Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/religion-2/page/30/)
The precious freedom of speech we all hold dear should never be limited, but stereotyping isn’t free speech. It’s a harmful, dangerous yet insidious way to hold down a group and deny them equality. Let’s not go down that road… again.
Christian community has an urgent role in this history. On the one hand, no church can magically separate itself from the spiritual disease of the wider society. If we could, we would be a cult; we would not be God’s love for a whole world, but against it. Jesus saw this. Stay here in the city, he told his disciples. Here in the church we already have the laboratory set up to help with civilization’s great test.
The war over war with Iran has many battlefronts. Inside Washington, the battle line is between a small coalition of peace and security, non-proliferation and religious groups opposing war and favoring a peaceful solution to the stand off with Iran, and a well-funded war machine comprising neoconservative organizations who believe war with Iran should have started years ago.
It’s no surprise to interfaith activists such as me that interfaith dialogue and relationship building between groups can pave the way towards peace and prosperity. Americans of all faiths would do well to remember this important fact: ignorance breeds hate, and who wants to be ignorant?
You know the fundamentalist rage that is brewing today, the self-proclaimed religious amongst us who hide their homophobic prejudices under the veil of Biblical doctrine, under the veil of God’s will. They can’t handle the prototypical, stereotypical man revealing himself to be gay. They can’t stomach such a world.
And so the bible-driven filth is being directed at Jason today. It’s as ugly as it is expected. However, the one difference — perhaps the most important one to consider today — is that while Jason was born to be a gay man, was bequeathed this identity, those on the religious right calling him filthy names learned their hatred.
Sure enough, a debate erupted this past week over the impromptu memorial at Boylston Street – how to preserve it, where to move it. Such a discussion would have been pointless, if this were ordinary space. If it were incapable of being defiled.
The cruelty of U.S. policy and actions toward these Muslims is beyond reckoning. Clearly the U.S. is not listening to any sort of moral voice in its execution of such policy and action. Clearly the U.S. is not heeding the misery of these prisoners.
The benefits of a separation of church and state are innumerable and undeniable. What Americans have never experienced firsthand is perhaps the most dangerous impact of establishing a state religion: persecution of religious minorities. Muslim countries unfortunately have fallen into this trap all too well. From Saudi Arabia to Pakistan and virtually every Muslim nation in between, so-called Islamic laws have crushed the rights of non-Muslims to the extent that those laws no longer resemble true Quranic teachings. The reality is that when one religion is preferred by the government over another, and preferential treatment is meted out to that religious group in terms of even school prayer or invocations, the result can be dangerous and terrifying.
Nothing is as beautiful as union and unity of mind. Nothing compares with being one—provided each individual is honored and respected. Each individual! Inside that little word, you can hear the matchless value it declares—undividable, must-not-be-broken, I am somebody, an individual. Yet individuals long to be not set apart. We seek unity, community, love, peace—a new heaven and a new earth. The matchless value in the hearts of all peoples in all times is that we may be one.
. . . [T]he extremist Jihadi script is out there; sadly, this constitutes a distinct behavioral model for disaffected and maladjusted individuals to embrace for meaning in their lives.