Why religious people can be more tolerant than secularists
Our culture perpetuates a myth that tolerance stems from indifference. But respect for another's religion often grows from commitment to one's own faith.
David Shankbone
Swirling around the recent ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was an array of questions about religious practice and freedom, about tolerance and intolerance.
How are we to make sense of these issues, even to think about them, in the present charged and often ugly atmosphere? Where are we to turn for guidance?
Someone I have found helpful is a Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks. Sacks is the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth. He is also the author of a number of books which address these vexing questions, including, “The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations,” and “How to Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility.”
Sometimes, when it comes to such matters, it seems that the world presents us with but two choices: religious extremism, on one hand, or thoroughgoing secularism, on the other. When confronted with the religious extremist like the Gainesville pastor who threatened to hold an Qu’ran burning or the Imam who has put a Seattle cartoonist under a death threat, one is certainly tempted to say, as many have, “If that’s what religion is, I want none of it,” and to sign on with the secularists.
The interesting thing about Sacks is that he feels, and argues persuasively, that the way ahead for religiously pluralistic societies (and a religiously pluralistic world) will not be charted by either of these types or options. Certainly not by the religious extremist; but neither will the thoroughgoing secularist be of much help.
The secularist may argue for tolerance. Tolerance is a hallmark virtue of modernity, and certainly a necessary one. But is it sufficient?
At least sometimes, tolerance masks indifference. The person who breezily declares that, “Well, all religions are really just the same, only different paths up the same mountain,” may not be that helpful or persuasive to those whose faith is at the core of their life and culture. People who dismiss religious faith often end up dismissing people of faith. They lack the vocabulary and points of reference to enter into some of the most important conversations.
In a passage from The Dignity of Difference, Sacks relates a parable told to him by a Jewish mystic.
“Imagine two people who spend their lives transporting stones. One carries bags of diamonds. The other hauls sacks of rocks. Each is now asked to carry a consignment of rubies. Which of the two understands what he is now to carry? The man who is used to diamonds knows that stones can be precious, even those that are not diamonds. But the man who has carried only rocks thinks the stones are a mere burden. They have weight but not worth. Rubies are beyond his comprehension.“So it is, he said, with faith. If we cherish our own, then we will understand the values of others. We may regard ours as a diamond and another faith as a ruby, but we know that both are precious stones . . . True tolerance, he implied, comes not from the absence of faith but from its living presence. Understanding the particularity of what matters to us is the best way of coming to appreciate what matters to others.”
This, suggests Sacks, is what is needed in our time. We need people who have mined their own religious traditions deeply. We need people who are used to carrying diamonds and so know something of the value of rubies. We need people and communities of faith that are both deeply rooted in their own tradition and radically open to people of other faiths and traditions.
Sometimes in modern and Western cultures we imagine that the person best equipped to be truly tolerant is the person without any deep or particular religious or world-view commitments of his or her own and who, as such, is assumed to be open to all. It is the myth of detached objectivity.
Sacks argues for a different option, something more and something deeper than tolerance: a radical openness and respect for the faith and traditions of others, because one is so deeply rooted in one’s own.
In the immediate wake of 9/11 in 2001, there was understandable apprehension among Muslims in Seattle. The Church Council of Greater Seattle, a Christian group, set up a combination patrol-vigil at the Islamic Center in North Seattle. Day and night volunteers were present, keeping watch, being a visible presence to allay harassment and acts of violence.
Perhaps these Christians had carried sufficient diamonds in their own faith lives and traditions to understand the value of the precious gems of others and thus to watch over them, even if it meant putting themselves at some risk.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Sep 29, 8:11 a.m. Inappropriate
I am not religious, and I cannot fathom how people believe what they believe. But I also fully support and defend their right to believe that stuff. What confounds me is that people try to put religion into government. All religions should be entirely opposed to government interference, and yet here we seem to think that sanctioning tolerance through those that are not religious.
"The secularist may argue for tolerance. Tolerance is a hallmark virtue of modernity, and certainly a necessary one."
No, the atheists will argue that you're all wasting your time, but that tolerance is not a virtue in all areas. Tolerance of behaviors and social norms that are destructive need to NOT be tolerated. Head scarves and treating women as second-class only ingrains an antiquated culture that always ends up destructively for those not in power within their religion. 100 years ago "good Christians" thought their little women should serve and reproduce. Now, we actually have more or less gotten beyond it.
We need to "tolerate" only those things which get the religious into modern society. We need not tolerate racism, sexism, or intolerance of other beliefs or of no belief. Otherwise "tolerance" is just apathy.
Posted Wed, Sep 29, 8:57 a.m. Inappropriate
It would be constructive if the world religions would expunge the intolerant passages from their respective holy books. It seems strange to hear liberal clergy preach tolerance when the Bible, Qu’ran, and other holy books say the opposite. These texts come down quite clearly on the side of the Gainesville pastors of the world.
