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By all means, bring on the pagans with their gods and goddesses. The more the merrier. If my tax dollars must be used (and it seems that in America, they must) to pay the salaries of military chaplains who believe in just one god, I have no objection to paying chaplains who believe in more than one god.
When the open-hearted and open-minded Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council in 1962, he welcomed Jewish observers with the statement, "I am Joseph, your brother." The pope was baptized Angelo Giuseppe (Joseph) Roncalli, and his moving words signaled his rejection of the Catholic Church's horrendous history of anti-Jewish persecution and his desire for a new beginning.
Last week, Pope Benedict managed to aggravate both Jews and Protestants--the former by encouraging a form of the mass that, on Good Friday, includes a prayer for the conversion of the Jews, and the latter by reaffirming the Roman Catholic Church's traditional stance that it is the One True Church and all other are sub-churches. Quite a week's work!
As a regular member of the On Faith panel, I am reluctant to bite the hand that publishes me. Nevertheless, I must point out that the "Muslims Speak Out" forum represents a gamut of opinion stretching, roughly, from A to C. This forum includes only a few women--an oversight that, in itself, disqualifies the panel as a representative group--and the voices of secular Islam, stressing the need for a Muslim Enlightenment, are also virtually inaudible.
What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions
Gomaa, Fadlallah, Mubarak, Khan, Siddiqi, Ellison, others | On Faith
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