Religious Tolerance - A Sermon Excerpt

Note to the reader: 

I happened upon this sermon in my normal course of researching religious tolerance.  I pulled excerpts, from the much longer version, to maintain the interest of my readers and hope I have managed to keep the spirit of what Rev. Frederick-Gray was saying. 

Excerpts from -
Ramadan: Religious Tolerance
By Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

 

"What is happening in the Muslim world is not the sole definition of Islam. In fact, it is in direct opposition to Islam’s initial practice of religious tolerance in its early centuries. Similarly, what happened in Europe during the Inquisitions do not solely define Christianity or Western European people and cultural. They were dark periods of history--ones we never wish to return to.

We cannot let terrorists, or extremists of any religious tradition, define any one religion, or its people. Nor must we tolerate those who perpetuate violence in the name of any religion. Rather we must learn to build bridges with and between those who are also willing to build bridges of learning, understanding and engagement. The way to do this is by partnering with and supporting moderate voices and staying true to our highest ideals of love, compassion and religious freedom. We will never be able to do this if we try to silence or shut out moderate voices in Islam, out of our fear of extremists. Turning our back on moderation only makes the extreme stronger.

We do indeed live in an interconnected world.  An interconnected world, where many religious leaders are learning about and teaching their communities about the wisdom found in other religious traditions. An interconnected world where we gather across lines of race and class, culture, even language to seek a better way--to seek a way to feel enlarged and strengthened and hopeful because of our differences and what we have to learn and teach one another."


I think her sermon is wonderful.  Those of you that have read my posts on tolerance know this reflects my personal views on what is happening concerning our attitudes toward Islam as a whole.  I know I tend to beat this horse a lot, but I feel these attitudes are a prime example of forgetting our own religious histories of persecution and intolerance.  We forget the "do unto others" and "people in glass houses" lessons our parents tried to ingrain in us as children.

I hope you find these three paragraphs from the Reverend as insightful as I do.  I am going to add them to my material, as I move forward with the Congregation for Religious Tolerance, and refer to them often.