The Right to Persuade Versus Intolerance

The doorbell rings. Two women want to discuss a religion you are not interested in. You tell them no thanks and shut the door.

You notice that you have lost weight on your new diet. You plan to tell your slightly overweight friend about the diet. She might like to try it, too.

You open the mail. A letter from your bank outlines a service you do not want. You toss it in the trash.

You read an article about two schools of thought concerning a new treatment for skin cancer. It will require more testing and rigorous debate as to which has the best cure rate, least side effects, and so on.

You read another article about Bhutan, an Asian nation in the eastern Himalaya mountains, predominantly Buddhist. Bhutan’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, but conversion is unlawful. Buddhism is, for many, a part of their country’s culture. Bhutan’s Christians have sought clarification. Bhutan’s Prime Minister Jigmi Yoser Thinley states his opposition to religious conversion: “It’s the worst form of intolerance. And it divides families and societies.”

When do we have the right to attempt the persuasion of someone to a set of convictions that are meaningful to us? And to what degree should we persuade? Or should we ever persuade?

Is it intolerant to believe, as in one of the above examples, that one cancer treatment may be better than another and to lobby for that practice?

Attempts to persuade range from political and religious arguments to medical debates and ads for commercial products. Some are hardly life altering, but some are. Some can be proved by the scientific method, and some can’t.

Our Constitution gives this country’s citizens the right to freedom of speech and of religion. A few use these freedoms in ways that we abhor, but diverse views are a necessary part of growth and advancement. Cultures become static if debate and change are forbidden. Political ads may annoy us but few of us would choose to live in Syria or other countries where opposing views that question the regime are not allowed. Persuasion becomes intolerance when the persuader fails to respect another’s opinions or the person’s right to choose or to be left alone if they wish.

Of course, opening a culture to possible change is risky. Could Christianity threaten our American way of life—discouraging rampant consumerism, for example—if genuinely practiced?

 

Mourning Osama Bin Ladin

I mourn Osama Bin Ladin. Not his death but his life. He wanted to purify the religion, we are told, of his native Saudi Arabia. He thought ideas brought into his country by Western nations were corrupting it. What an awful path he took in his attempt to carry out what in itself could have led to serious discussion and change within his country.

He could have chosen persuasion and a vocation as a peaceful spiritual leader, something like Gandhi. He could have reasoned and debated to bring changes. He could have kept open his own life to spiritual growth and change and listened to others with different opinions.

Instead, like too many people who desire change, he thought he had the right to kill people to bring about those changes. He wasn’t able to understand the rights of others to choose or to understand that no man, however close to God he thinks he may be, is God.

Perhaps humility is the first choice of those who would change others.

 

Feminism—Islamic Style

Isobel Coleman, in an article in the Foreign Service Journal, writes about Islamic feminists. In countries like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, these women attempt to show that a reasoned approach to their religion, Islam, can open up possibilities for women and girls in conservative Muslim-majority countries.
http://www.afsa.org/FSJ/0411/index.html#/28/

Sometimes these women shy away from the term “feminist” because of the cultural Western baggage such a label carries. Whereas Western feminists generally have ignored religion, Islamic feminists tend to use their religion. They bring to their religious leaders passages in Islam’s Quran and suggest new interpretations. They see their religious inheritance as an ally.

One wonders how different the “cultural wars” in our society would have been if those who have sought change (often needed change) in the past few decades had begun with our religious inheritance instead of discarding it.

They might have dwelt on Paul’s words in Galatians 3:28: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (NRSV) For starters.

 

Not Your Grandmother’s Church


The Seattle Times recently posted an article in their weekly magazine, Pacific Northwest, titled “Artistic & Religious.” The article highlighted groups where “creative Christians are taking down the walls between faith and art.” Some gather in coffee houses and pubs, others in private houses.

We hear predictions that Christianity will be dead within a generation. Groups such as these in Seattle and other places indicate that Christians are finding new ways to express their faith, not dying away. This pattern has persisted since the first gentile Christian churches grew out of gatherings of Jewish Christian believers.

Christians are, as Jesus said, in the world but not of it. In other words, we are exiles, refugees of a sort (a theme of this blog). The constant task for our communities is to engage with the changing world, not stagnate within yesterday’s structures.

