What do we mean by tolerance?

Here's a story:
If someone is making what I consider to be a huge din next door, playing loud pop “music” that I find disturbing, I may put up with it or I may bang on the wall between us, ask him to turn it down. I am tolerating his noise, or perhaps not. And that is what tolerance is; putting up with something. But supposing he wasn’t really playing his music that loud; just that I prefer Mozart and find that his type of music doesn’t speak to me in the same way. How is he to know that? So I go next door and speak with him. Suppose I tried to understand why he enjoys what to me is anathema. Suppose he comes to understand that I am writing, and there are times when I need quiet for concentration and for thinking. And let’s suppose that through dialogue we can come to a mutual accommodation. He’ll try to turn his music down on the days and times when he knows I am working at my laptop, perhaps close his window. I may never appreciate his musical taste, but I can respect it. I now know that this is his type of release when he gets home from work, an essential part of him “winding-down.” Of course none of us should have to tolerate antisocial behaviour within the norms of society, and neither of us intended to be anti-social! But I’ve discovered through dialogue that he’s not too keen on my bonfires either, because they don’t help his asthma. And we have built up a mutual respect through the dialogue we had, because actually now I know him better he’s a pleasant guy – I’d been a little nervous about him before we talked - and I’ve found we do share a passion for growing our own vegetables and for reading books on spirituality! Respect and understanding achieved through dialogue is much more powerful than mere tolerance.

The Dalai Lama once suggested to a multifaith audience that they should go on pilgrimages with each other, to each other’s holy sites, where they should pray together or at least meditate together. “This is a very effective way to understand the value and power of other religious traditions,” he said.

Gustav Niebuhr, great nephew of Reinhold Niebuhr, calls for an end to what he calls the “rough trade in raw insults” between religions, for example as seen so often on the Internet, and agrees that we need more than mere tolerance; we need a more committed effort to really get to know and respect our religious differences, he writes, to recognize that we can all learn from others, to understand that whatever those differences we are all of equal worth and value across class, race, ethnicity and religion. Respect, a warm acceptance, a mindfulness of everyone’s role in society, is called for, akin to the teachings of Gandhi on tolerance, respect and ahimsa.

So isn’t it just a little demeaning to talk of religious tolerance? Tolerance will never be the full answer. We should be talking in terms of respect, understanding, acceptance, appreciation. Mere tolerance is simply not enough.

And that respect and understanding is only going to come from dialogue between faiths.

What would you do?

Imagine the scene. All the family is at home with you for Christmas. You are having a lovely party time – all is merriment and joy. Suddenly your child lunges out at his cousin with the toy sword you gave him from Santa. Blood is drawn and your son shows no sign of stopping. What do you do? You stop him, take away the sword, tend the wounds of the cousin, apologize profusely to the mother and impose punishment or sanctions or both on your son. Of course you do. You do most or all of these things, and peace is restored, a lesson has been learned. You may even think twice about the choice of present another year. You can take some responsibility.You can make a difference.

Now imagine the party scene again, only this time there is a fracas outside your house, in the street. A youth is beating up another and it looks violent. Do you just ignore it? Of course you don’t. If there are enough big strong men in your party they may go out and separate the lads, restore peace: although the police frown upon this vigilante approach, and sadly the good guys may suffer at the hands of the lads. So at the very least you call the police. Don’t you? Of course you do. And if you have any sense of social responsibility at all you would not, should not, resent paying appropriate taxes or rates to fund agents of law and order to keep your home, street, town, county, state or country safe.

Now imagine the party scene one more time – only you have turned on the TV news, just in time to see scenes of appalling rioting, violence and arson on the streets of the town a few miles away.

Or you see scenes of appalling rioting, violence and arson, or murder, or torture, or any dreadful abuse of human rights a little further afield - just across the border, in the next State, County, Country, even in another Continent…global news reaches our front room so quickly and graphically in this digital age.

What do you do?

You may be getting the idea.

Where do we draw the line, the boundaries.

What can we do to relieve suffering elsewhere. Does suffering matter less to us the further away it is, the more remote it is from our own circle of family and friends?

What is our government doing about global suffering? Is it enough? Do we campaign enough? Can we help financially? Can we influence with our vote?

We all tend to live in our own bubble. But not caring about our fellow human beings wherever they live, whoever they are, diminishes us as humans.

Surfing the internet, I came upon the following story told by Amital Etzioni in his blog (July 27, 2007) in connection with his book Spirit of Community.

