Every religious tradition has the capacity for both good and evil, suggests Charles Kimball in his work, When Religion Becomes Evil. Indeed, the passion and truth claims associated with religious belief make religion susceptible to extremes. This week, as we remember the events of 9/11, we cannot escape the stark reminders of the dangers inherent in religious extremism and the dire consequences that emerge when religious zeal fuses with coercive power.

We all — male and female, Democrat and Republican, the religious and those who choose no religion, the religious extremists and those who express their faith differently — would do well to hear and digest the principle of robust and genuine religious liberty for all.

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Dean Kelley, religious liberty executive for the National Council of Churches for more than three decades, used to say that a cult is what you called the church down the street! My religion is never a cult; it’s a term we use for someone else’s.

To employ the pejorative term “cult,” instead of “religion” or “church,” sets up a false and prejudicial dichotomy between good and bad religion. Indeed, my Baptist forbears — in London, Amsterdam, Boston, and Culpeper, Va. — would have been tagged a “cult” by popular religionists of their day. Heaven forbid we should repeat that error today.

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