We all know that a world of Facebook and twitter requires us to incorporate new technology. Even more, we must relate to an America in which the fastest growing religious preference is “no preference.” By contrast, Christianity grows rapidly in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Christianity is indeed a world religion, as it has never been before. We must learn the vocabulary of today’s world, of both America and the countries beyond our borders.

Meditation on a Saturday before Easter

Theologians may debate the meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice. For me, love is the only force that overcomes evil. Jesus’ willingness to die for us is the love that defeats evil. Love is the action that evil cannot answer.

In the sacrifice of himself, God throws out the challenge for evil’s ultimate defeat.

As we live out that love and compassion, we strike back as part of God’s army against evil.

Recharge

The geography and times in which I live can leave me tongue-tied in the expression of my faith. As readers of this blog know, I live in the Pacific Northwest. Its coffee house milieu is a setting for militant relativism. Speaking within it requires one to learn a new vocabulary. In addition, several friends carry remnants of a childhood religion that bordered on the abusive. Religious phrases that are meaningful to me remind them of intolerance and hurt.

The need to reset my spiritual compass is one reason I attend writers’ conferences that cater to Christian writers. This week I attended such a conference. As in similar professional gatherings, I networked with other writers, agents, and editors and attended seminars on writing. However, this one, set among California redwoods, recharged my batteries and connected me with my center.

On Palm Sunday morning the compass discovered its lost direction. As we sang about love and redemption, I wept as the divine touched me and restraints loosed for a season.

The Danger of Daydreams

Be careful what you dream about, what you wish for.

Once I had a good job as a computer programmer with a large company. The company reimbursed its employees for courses taken toward a college degree. What an opportunity, I thought, to advance my career. The career bored me, but perhaps advancement toward a higher position would vanquish the boredom.

Probably the company had in mind that those studying for degrees would earn them in computer science or business. I dutifully checked out computer and business courses in a local university catalog. Then I made a mistake.

What would I study if I studied what I really wanted to? It seemed innocent enough, thumbing through that catalog. I stopped at the section on geography and examined the courses—maps, other countries and cultures, and the ways different peoples on the globe interact. Before I knew it, temptation sucked me in.

When school began, I enrolled to earn a master’s degree in geography.

“Why are you studying that? What are you going to do with it?” people asked me.

“I don’t know what I’ll do with it. I just like it.”

After the school awarded me my degree, I flipped through a newspaper one day. A career columnist wrote about something called the U. S Foreign Service. The Foreign Service, I learned, was the name of the diplomatic corps of the State Department, the diplomats who serve in embassies and consulates all over the world.

A long shot. But, hey, I can dream, can’t I? So I applied, filled out reams of forms, took the exams, and met other requirements. (The State Department now has a website, making the process easier)

Somehow, (God was in it, I believe) I ended up as a consular officer in the U.S. Foreign Service, serving in places I’d only dreamed of visiting. And changing jobs and countries before I got bored. And continuing to learn in language courses and country studies. And witnessing some momentous events in history. I went to areas of the world I had prepared for without knowing it by studying those areas in my geography classes.

That dreaming’ll get you in trouble. Your heart may take over.

 

Creation of a Villain

Not long ago I entered the “Clash of the Titles,” a contest which matches passages from recent novels to determine the best fictional devices. Events have ranged from the best romantic scene to the best hook to pull readers into the novel. My particular contest called for the best “character description of an antagonist.”

I quoted a passage about Antun, the antagonist from my novel Singing in Babylon. In explaining how Antun developed in the story, I said he wasn’t anyone I actually knew but someone I would both fear and loathe.

Yet, as Antun’s character grows in the story, we learn that his brother was mistreated and killed a few years before. Antun lived to exact revenge. Like many “villains,” he had suffered a wrong. What made Antun a villain and not a hero is that he chose to react to the wrong by committing more wrongs.

As Jesus indicated in the Sermon on the Mount, to treat someone well who treats you well is no great feat.To overcome hurt, even to love the one who does ill to you is the badge of only a few and exemplifies what Jesus both taught and lived out.

 

Christianity’s Success: A Problem?

C.S. Lewis mentioned in his autobiography, Surprised By Joy, how his early life at a “vile” boarding school prepared him for real life. It taught him, he said, to live by hope. At school, hope of the holidays sustained him. During holidays, however, the knowledge that even the best of vacations must end, prepared him for not accepting present situations, even favorable ones, at face value.