Five shoppers at a Witchita, Kansas convenience store simply stepped over the body of 27 year-old LaShanda Calloway who lay on the floor bleeding severely. None stopped to ask if she was in need of assistance. None even bothered to call 911. Ms. Calloway died later that day at a Witchita hospital of injuries the result of a stabbing; she had been an innocent bystander, wounded in someone else’s fight.

What can you do to help heal this world?

Let’s bring compassion, empathy, tolerance and respect back into our lives.

I'm taking time out from blogging for a few days as I celebrate the birth of Christ.

I wish all my readers a very happy Christmas. May we all work in 2012 towards a more compassionate and tolerant World.

Why is religion seen as an evil force? Ignorance?

“It is true of every so-called holy text in every religion today that no one has the slightest idea of who wrote them or even when they were written.” Really?

This is from the pen of Darrell Williams, writing on Religious Wars and the Fallacies of Fundamentalism, September 2007, in American Chronicle I found this browsing the web and it is fairly typical of the biased or ignorant reporting that abounds where religion is concerned.
Sir you are wrong, as any theologian or student of religions will tell you!
And here are some more:
A C Grayling in What is Good scorns the religious who he says do good only out of self interest for eternal bliss. Really?
It is reported that in an interview with Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, Sam Harris, the popular non-fiction writer and professed atheist, discussed his new book “The Moral Landscape: How Science can Determine Human Values.” During this interview Harris explains that the motivating factor for writing this new book is what he describes as the problem of having only “religious demagogues who think the planet is 6,000-years-old” as the source of morality in today’s world.

Wow!
There seem to be so many militant or angry atheists and humanists today who too often seem to write from an ignorance of matters of theology and religious studies and tar us all with the same brush when it comes to criticism of our beliefs, who tend to trash religion on dogmatic statements of the faith that are barely recognizable to present day believers. We most certainly don’t all believe that the world was created 6000 years ago, and nothing is further from my mind than eternal bliss when I am showing compassion and care to a fellow suffering human being! And so what if we did, or it was?

Why is religion often seen as an evil force, or just simply a “bad thing” when we could celebrate instead its diversity and virtues?

I believe one of the most important reasons behind any attack on religion is ignorance. Ignorance includes a lack of understanding, or a suspicion, of the “other” point of view. And this often fuels fear, and fear fuels general ridicule or worse. Thus Herod ordered the slaying of the Holy Innocents because of his fear that his power was being usurped by the birth of the boy Jesus ‘born to be King’.

The classical Greek Athenian philosopher Socrates is credited with inventing dialectic – rigorous discipline designed to expose false beliefs and elicit truth – in a setting of rational discussion that was not dogmatic but encouraged courtesy, and consideration for the other’s viewpoint. One of the best known sayings of Socrates is "I only know that I know nothing". Too often today, dialogue is aggressive and dogmatic, encouraged, it would seem, by the remote nature of the internet comment forum, where persons are not face to face, in eye contact, and therefore seem to feel they can rant as much as they like.

I belong to the Scientific and Medical Network (SMN), where there is a strong consensus amongst its members that alongside our scientific achievements we have lost sight of the sacred, the spiritual, and our purpose on the planet; that we are in a spiritual crisis as much as a political or ecological one, and that this needs urgently addressing. We are an organization that pushes the boundaries of understanding of all things spiritual, of consciousness, always with a scientific rigour. Amongst the stated aims of the Network, we are called to “encourage a respect for Earth and Community which emphasizes a holistic and spiritual approach,” but whilst we also stand for “critical and open minded discussion of ideas that go beyond reductionist science,” we are meant to be “sensitive to a plurality of viewpoints.” We therefore aim above all else for tolerance and understanding between our many and various ideas and viewpoints, “wacky” as some of them might seem to our colleagues. We stand for open dialogue to further understanding. And this is what is desperately needed in our world today, particularly where our religions and faiths are concerned.

The Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme is committed to offering a distinctive scholarly approach to furthering understanding across the religious traditions, with a focus on Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I quote from its excellent website, with regard to media bias and ignorance:

“Mass media in the West and Middle East do not deliver the reporting we need on religious issues. There is a tendency to polarise debates and parties, to over-dramatise conflict and to under-research the complexities of lived religious traditions in the modern world. This can be seen in four high-profile cases in recent years: the Danish cartoons, Pope Benedict's Regensberg address, The Archbishop of Canterbury's Sharia lecture, and the issue of whether Muslim women in Europe should be permitted to wear headscarves.

