Intolerance is wrong

RELIGION TODAY - Published Saturday July 19th, 2008

Religious news does not usually make it to mainstream outlets. So we can be forgiven if we missed the rift between Anglicans and Roman Catholics that happened last week. It turns out that the Church of England decided at its General Synod this year to allow for the ordination of Women Bishops.

This is not really news here -- the Anglican Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island currently has a female Suffragan Bishop, Sue Moxley.

Different areas of the globe progress through different levels of openness in their own time.

What is interesting is how the Vatican reacted; stating that it is disappointed in this "rift" between the apostolic tradition of ordaining only men and modern permissiveness.

The Anglicans simply asked, "What would Jesus do" which when asked correctly could be a useful question.

Jesus never named any women apostles, but then again, Jesus expected them to be missionary martyrs who risked their lives . . . he had more important work for women to do, after all, by Paul's day and age most churches were run by women.

You see, there are differences of opinion -- and all too often those differences lead to some pretty harsh reactions. Since Henry Morgentaler was just named to the Order of Canada abortion seems a good example to bring to the fore.

Those who are pro-life and pro-abortion have been battling for years, with disastrous consequences, including the assassination of doctors who perform abortions, because of a disagreement about when "life" begins . . . is it when two cells divide in the uterus or is it at the moment of brain consciousness?

You've heard of the expression "not one iota of difference?" well, we have sort of lost track of the original religious war that sparked the expression.

Way back in the beginning of the Christian church, scholars started a fight over two words: whether Jesus was homoousias and homoiousias.

The first one means that Jesus is of the same substance as the father and the second one that Jesus is of the same nature.

Believe it or not the church violently divided over that one too.

The original followers of the Prophet Mohammed, Peace be Upon Him, had no problems with Christians either until the Crusades, when we proved to them not to be very good followers of our own teachings on compassion and love.

Some people argue that the entire point of the crusades was to get all the violently unemployed knights out of France in order to keep the civil peace -- so an enemy was created.

Since then, we really don't have a good history of tolerance and understanding on the Christian side of the fence.

Think about the Inquisition or Ghettos for Jews in Europe, not to mention the holocaust, the KKK and various other incidences; both large and small.

On the other hand I do not ever recall hearing of an act of Jewish violence towards a Christian organization.

Any Islamic violence seems to be far more political than religious.

And yet, as witnessed over and over again, even here in the sleepy Maritimes, Christians are still far too arrogant, racist and bigoted.

It is our culture that spawned the vandalism last week in Moncton. The Swastika, like it or not, is actually a cross.

I am often accused of being relativistic -- so I want to point out for the record that I believe strongly in Christianity. It is my chosen faith, my cultural identity, and a powerfully transformative thing when used properly.

What it clearly has no corner on is being "right". When the great religions of the world developed they all had common ideals and understandings; reached independently; about the awesomeness of the universe, the limited grasp of human life, and an ultimate meaning beyond what we could understand.

However you choose to see God, God was at work in the creation of Buddhism, Shintoism, Animism, Islam, Judaism and the even Christianity.

I don't see us developing our potential very much further until we can come to understand this. What's more, racism and intolerance of any sort is just plain wrong.