Tag Archives: Abrahamic religions

The Twain Meet: East and West

 

“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat . . .”

–Rudyard Kipling, “The Ballad of East and West”

 

Despite Kipling’s oft-quoted phrase, the east and west meet regularly these days. Our boosters in the Seattle area back the much-touted “pivot” to Asia. Many of the goods to and from Asia pass through our western Washington ports.

Walter Russell Mead, writing back in 2000, suggested a common core that begins to bind east and west perhaps more than trade—the Abrahamic faiths. Mead believed the communism of China to be a descendant of the Abrahamic faiths, a back door to a belief in beginnings and endings, as opposed to the more circular views of some Eastern cultures. When communism became dominant in China, a whole society was wrenched from traditional teachings.

Still unresolved is how to encourage the most humane way toward an end point.

Kipling’s poem, one in which two young men from different cultures scorn warfare for friendship, ends:

“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!”

What If We Burned Every Religious Text?

 

A letter to the editor of our island newspaper suggested that we “gather together a handful of free thinkers . . . and stage a burning of Korans, Bibles and Torahs to protest ALL the Abrahamic religions. Perhaps their pernicious belief in One God, a male god who plays favorites, metes out violent punishments and promises dubious rewards in a fictional Heaven—perhaps these beliefs are the true malignancy and cause of all our suffering. Maybe, if we just burn those pesky books, all the evil in the world will go away . . .”

As a Christian, I could profess anger at the man’s suggestions. But why? The man expressed a sincere conclusion from what he sees in the world. Better to examine why he sees such evil in religion, including Christianity.

His letter was written when a small church in Florida caused a media sensation by burning the Muslim Koran. No matter that leaders of all major religions protested the actions of the fringe group.

I suspect this fringe group was the straw that led to the writer’s suggestion. No doubt he was appalled by terrorists who cause unneeded suffering in the name of religion. Perhaps he remembered the Crusades of the Middle Ages. He appears also to have read passages in the Old Testament written when the Hebrews first sought to understand their God, before prophets like Amos called for justice for the poor as few nations had previously known and which call us today (“let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream”).

If we got rid of all Biblical writings, we would no longer have Jesus’ instructions to his followers to love one another. We would not have his example of forgiving those who hated him. We would not have the New Testament letter which encourages Christians to “bless those who persecute you . . . Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all . . if your enemies are hungry, feed them . . . ” We would not have Christians inspired by Christ’s teachings to care for the hungry, the thirsty, strangers, the naked, the sick, and the prisoners.

Do some people who call themselves Christians do despiteful things? Certainly. But so do people who profess no religion. Christ told us how to tell his true followers. “You will know them by their fruits.” Christian teachings don’t cause evil, but the failure of Christians to live them out does.