Love your neighbour - as long as he is like you?

Yesterday I wrote about the late John Stott and his book Basic Christianity and his comment on Nominal Christianity. And I had to agree wholeheartedly with that.
Today I was startled by something else he wrote - in his final chapter on Being a Christian. 
Indispensable marks of the Child of God, he wrote, are "Righteousness of life and practical love to one's neighbours, especially to one's Christian brethren..." (my emphasis).
Surely he cannot have meant that? Does Jesus say anywhere in the gospels that we should favour fellow Christians over other people? Love your neighbour as yourself, but especially so if he is a Christian like you?
I was at a conference not long ago where I heard Geshe Tashi Tsering, resident Geshe at the Jamyang Buddhist Centre in London, speak on The Spirit of Compassion in Tibetan Buddhism.
There are three groups of people in our lives, he told us; those very close to us whom we love, those acquaintances whom we dislike, and the remaining large group whom we ignore or to whom we are indifferent. We need to break down those divisions by abandoning any self -interest in our relationships and actions. He reminded us that even though our personal circumstances, cultures, upbringings may be different, we fundamentally all have the same yearnings, rights, desire to be happy and not suffer. We are all human. And we must feel these things at heart level, he said. Only then can we cultivate compassion towards others, and meditation is vital to this process.

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, explained on his visit to the new Hindu Temple of Shri Venkateswara (Balaji) in Birmingham on 15 November 2008, ‘interfaith dialogue is not a way of obliterating our differences, it's a way of living creatively with them. A way of living gratefully with them, so that our compassion, our love and our fellow feeling do not stop simply with those who are like us.’

In his previous New Year message for 2007 he had spoken of the need for us to put right the injustices of the world, to realize that such issues are an affront to our own dignity. In some way they make each of us less of a person. We will be fed and nourished spiritually only when we really and honestly wake up to the needs of our fellow human beings, learning together to reach out to them, to heal, feed, and befriend those less fortunate than ourselves.And he wasn't saying just reach out to our own kind!

Martin Luther King in his Nobel Lecture reminded us that "All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich. We are inevitably our brothers’ keeper because of the interrelated structure of reality."

Three centuries earlier the Renaissance author and Anglican priest John Donne famously wrote in 1624:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Followers of the Baha’i faith see Earth as one country of which we are all citizens. One of their guiding principles is that ‘the oneness of humanity is the fundamental spiritual and social truth shaping our age.’ 
Now I know that the Apostle Paul, writing in his first epistle to the Corinthians, on human worth, likened the worldwide body of Christians with the human body. All parts of the body are essential for the complete welfare of the whole. In the same way we all need each other and the loss of any part weakens us all: there should be no discord between us. He taught his followers that the members of the church should ‘have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together.’ The ‘body’ in this biblical context is translated from the Greek Soma, related to Sozo meaning ‘to heal, preserve, be made whole.’ We are not whole: we are wounded or spiritually impoverished if we are not a part of the greater body of faith in our community. We all need to feel that connectedness, that relationship. We need to find unity within the wide diversity of all our individual gifts. We all need each other and we all are special in the eyes of God. 
But we cannot have some of us more special than others. Can we?

^{So I think, just for once, John Stott was wrong.}

The spirit and hope of compassion - time to take action

The Charter for Compassion is an idea whose time has come. This was the theme of the speaker and co-founder of the Charter, Karen Armstrong, at the Scientific and Medical Network Conference I attended last weekend, The Science of Empathy and the Spirit of Compassion.
Launched globally in 2009, The Charter is the result of Karen’s 2008 TED Prize wish. Supported by the Fetzer Institute, (fostering awareness of the power of love and forgiveness in the world), the Charter was drafted by a multi-faith, multi-national council of thinkers and leaders, representing the 6 major world faiths, and based on a principle also embraced by every moral code. The Charter developed out of Karen’s frustration that, in her view, not enough was being done by the world’s religions to promote compassionate action. Because as she says, compassion manifests itself in the world not by thinking but by doing. That was what inspired me to write my book; the frustration I shared with Karen, that I felt looking around me at our behaviour and general lack of responsibility, our lack of knowledge and unthinking actions. That was why I wrote the book about what everyone can do, linking it to compassion and spirit and where we can nurture it in our lives. It complements everything that the Charter stands for. Although actually it is perhaps more about what we must refrain from doing! I am pleased that people are buying it. I pray that they convert ideas into action!

