While attempting to criticize President Obama for his use of Reinhold Niebuhr, Ross Douthat (Feb. 10, ADN) stated a case about not becoming too involved in the horrible religious events of the past. Most particularly, he was concerned about the level of "theological guilt ... our liberal Protestant president" actually feels about the "Inquisition."
"Guilt" is really not the issue when seeking to understand the effects of events like the Inquisition, or the Crusades, or the 2,000-year history of violence that fills the relationship between Christians and Jews, or the recent events of violence that mark the presence of certain fundamentalist Moslems. It is really an issue of responsibility ... not guilt ... when we speak of the response to these varied and many acts of violence perpetrated by practitioners of every religion on this planet.
When dealing with religion, the conversations and understandings are often confused by our own individual ideologies, beliefs and understandings of the way we believe that God works in the world. What we really need to do is understand that the most liberal among us in our religious traditions and the most fundamentalist do indeed share the same histories. The most liberal Jews do share the same history as the most fundamentalist. The most liberal Christians do share the same history as the most fundamentalist. The most liberal Moslems do share the same history as the most fundamentalist.
Not only do we share the same history, but the same good and beneficent traditions as well as the same bad and most sinister. If you want to find out the worst part of your particular religious tradition, just ask someone who doesn't share that tradition. They'll tell you for sure, if they have, or have not, made any sort of investigation. It's easy; our foibles, our horrific examples of religious intolerance, hatred of the other, and elevation of ourselves higher than other traditions that just don't understand The Truth in the same way that we do. It's simple to discover those bruises on humanity that our traditions have inflicted. We just do not want to look for our own ... only "their" examples of violence, "their" examples of hatred and bigotry that are evident in "their" religious texts. But, we oh, so rarely will look at ourselves.
And, actually, why should we? Non-Jews, non-Christians, and non-Moslems will be happy to tell us.
And, what is the response from the more liberal among our traditions? "Well, those violent people aren't really Jews, they're not really Christians, they're not really Moslems, because our traditions don't teach us to be violent; our traditions teach us to be peaceful. All of our religions are just peaceful."
But, when we look at history, ancient and modern, we find this is just not the case, is it? All religions have violence in them. It can be found in the canonical texts that we hold so dear. All religions have in their texts and history the teaching that "our" tradition is better than any other. All religions do have those practitioners that believe these traditions to be irrelevant for us today. But, all religions have, as well, those practitioners that believe that, because these traditions were "commanded by God," they therefore must be observed -- even those that order the murder of innocent people.
When God is on "their" side, what is there to stop people from enacting horrible violence, blaming God, and quoting the text, taking no real responsibility themselves?
What should be present to stop them is a voice within each and every religious tradition that recognizes and accepts that these beliefs and actions are truly a part of our histories and religions. These really are Jews, Christians and Moslems who act this way.
What should be done is the verbal condemnation of the very traditions in our religions that open the doors to bigotry, hatred, and mass murder. We don't share guilt about the violence our religions have created, unless of course, we have personally been involved in those sins. But we do share the responsibility to own our own histories and accept that our religions do really have these horrible notions within them. We need to work actively toward the elimination of those traditions from our religions. But, at the same time, we should join in teaching the good, the humane, the care and respect for life that our religions do indeed teach as well. If we truly wish to repair the world, we must include repairing our own houses.
Michael Oblath is the rabbi at Congregation Beth Sholom in Anchorage. Youssef Barbour is the principal for interfaith dialogue for the Islamic Community Center of Anchorage Alaska (ICCAA). Heather Barbour is a member of the interfaith committee for ICCAA. Rev. Matthew Schultz is pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Anchorage.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.