It was incredibly refreshing yesterday — during the national prayer breakfast — when President Obama made room for the Godless in the manic realm of a national, religious, fervor and reinforced the necessary separation of church and state.
There is no doubt that the very nature of faith means that some of our beliefs will never be the same. We read from different texts. We follow different edicts. We subscribe to different accounts of how we came to be here and where we’re going next – and some subscribe to no faith at all…
We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all great religions together. Jesus told us to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” The Torah commands, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” In Islam, there is a hadith that reads “None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” And the same is true for Buddhists and Hindus; for followers of Confucius and for humanists. It is, of course, the Golden Rule – the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.
It’s a pleasure to read those inspiring words from our world leader who recognizes there can be more than one God and even no God at all — and the facts of those beliefs is no one’s business but those who hold them; and it is certainly not the role of the government to enforce one, narrow, view of redemption and the afterlife.
I have always found it curiously and morally offensive when Christians claim their God will save and protect Muslim children.
Does Jesus care about Muslim children?
Perhaps the more important question is, “Do Muslim children want to be saved by Christ?”
Or are Muslim children just “raised wrong” and they fail to realize there is only one Christian Godhead — and it is only in their deaths, when they are ultimately Saved, that they will finally realize the true way and the real want of the single deity?
Should the world religious majority rule all questions of prayer and redemption and the afterlife or are we only seeking out trouble in a land that needs no further religious consumption?