In each of these cases, with polarisations between blasphemy and freedom of speech, secular enlightenment and religious prejudice, it was almost impossible for Westerners to discover the full range of Islamic (especially Arabic-speaking) views, with the result that there is a repeated widespread perception that Muslims are stuck in the Dark Ages. Likewise it was almost impossible for Arabic speakers to discover the full range of Western views, with the result that there is a repeated widespread perception that Europeans are irremediably decadent and morally corrupt.”

We have to overcome this ignorance and bias. How do we do this? I think that is enough for today - I shall explore this further in a later posting.

Religious persecution - let's build bridges between faiths

Stories of religious persecution too often seem to take back stage to all the other demands on media time – the economy, health care, political issues of the day. But a short search across the Web soon brings up numerous examples of appalling religious persecution going on here and now across the globe; Muslims persecuting Christians, Christians persecuting Muslims, the persecution of Jews, etc. (Just a few stories and resources are given below). And it seems that whilst many of us have our deeply held prejudices and often inaccurate assumptions about religions, we are too often simply unaware of the individual and very human stories of suffering and tragedy at the hands of persecutors that are being acted out at this moment. Few will then give any further thought in their daily lives as to what they could themselves contribute to alleviating the misery of so many.

This is a hugely important issue. Not only do we diminish ourselves as human beings if we fail to care for the plight of our fellow beings. Religious persecution of course threatens our whole future security on this planet. And is it so very difficult to offer a hand of friendship and hospitality to a fellow human whatever his faith, color or culture?

There is a wonderful story in the Sep/Oct 2011 issue of Sojourners, of American Christian hospitality to Muslims awaiting completion of their own mosque. In Peace Be Upon Them - A Tennessee church welcomes its Muslim neighbors, author Bob Smietana writes:
“Two years ago, the pastor of Heartsong Church in Cordova, Tennessee, on the outskirts of Memphis, learned that a local mosque had bought property right across the street from the church. So he decided some Southern hospitality was in order.
A few days later, a sign appeared in front of the church. "Heartsong Church welcomes Memphis Islamic Center to the neighborhood," it read.
That small act of kindness was the start of an unlikely friendship between the two congregations, one that made headlines around the world. Members of the mosque and church have shared meals together, worked at a homeless shelter, and become friends over the past two years. When Stone learned that his Muslim friends needed a place to pray for Ramadan because their building wasn't ready, he opened up the doors of the church and let them hold Ramadan prayers there….. and so on – I recommend the whole article to my reader.

I recently finished reading the latest book by Gustav Niebuhr, the great nephew of Reinhold Niebuhr, one of America’s most distinguished theologians.Beyond Tolerance: How People Across America Are Building Bridges Between Faiths is a reprint edition of his book published just a year previously.
I posted my review on Amazon from which I quote below.

This is such an interesting, well- researched and important book on such a vital topic; it always saddens me that gems such as this seem to command relatively little interest as compared with the mass of best selling trivia so widely available. We should all care more about the serious issues that are going to affect the future of our families and our world.
Here we have a serious call for us to use our religious differences to forge peace rather than inspire hatred. Gustav Niebuhr calls for an end to what he calls the “rough trade in raw insults” between religions, for example as seen so often on the internet, and says that we need more than mere tolerance; we need a more committed effort to really get to know and respect our religious differences, to recognize that we can all learn from others, to understand that whatever those differences we are all of equal worth and value across class, race, ethnicity and religion. Respect, a warm acceptance, a mindfulness of everyone’s role in society, is called for, akin to the teachings of Gandhi on tolerance, respect and ahimsa.
Despite what much of the media would have us believe, we are seeing an increase in those who want to use our religious diversities constructively, to work towards a better future for us all. Indeed in 2004 there were apparently more than 1000 such organisations in the US building co-operative inter-religious bridges, and this number continues to grow rapidly. Neibuhr charts the history of some of the most significant of these initiatives to illustrate what has been and still can be done.
He tackles some tricky areas often seen as blocks to any real inter faith co-operation and explains why and how these may be overcome: for example the truth claims of the different religions; the history of the Christian view of salvation and the perceived need to evangelise and convert those of other faiths; the historically difficult relationship between Jews and Christians. We are told that in the US and elsewhere, and contrary to popular perception, those who think that only their religion is the ultimate truth are now in the minority. We are all made in God’s image and God must therefore surely want us all to work together and respect each other – and most if not all beliefs call for the love of neighbour regardless of tribe, race or nation; the so called Golden Rule.
Niebuhr cautions us to look beyond the media bias against inter-religious dialogues. He shows us that so much good work is going on at local level but that the media prefer to report on the bad and negative aspects of faith. In particular he gives evidence of US media bias against Muslims. He provides plenty of illustrative stories of cross religion initiatives, of religions coming together to serve others, of co-operating on social projects, sharing places of worship, assisting with rebuilding programmes of mosques, churches, synagogues, etc., as well as promoting dialogue. And he writes in some detail of the overlaps between our faiths seen for example in our teachings on compassion and hospitality.

