “I’m right you’re wrong” will vanish?

I tend to think of religions like ice cream…

There are various types of ice cream: soft scoop, block, low calorie, sorbet etc…. AND dozens of flavours withing those types.

So the next time someone says they are a Christian, Buddist, Muslim… and so on perhaps we should focus on what flavour of what they say they are, they are!

Alan