The issue is not whether to love or be compassionate or forgive: at stake is whom do you love or forgive compassionately? On that point, we have almost as many formulae as we have religions.
Buddhism has an excellent record on the love, compassion and forgiveness for all as advocated by the Dalai Lama. Among Christians, denominations like the Quakers and the Amish, have distinguished themselves by abjuring all violence and conflict. They follow literally Jesus’ instruction to Christians to “turn the other cheek” and “to love your enemies.” But the histories of these religions pinpoint the problem: “What do you do when the other party uses violence unjustly?” In the case of the Buddhists of India in the 12th century, they lost hegemony to a renascent Hinduism and were driven back into monasteries in order to practice their religion. The Quakers – Society of Friends, officially – have carved out a small, but important niche in US society as frontline missionaries of compassion. However, their numbers remain very small. The Amish have established communities for their own people, not very different in function from the Buddhist monasteries. The Amish are among those who have learned that you do not need to confront the unjust violence of others if you live alone and apart all the time.
What can be said about religions (or denominations) that do not follow the path to segregation from society? First, we can predict lots of mistakes by becoming entangled with power and national interests. Second, we can expect a tendency to religious monopoly. This turns segregation on its head: you don’t have to retreat to isolation in order to avoid “the other” if the only people in society are those who profess your faith. Happily, the option of religious monopoly has been on the wane in Europe and the Americas since the Peace of Westphalia (1648). (In fact, the Society of Friends and the Mennonites developed in the aftermath of Westphalia).
This leads to the third option for preaching love, compassion and forgiveness: tolerance. Once you realize that attacking “the other” goes against the core of your religious beliefs, you must find a way of holding onto your own religion without denying everyone else’s rights to the same thing. While still competing for converts, most of Christianity has adopted tolerance towards other denominations. We still find religious voices proclaiming things like: “Outside the (Catholic) Church, there is no salvation.” But those who believe the like are (now) considered heretics. Likewise, some denominations believe Predestination condemns Muslims, Jews and homosexuals, but they seem to be only a minority.
We ought not to be blind to the danger of religious minorities who twist their faith into an excuse to deny salvation, equal rights or humanity to “the other,” but on the other hand, such exaggeration does not represent the majority of religious believers in the world. Moreover, the historical record suggests that when there is contact among religions preaching the Dalai Lama’s description of love, compassion and forgiveness, tolerance is the result. In finding a way to protect themselves, religions wind up teaching the world how to tolerate others. In this context, therefore, what the world needs now is more religions.
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