BLOGGING TOWARD SUNDAY…

In today’s Winston-Salem Journal there is an excellent article by Donald Kaul titled Tolerant?  Religion Still Has a Long Way to Go.  Kaul says that according to The Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life, about two-thirds of Americans believe that religions other than their own can lead to eternal life (heaven, if you want to be technical). 

I consider that a sign of amazing progress!  For way too long, the faith of our fathers and mothers has been far too exclusivistic.  That way of thinking, in its worst manifestation, insists that only those who get their believing correct will escape hell and be welcomed into heaven.  Forty years ago, J.B. Phillips of Phillips Translation fame, pointed out that, for such people, their God was “too small.” 

Most of us, as a result of having our eyes open in a multi-cultural and ever shrinking world, know and have neighbors who might be Moslem, Jewish, Hindu, etc., and have found them to be wonderful, caring, compassionate people, and cannot imagine that any God worthy of our worship could possibly punish them eternally for the “sin” of not being born an American Christian. 

We should recognize, and be humbled by the fact that for the most part, whatever religion we embrace is more an accident of birth than anything else, and God is big enough to love and care for us all, no matter what name we address Him/Her by.

Filed under: Blogging Toward Sunday