We have to choose dialogue not violence. We have to believe, and have hope, the author writes, that human communication can matter. After all, denouncing religion is futile, and anyway our different traditions provide life -giving possibilities if we allow them to. Those who died on 9/11 deserve a monument dedicated to life and hope, not a war on terror. We have our basic humanity in common, we are all created by the same God in His image, and as per Isaiah 56:7, “mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.”
This important book goes a long way to help us understand just how much is going on in our communities towards inter-religious tolerance and understanding and how much more we can still do, with the potential for the force of ideas to counter the force of arms. The message throughout the book is that a bottom up approach is needed, driven by individuals. Our policies and laws can only do so much towards holding our societies together.
This is, as the strap line of the title makes clear, primarily about religion in America, where it is a source of public identity for many. But the interest in this book should not be so confined – the issues are, after all, global.
I like the way the final bibliography is sorted between the different categories of source material, a recent trend reflecting the range of such material that is now so readily available. There are some duplications of information within the text, and I found disconcerting the way the text sometimes jumped around in some chronological confusion – evidence of some late cutting and pasting of the manuscript perhaps! But this is a small point when measured against the importance of this interesting and well- researched book.
This should be compulsory reading and on the book- shelf of all those who have an interest in furthering peaceful relationship between faiths, for the building of a healed and better world for us all.


Other resources/stories - although of course beware any media bias!
http://persecutionblog.com/ weblog on Christian persecution
http://www.christianpost.com/news/pastor-in-iran-awaits-decision-on-execution-53249/

The Iranian government continues its persecution of Iran's Baha'i community http://www.voanews.com/policy/editorials/More-Religious-Persecution-In-Iran-128021093.html  
from which I quote:
“State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland recently voiced concern over the persecution of religious minorities in Iran: "While Iran's leaders hypocritically claim to promote tolerance, they continue to detain, imprison, harass, and abuse those who simply wish to worship the faith of their choosing," said Ms. Nuland. "We join the international community in continuing to call on the Iranian government to respect the fundamental rights of all its citizens and uphold its international commitments to protect them."”



http://www.christianpost.com/topics/persecution/
gives many stories of church persecution across globe
for example:

http://www.christianpost.com/news/iran-seizes-6500-bibles-to-stop-deceiving-christian-missionaries-54076/

http://www.christianpost.com/news/girl-in-uganda-loses-use-of-legs-after-leaving-islam-for-christ-54057/

http://www.christianpost.com/news/nepals-churches-live-under-threat-discrimination-54261/

http://www.christianpost.com/news/christians-assulted-for-watching-jesus-film-near-bin-ladens-compound-54019/

and from Wikipedia on the persecution of Muslims “In January 2010, a report from the University of Exeter's European Muslim research centre noted that the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes has increased, ranging from "death threats and murder to persistent low-level assaults, such as spitting and name-calling," for which the media and politicians have been blamed with fueling anti-Muslim hatred.” From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Muslims


http://thepersecution-org.blogspot.com/ 
on The Persecution of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

The Wisdom of Tolerance?

Religious differences too often provoke aggression and intolerance.
As more people turn to faith in some parts of the world, others call passionately for the abolition of religion and God.
Is that possible, or wise, given the sheer scale and strength of strongly held religious beliefs globally, which still give meaning, purpose and spiritual nourishment to most of the seven billion people on the Earth today?
What obstacles prevent us all living peaceably together with our contrasting beliefs? Can we find common ground? Why is religion often seen as an evil force, when we could celebrate instead its diversity and virtues? And what new wisdoms, spiritualities and philosophies are emerging that may bridge the gaps to help our quest?
How can we replace prejudice, hatred and discrimination with humility, understanding and respect? How can we value and celebrate our differences and open dialogues for a better, happier and safer future for us all, globally?
Is tolerance the answer? If not, then what is?
I have started this new blog to consider these issues in more depth in the weeks and months to come. Do sign up and join the discussion - I welcome courteous and thoughtful dialogue and a respect for all views - I am not interested in rant and prejudice!