Have you ever wondered about folks whose religious faith is different from yours? It’s really OK to do that. Even if you don’t find yourself within a community of faith, it’s really important to think about this question. Every religious community teaches that it holds the key to God’s Truth. Indeed, there would be no religious traditions without such commitment, belief, and faith. Would there?

Our world shrinks daily. As a result of that shrinkage every one of us comes into some contact with religious faith every bit as strong as our own – on the internet, cable, newspapers, radio, or in our work settings or leisure interactions. One must live in a hermetically sealed environment these days to escape contact with religious faith different in origin, expression, and tradition from one’s own.

In my own tradition of Christianity … Judeo-Christianity to be more precise … both Jewish scriptures and Jesus Christ himself show hospitality to the religious other. While we may debate the meaning of this hospitality to the religious stranger, and certainly history is filled with such debates and conflicts, the response of hosopitality arises from the broadly shared understanding that God has created everyone and everything and pronounced that creation "good," thus providing an initial foundation for relationship and regard.

One of the creeds of my Christian faith proclaims, among many other rich theological affirmations, that "we live in God’s world" and that "we are not alone." There are others, as Jesus proclaimed, "not of my fold." What a marvelous invitation to honor, protect, and pray for those with whom and from whom we may differ, differ even profoundly.

Indeed, ours is a world of many distinct and separate faith communities. In such a world hospitality toward the "religious other" is not a one-way back-street but a broad community commons! We are NOT alone!

This affirmation does not imply that there are not significant and dividing differences between faith traditions. Certainly there are. Part of every tradition involves elements of seemingly absolute exclusivity that cannot and should not be glossed over or denied for the sake of superficial harmony or feigned "unity."

On the other hand, when I as a Christian, believing that Jesus Christ opens the door to eternal life and salvation to all who come to him, extend my hand and enter into conversation with a person of non-Christian belief and practice, I do so with the certain faith that God has created both of us and that we are both God’s children.

We see this perspective on living peaceably together globally in the proposed constitutional provisions in Egypt today where Islamic leaders seek to include protective provisions that will ensure the right of full participation of minority Christians, notably Coptic Christians, in Egypt’s emerging democracy. This is a sign of hope in the midst of conflict.

Nevertheless, the forces of religious bigotry seem alive today. Just look toward Gainesville. Still, even in that setting positive hope arises for the mutual recognition of God’s activity in banishing hate and crafting a hate-free inter-religious haven. As I write, the Gainesville Inter-faith Forum brings together persons of broadly different faith traditions that in other global settings seem to be irreconcilably divided and mutually hostile.

Here in Suwannee County, authentic respect for the religious other often takes practical form in the thousands of daily interactions, friendships, and mutual concerns shared between persons of differing Christian traditions, communities, and denominations.

In the shrinking world of the 21st Century, religious differences will become increasingly evident in the global marketplace of ideas and cultures. Assuredly, Suwannee County will see increasing diversity of religious faith. Both our faith experiences and the theological perspectives arising from them can validate the risk of openness to the religious other. I count it a sign of God’s unlimited grace to be open and respectful of all in God’s creation.

Such respect, mutually confirmed, does not violate but indeed validates our deepest religious. I hold to that very possibility. It’s a thought, I believe – reflective, inquisitive, curious, sustained, critical and expansive, and faithful to my Christian tradition – a thought that merits serious and sustained consideration.

What do you think?

William M. Finnin, Jr., Th. D.

Senior Pastor, First United Methodist Church of

Live Oak

wfinnin@yahoo.com

During most of my life and certainly before, revolutions have most often highlighted humankind’s

most violent emotional states and behaviors to express them -- hate, retribution, revenge, and a quest

to acquire political power. With few exceptions violence has accompanied a people’s yearning for an

end of various forms of oppressive social order and the initiation of systemic change.

 During the past two weeks the world witnessed an epic alternative to the clarion call for bloodshed and "the gun"
as a relatively peaceful revolution has emerged in Egypt. Some would liken the massive protests in Cairo

and Alexandria and Suez today to the peaceful revolution in the Philippines in 1986 which brought Corazon Aquino