It would help if the world religions would admit the holy books are not the word of god, but simply works of men and women. It is time to update them.
Posted Wed, Sep 29, 9:23 a.m. Inappropriate
That's an interesting thought, one that I hadn't considered before. Although I am not Catholic myself, my family is heavily Catholic and I see a lot of what is going on in the Church. In recent years the Church has undertaken a concerted effort to promote interreligious dialog, and there has been a message of not merely tolerance, but understanding and respect for different religious traditions. The downside to this, though, is that there is a culture-war element: different religions need to band together to fight secularism, which is th real threat.
Another danger that I see, which we haven't gotten to yet but could in the future, is that there develops a sort of "moderate versus extremist" culture war. It's one thing to criticize the excesses of a certain way of though, and it is quite another to demand conformity to a way of thought. It's not entirely clear where the line is between the two.
A particularly vexing question for me, and one that I'm afraid people have shied away from in interreligious dialog, is this. Most people, whether religious or secular, have a definite point of view on fundamental questions about the nature of the world. Most consider their points of view to be correct, to the exclusion of the answers that other groups provide. It is not easy, even for a person who makes a good faith effort to be respectful, to reconcile respect with the belief that they are right and others are wrong. Can we confront this issue head-on without it being divisive?
Posted Wed, Sep 29, 10:49 a.m. Inappropriate
Why is secularism a threat to religion? Secularists rarely want to eliminate religion, they just want keep religion from having a political influence over our lives.
The 'fight against secularism' was a primary motivation of the 9/11 terrorists.
Posted Wed, Sep 29, 11:28 a.m. Inappropriate
Interesting parable. But what exactly is a secularist in this context? I assume we are not confusing secularists with committed atheists, militant, radical, or otherwise.
I am not religious. But I haven't been toting rocks, either. To argue that those without religious faith have been transporting rocks while those with have been transporting diamonds is a little extreme. I don't think I'm alone in my situation: raised without religion, but with a sense of tradition and respect for others'. That perhaps comes from my father's upbringing, which was Orthodox Jewish. Though he did not practice after he left home, he always remained a Jew — and when I read the Analects of Confucius for the first time, it was as if my mother was speaking to me.
What am I carrying? Is it less valuable than a diamond?
It should also be pointed out that diamonds are merely carbon, formed under extreme pressure. Perhaps that can be a lesson: we're all carrying something. Value is in the eye of the beholder.
Posted Wed, Sep 29, 12:33 p.m. Inappropriate
In response to Andy's comment:
I don't personally think that secularism is a threat to religion in the USA at the present time, but some people, particularly social conservatives, see it that way. They see religious practice as the ground for good living, and consequently a decline of religiosity leads to social problems such as higher crime. Outside of the US, secularist ideology can pose a threat to religious practice; France's decision to ban the hijab would be an example.
The stated pretext for the 9/11 attacks was American military presence in Saudi Arabia. I don't think that a "fight against secularism" had anything to do with it.
Posted Wed, Sep 29, 1:46 p.m. Inappropriate
pepper, the 9/11 pentagon target speaks to the military presence in Saudi Arabia, but the Twin Towers target symbolism seems aimed at secularist, capitalist part of American society. This is just my opinion, however.
The French point is interesting and prompted me to read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_law_on_secularity_and_conspicuous_religious_symbols_in_schools
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%C3%AFcit%C3%A9
It is a complicated issue, but it seems the law is centered more on assimilation into the French culture. The law does not single out the head scarf--it applies to all religious attire. The French have law declaring the separation of church and state (since 1905). We also have similar law, but it is not well enforced.
Posted Wed, Sep 29, 7:28 p.m. Inappropriate
I thought the lesson in the parable you quote was going to be a more sophisticated one:
"It doesn't matter what you've been carrying--so long as you're in good shape and are capable of bearing the burden."
If you're asked to carry a weight from Point A to Point B, why do you need to know what's in it? And why wouldn't someone who's "just been carrying rocks" NOT know the value of diamonds, rubies, 50-year-old port, or whatever?
I associate tolerance with humility, thoughtfulness, empathy, and the willingness to suspend judgment long enough to accord others their human rights.
That has nothing to do with belief systems, except in the broadest (i.e. "secular") sense--and if you don't believe that, I'd like to send you a user's manual for "how to conduct an inquisition." That DOES require that you be a believer.
Posted Thu, Sep 30, 3:19 p.m. Inappropriate
I would like to respectfully submit a request that the headline writer take time to read the articles.
Thank you.
Posted Sun, Oct 3, 10:02 a.m. Inappropriate
It is fine to disdain probably wrong beliefs, like that gods or flying saucers are real, or to despise definitely wrong beliefs, like that women are inferior to men. The problem comes when we attach the word "intolerant" to such attitudes. It is too loaded. It would be useful to re-frame this entire discussion without using that word.
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