Dark times can include seeds of victory and success may hint of struggles to come.

When Christianity at first was rejected by religious leaders and persecuted by secular ones, it grew mightily. When finally it found success and even power as it joined with worldly governments, it suffered from schisms and disharmony. Then Muslims conquered much of the lands that had spawned Christianity. Turks overthrew the last of the Byzantine Empire, and a reduced Christianity was left to the backwaters of a primitive Europe.

Christian leaders developed, and the new printing press spread their ideas. Christianity prospered, increasing the faith of many and bringing deeper understanding. Then adherents of various religious movements tied it to political alliances. Their actions contributed to a lessening of Christian influence and to the rationalism of the eighteenth century in the Western world.

Christianity revived in the nineteenth century and became even more influential, leading directly or indirectly to the abolishment of slavery, the improvement of women’s status, and various programs to alleviate the sufferings of the poor.

It was popular to be a Christian, and Christianity was carried to vast reaches of the world as Europe and America, the “West,” became dominant.

Now we are inheritors of that time and are surprised to find that Christianity has lost its primary position in the West. In truth, Christianity is always carried out by a remnant living within the world. When the influence of that remnant is great, Christian principles weave into our laws and our ways of life. Success, however, brings the temptation to ally with Caesar and Mammon— power and wealth. That alliance may injure us. We must again earn the right to be taken seriously.

 

Easter Under the Radar

I regularly check lists of writers’ conferences. One, I noticed recently, takes place on Easter weekend. Apparently Easter is no longer relevant to many Americans, just another weekend.

Then I remembered when I lived in Muslim-majority countries. Easter passed pretty much unobserved there, too. During my first Easter in such a country, a broadcast from an Easter service in another part of the world inspired me before I left for the day’s work (the weekends there were Thursday and Friday, not Saturday and Sunday). I felt kinship with the early Christians.

The pastor of my childhood church used to say he should wish Merry Christmas as well as Happy Easter to the congregation. So many on Easter, he said, only came on that Sunday, so he would not see them for a full year.

When Easter was a more or less national celebration, the day was coopted by the Easter bunny and chocolate eggs and spring fashions. Perhaps it is well that we have fewer “cultural” Christians on Easter now and that our present society limits the celebration of that wondrous event to those who actually ponder its meaning.

 

Logic and Feeding Multitudes

We can’t even predict the weather accurately beyond a few days. The logical world we know as manageable by our current knowledge—math, physics, and so on—represents only a tiny part of the universe, according to something called chaos theory.

But chaos, so I understand, is not really chaos. It’s part of an order we don’t yet understand, like how to predict the weather.

That’s the way I look at Jesus’ teachings. They sometimes seem against our known wisdom. Giving up to have. Serving instead of accumulating. Putting our trust in what we cannot see rather than in this world’s material objects.

I see Jesus’ miracles in a new way, like the feeding of the five thousand. The disciples studied the crowd and wondered how they were going to feed the people, far from homes and fast food restaurants.

Jesus asked them what they should do.

They answered within the context of the world they knew. The money they had wouldn’t buy what they needed, even if they could find something to buy. They had the lunch a small boy had offered, but how ridiculous to think that could do anything.

Jesus had something else in mind. No one went away hungry.

Surely God knows of powers and systems, of universes and infinities for which we have no inkling.

 

The Best Laid Plans …

The North African nation of Algeria is one of the nations in the news because of the “Arab spring.” This is the name for the demonstrations against autocratic regimes in the Middle East and North Africa that began with Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year and has rocked Libya.

This is not the first time Algerians have struggled for more control over their own destiny. Algeria was a part of France until the Algerians fought a bloody revolution and became independent in 1962. The Algerians believed that with self-government, they would do great things. This appeared so at first. Algeria was a leader of non-aligned nations during the time of the Cold War between Communist and non-Communist nations. After American embassy hostages were taken by Iranian extremists over three decades ago, they were finally released to the neutral nation of Algeria in the dramatic last days of Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

Unfortunately, Algeria has since fallen into corruption and insurgency. The people who led its revolution proved unable to give up power when Algerians voted for others. History is littered with such tragedies, like Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

When we are given power, we slip easily into the temptation to believe that we have all the answers. We begin with the best of intentions. We are certain that we know better than those who disagree with us. Until we understand that it isn’t “us” against “them,” but rather that “we” are all finite humans, we will make little progress. Always, the gift of power is given temporarily to use in service to all.

