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Various leaders of religions will be recognised as being sincere in their own context if broadened by a common experience into a richer interpretation of the meaning of our lives
By Brendan MacCarthaigh | India
I have railed against the friction and even animosity religions exhibit against one another. The Christian Brothers of whom I am one were founded in that very setting in 1802.
Every reader of this page knows one or more illustrations of the situation. And, in my own defence, I have moved from railing to acknowledging that I have striven hard to help heal that animosity.
Today's reflection is a comment on that alienation we have all experienced. We tend to think in negative terms about people of other religions than ours and who are numerous in our locality. We do that too with people of other differences, which led to the BLACK LIVES MATTER wave.
But in the context of religions, this is what I want to say: the founders of other religions than ours were also sincere people, who were inspired by a different interpretation of the one we usually refer to as God (religions differ because of language and culture here).
They shared this inspiration, and others were enthused, and soon a splinter group of sincere folk appeared. This is something that happens in many social areas, politics being a conspicuous example.
The inspiration, then, was most probably sincere. What happened next in that 'splinter' group was that to indicate what distinguished them from the starting group they adopted a name, Jews and then Christians being adequate exemplification of the process.
The point I want to underline is the sincerity of all such groups, starters or splinters, whose inspiration so impressed others that followers accrued, and people's lives were enriched.
But politics raises its head in terms of those who seek all the accoutrements of popularity when such things happen, and what started as difference gets dragged into alienation and then hostility. That, I guess, every reader knows.
My stress is on the goodwill and sincerity of the starters of this splintering. Right now, we are wrestling with the thousand consequences of COVID-19.
I am hoping that our various religions will get a chance to see more clearly what I am urging right now, that the various leaderships of our religions will be recognised as being sincere and in their own cultural and historical and social and regional context, entirely appropriate.
In practice, I want to see people of all religions welcomed into the prayer centres of all other religions, and to find themselves broadened by that experience into a richer interpretation of the whole meaning of their lives.
But further, that their religious banners will signify welcome to all without exclusion who are in need during these difficult times.
We have to open our understanding that because you are not inspired by the Bible we retreat into polite alienation, because I am not inspired by the Quran we cannot be close friends, because she is a devotee of the Bhagavad Gita then she must not be friendly with the Buddhist down the street.
All of these attitudes are based on non-love, and that is a fatal foundation for anything. Love is demonstrated by the simple reality of welcome.
I compiled and privately published a few copies of a book which I called Readings, consisting of 30 extracts from the basic texts of each of the major religions.
While I was doing the homework, I was hugely impressed by the attitudes and insights of all of these nine religious results of inspiration.
Interpretations of what God means, of what Love means, of what Virtue means, of what Prayer means differed from text to text, but never into hostility or animosity.
They arise like all inspiration from locale and time and culture and orientation and other individual and social realities.
Recognising that is a basic move towards making our post-Covid world a more loving place to be, to bring up our children, and to help the whole process of evolution move forward for all of us together.
I cannot see any other approach worthy of our still being alive after – and even during – this pandemic.
A sort-of PS: I have tried to clarify my acceptance of the various names we use for God, contexted by culture, locale, and other situations. I have tried to convey that my understanding of the mystery is summed up in the cosmic word, Love.
I want to add here that I acknowledge the portrayal of other interpretations of what God means, based on Christian theologies that enrich others but not me. I realise I have been somewhat myopic in this area. So long as my focus is on the essential unity between God and me/us, nomination need not, must not, alienate. God bless.
Brendan MacCarthaigh is a Christian Brother from Dublin working in India for over 50 years, mostly in Value Education with senior classes and teachers.
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