After reading this article, something clicked in my mind about the phrase "religious tolerance." In my experience in the Christian church, I have found most people find this phrase to be in opposition to their beliefs. I think that people feel like if they tolerate others beliefs, it means that they are showing support for "religions that are wrong." From reading this article, I realized that most of the world is not asking for people to accept any belief as "right." All people want is to be allowed to believe what they believe without being attacked, persecuted, or looked down upon by others.
To be tolerant, all that we need to do is be understanding of differences. We need to understand that people have different backgrounds than us. We need to listen to why people believe what they believe. We need to recall that each human being has the right to choose what he or she believes. We need to recognize that we will always disagree. Additionally, we must be humble enough to realize that individually no human understands everything and everybody fully.
With this new understanding of tolerance, I asked myself if the church is tolerant in this manner. I think it often fails to be. I think there is a lot concern with being right and attacking anything that opposes what is deemed as right. We surround ourselves with people who believe what we believe, and we gradually, unintentionally begin to view others as inferior people with inferior beliefs and inferior logic. We become offended by their "wrong behavior" and ashamed when we are seen with them because we know that people are judging us. We know this because we ourselves judge others.
What about this behavior and attitude shows God's love to all humanity? What expresses hope and love? Who benefits from "intolerant behavior"?
Perhaps one thing we must be intolerant of is intolerance based on faith and beliefs. Certainly it is silly to say that people should all believe that any belief is right, but in the interest of love, I think we must learn to relate to people with acceptance while maintaining hope for change. We all need hope for change. Let's be open to discussions and relationships without condemnation, bigotry, and feelings of superiority.
2 comments:
The trick is figuring out what to tolerate. One might say if it isn't harming other people then it should be allowed, but even that is tricky to nail down. I would hope that most Americans, when asked bluntly, would say that we should be ok with people looking different or believing different religions. People making non-standard choices about who they commit themselves to doesn't seem to really harm people, so it is gaining acceptance. People raising children in non-standard homes doesn't really seem to harm them, but it is illegal in many parts of the country. Abortion arguably harms a great many, if you consider fetuses vulnerable to harm, and is legal, but banning abortion was also quite harmful to many, again, if you consider women vulnerable to harm (which I do, just to be clear). One might argue that we have some odd foibles when you consider what conditions we are allowed to raise food animals in, but that if one participates in a dog fighting ring one is a monster.
So, in conclusion, tolerance is a win kitty, but we also need rational discourse between the members of our community to decide what, exactly, it is that we will tolerate.
Yeah, I tried to speak to one specific need to avoid what I considered the debatable areas. I agree that there are some things we need to talk about and work toward solutions together. However, perhaps when we are more understanding of people in general, this process will be less hateful and painful.
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