Confucius probably founded the Golden Rule, in a period of the world’s history similar to our own, when societies were being torn apart. And all the great religions share the same rule, expressed variously but always meaning: “Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself.”
500 years later Jesus taught that we should love our enemies. But love in that context meant loyalty, Karen explained, looking out for each other’s interests. The ancient Greeks introduced the tradition of tragedy plays, where the audience participated, encouraged to weep for the suffering played out on stage, because weeping together creates a bond.
We are now profoundly connected as humans across the world, and action is urgent. But we are guilty of group egotism, she warned us, loving only our own kind, and we are addicted to our own pet hates. We need to understand that each individual is a unique spiritual mystery, and we must be prepared to not only make dialogue with others outside our own limited circle but also be prepared to then change at a profound level. To see each other as divine is, she warned, the only way forward. She spoke of positive projects with The Charter; of international businesses applying the 12 steps, of eliminating violence amongst prisoners in a tough Washington jail by training the prison officers in compassion, how Seattle has become the first City for Compassion, and the enormous success story in Pakistan, leading the charter in its work, with modules of compassion introduced in education, including at primary school level and in the independent universities there, where it is mandatory to take a compassion course; Because education is key to the success of the project in many ways.

But here is the crunch. The media must be part of that education process, and they are guilty of bias against religions in so many ways. Karen told us that the minimal media coverage of this year’s floods in Pakistan failed to mention the many businessmen who put their companies on hold, often for many months, whilst they went to help in the afflicted areas. And after 9/11 a Gallop Poll showed that 93% of Muslims worldwide said that the atrocity was not justified, and none said that it was justified on religious grounds. The small number, 7%, who said 9/11 was justified quoted political reasons! Furthermore, most said the biggest obstacle to better relations with the West was the latter’s lack of respect for Islam. How many knew that from media reports?
We have to demand better media, because the media is so invasive into our consciousness, so easy to tap into in film or internet, YouTube and blog, so difficult to avoid and yet so powerful and far reaching in its influence. The creative forces at work in the media that relentlessly bring so many images into our lives, the writers, editors, journalists, photographers and all the myriad of support staff we see listed for example in the credits at the end of any film, bear an awesome responsibility.
As with other creativity, those working in the media can use their talents to help heal the world and nourish our souls, or to assist in the destruction of both. We all have free will and choice. The choice is ours and theirs.

The Golden Rule

The world is truly a rich tapestry of many different faiths, religions and spiritual ideas. The rules and customs of ancestral religions still give meaning, purpose and spiritual nourishment to most of the seven billion people on the Earth today. Something like 84% of the world’s population have a faith or religion, often with deeply held convictions, and of the remaining 16% one half claim to be theistic even if not religious. And surely spiritual nourishment is necessary for human flourishing, as recognised by the many who do not feel the need to join any organised religion on a regular basis but still pursue spiritual practices of one sort or another.
But the secular materialism of the West seems to hold the moral high ground, has the cultural initiative. And religion sometimes, indeed often, comes in for disdain. Worse still, there is a huge amount of intolerance or even persecution for religious beliefs in some countries, even in this 21st Century. For just one example read what is really going on in Zimbabwe to Christians at the moment, (courtesy of Nick Baines' blog) a subject picked up so fleetingly in the News media lately that you would have missed it in a blink.
But why is this? Why can we not all respect each others' beliefs and ideas? Why can we not live and let live? Why do some atheists so passionately argue for the abolition of religion, as if that were possible? It is certainly not desirable. Yes it is true that religions have not always been forces for good in the world. But I think it was the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who pointed out once that humans have always been able to find excuses for violence and war without religion. And the religions historian Karen Armstrong has also reminded us that wars are mostly about greed, envy, ambition, land ownership, even if they are often cloaked in religious rhetoric to give them “respectability.
Why throw out religion? Religions are a huge force for good in the world. They are behind much of the humanitarian aid made available to those suffering across the globe from disasters however caused, and they have between them some amazing and enviable global networks, both interfaith and intra-faith, all working for the good of humanity.
And religion also provides spiritual nourishment and support at the all important individual and local level. UK Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has been derided in some quarters for his ideas of a Big Society. Some profess to be unable to understand what he means. But we have a Big Society writ large in our own church and community, everyone looking out for each other, extending hands of friendship and support to those in need, enjoying fun together in community events, and generally feeling a strong sense of belonging in what can otherwise seem a confusing and harsh world out there.
There is also so much in common between many of the world’s faiths. For a start they share what is called “The Golden Rule,” expressed in its positive format as “do to others as you would wish others to do to you.” For Jews this is expressed as: “What is hurtful to yourself, do not to your fellow man.” One of the Ten Commandments is after all “Love your neighbour as yourself,” and Jesus reminds his followers that this is the second great commandment (Matthew ch 22. v. 39). In Jainism they say: “In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self.” Hinduism expresses it thus: “Do not to others, which if done to thee, would cause thee pain.” And so on. Just imagine if everyone, religious or not, actually lived out that maxim. Surely at an individual level we do not want others to hate us, to hurt us, be rude to us, kill us, treat us with disdain, etc., etc? A good video to watch on this is Karen Armstrong’s TED talk, Let's Revive the Golden Rule.

But we should also celebrate our differences, and learn from them. We can learn and enjoy so much about other faiths and cultures if we open our minds. And here let’s extend this beyond religious differences, to differences of culture, sexuality, politics. We all need each other, whatever our beliefs, and we should use our multiple resources for good, not for violation and destruction.