When we seek to circumvent the rights of others in order to force our own agenda, we risk being corrupted by our power. Better if we seek to influence rather than to force. Better to listen to all, form a consensus, build a structure that includes investment from as many as possible, not one that can’t support noble aims because its foundation is not broad enough to support the whole.

Many of the Arab nations are struggling against regimes that never learned this lesson. Let us hope and pray for a better outcome this time.

 

Easter and a Novel

I knew it can’t be scientifically proven, but when Easter arrives later in the year, spring also seems to arrive later. So it is this year. Wasn’t it almost a month ago that bumps appeared on the apple tree limbs below my window? Yet they still have not budded, let alone blossomed.

But God, I trust, is there, in the growing, there in the waiting, which seems forever. A hard winter in some respects, or at least a long one. Lots of rain, more snow than the island’s usual vanishing trace.

Our church’s Lenten writer reminded us today of journeys into the unknown, like the Israelites in Exodus.We enter into the unknown and try to do the things we did before to overcome it, as some Israelites did in the wilderness—working more, going out on their day of rest to harvest manna and finding none. Instead, perhaps the waiting calls for more resting and pondering, less activity.

I have an idea for a story. I find it cannot be forced. Like this season, it comes in its own time.

 

Faith in a Time of Starvation

The life of faith, one of our church writers says in a Lenten devotional, is not for the timid. She discusses the seventh chapter of Luke’s gospel. In this passage, Jesus was astounded at the faith of a Roman commander. Across a chasm of cultural rank and religion, this soldier had faith that Jesus could heal someone he cared for.

God’s creation seems to be rebelling: volcanos halt our flying machines for days. Earthquakes demolish both struggling and developed nations with massive loss of life. Floods in Pakistan, droughts in Russia, unusual levels of snow in the U.S., all reveal our insignificance before such upheavals.

The fuel we pump from the earth has not been without cost: the Gulf Coast knew despair as a spill poured the black liquid for weeks on fishing grounds and beaches before it was halted.

The home, our supposedly one safe investment, triggered a huge recession when abuses led to collapse.

Rebellions take place in countries that supposedly would never have them. Will they lead to democratic governments or more terrorism? We don’t know.

I have often returned to a few verses in the Bible from one of the “minor” prophets, Habakkuk:

“Though the fig tree do not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” (RSV)

Faith in a time of starvation, physical or spiritual, gives courage that sustains and transforms.

 

Thoughts on Japan

So what’s the lesson for us in the horrible tragedy that shook Japan (literally and figuratively )? For me it’s the negation of the idea that life is always upwardly progressive, both personally and nationally.

Who goes through life without problems? Death of a loved one, a debilitating illness or handicap, or a job loss may afflict us quite suddenly. In Japan in a few seconds, the lives of multitudes, including whole families, were wiped out.

Of all people, however, Christians have the resources to deal with these traumas, nor should we act surprised when they happen. Read Jesus’s story in the gospels. It includes torture, crucifixion, and death. But it ends in resurrection and life.

The Christian call is not to a trouble-free life. Yes, we know times when God answers miraculously. But we are not always healed. We may suffer traumatic experiences. Physically, we all die. The best marriage in the world will end.

Yet Jesus, in the midst of a life far from the glory he knew since the beginning with the Father, enjoyed life. He knew what was coming, but he still attended gatherings and feasts. He never condemned having a good time with friends.

Jesus knew how to separate the transient, both joys and sorrows, from the eternal life and triumph that we are made for.

 

Out of Our Comfort Zone

In my current Pacific Northwest home, many do not view Christianity with the favor it enjoyed in my earlier life in the American South. Indeed, the religious landscape has changed everywhere. Judaeo-Christian beliefs are no longer taken for granted. In addition, I landed here through a circuitous route that included several years in Muslim-majority countries.

As might be expected, the journey tested my beliefs and gave me new insights. The process, however, strengthened core beliefs, bolstered by the agape love modeled by Jesus.

Perhaps my journey mirrors the journey of Christianity in America. We Christians were once favored; now we have to earn that favor. We have to compete with other views. Our Christian convictions must stand on their own merit.

In the long run, such a process may strengthen our faith.

 

Pirates and Bundlers

Somali pirates recently killed four Americans in the Indian Ocean, whom they had seized as hostages for ransom. The Indian Ocean, a main shipping lane, has become dangerous as pirates have discovered a way to tap into wealth from other nations, though the murder of hostages is rare. Pirates extract ransom merely for releasing sailors and boat passengers.

When people obtain wealth without giving worth in exchange, we all pay the price. Shipping companies pay ransom so that they can continue transporting their goods, apparently considering the ransom another “cost” of doing business. The price of the ransoms, for no added value, are passed on to the buyers of the goods.

Companies operating in countries with corrupt governments, and citizens needing government services pay bribes, another “cost” of service. The bribes increase the cost of the goods or services for no added value. Moral corruption also results. Greed, not the common good, triumphs.

In more developed nations, some find other ways of making money without adding value to goods or services. “Bundling” home mortgages of unqualified buyers with those of qualified buyers brings money to the bundlers, but only increases the cost to others (i.e., social services, taxpayers) when buyers default who should not have been given mortgages in the first place.

 

Career and Choice: No One Size Fits All

I recently enjoyed a novel by Lauraine Snelling,  No Distance Too Far, about a woman doctor in the early twentieth century. She faced difficulties in her profession in part because she was female. Fortunately, women now are more free to use their vocational gifts.

In fact, over half the labor force in the United States is now female. However, as we more or less expect all adults to become paid workers, problems develop. Articles in The Economist and The New York Times touch on these issues. We have less time for other activities: relationships with family and friends; care of our children, the sick, and the aging; volunteer work; physical exercise that keeps us fit; and creative work that fulfils us but doesn’t pay the bills. We are reminded of the survival mode of earlier times when all except a few elites labored during every waking hour.

Returning to the days of gender inequality is not an option. Also, those struggling simply to stay afloat in these times don’t have much choice but to continue. Some of us, however, can consider new work models, perhaps leading to wider discussion about our career-oriented world. Why not new patterns for the times in which we now live?

Part time work as a choice? Working at home for a period of one’s career? (More of a possibility because of the Internet.) Job sharing? And if a woman has the option to be a traditional stay-at-home wife and mother and chooses this path, we can support her in her choice.

 

What If Schools Were Marketed As Entertainment?

Do I understand correctly? Football players and owners are in negotiations over revenue sharing and profits. Figures bandied about are in the billions.

At the same time, teachers are being laid off in cities and towns all over the country. We don’t have the money to pay them.

I’m not suggesting anything is wrong with sports (although we would be healthier if we played them instead of watching from our living room couches). After all, the apostle Paul used sports metaphors in his letters and appeared to be knowledgeable about the games of the day.

Nor am I suggesting that all teachers are competent, wise, dedicated, and worthy of employment (though most of us can name teachers of high caliber who influenced us). Certainly, issues like seniority versus performance are matters for debate.

It does seem ironic, though, that we produce gobs of money for entertainment while skimping on investment in our children.

 

Multitudes Versus One-at-a-Time

News stories first reported the large number of Tunisians fleeing their country’s instability. The mostly young Tunisians attempt to cross the Mediterranean in boats to reach Europe. The reports now include Libyans. By the time you read this, other nationalities may be added. Some Europeans fear being overwhelmed by tides of seekers after a better life as many North African and Middle Eastern countries experience turmoil. We are reminded of the boat people from Cuba and Haiti in this hemisphere. Or, other boat people from Vietnam fleeing to more stable Asian nations.

In one of my stories, Kate, a young American thrust into a job in the Middle East, becomes aware of such needs. She is part of a sting operation to halt the illegal entry of young South Asian men into the United States. In recounting the success of the operation, she tells another character, “… they all looked so terrified. They began running in…different directions. … we can’t let them all into the U.S., can we? There are too many of them. But they’re not criminals or anything. They’re only looking for a job. What’s the answer?”

The story doesn’t give “the answer” in so many words. However, Kate later helps an abused maid return to her country with a relief agency job that might help her poverty-stricken village. The desperate needs of so many overwhelm us if we do not keep in mind that people are helped one at a time.