During a recent discussion online about the Episcopal National
Cathedral offering space for Friday night Muslim prayers, a colleague of mine
made some very good observations, but then made this intriguing remark, “Of course, tolerance for its own sake should
never be an end in itself.”
As a student of history and particularly church history,
I would like to suggest tolerance like any virtue can and should be exercised
as an end in itself. Further, tolerance
of other peoples’ religious beliefs may be one of the greatest contributions of
Protestantism. What do I mean and why am
I saying this?
The word tolerance has seemed to fall in disfavor in
recent years. Perhaps it is because when
we say we “tolerate” someone or someone’s beliefs it tends to sound
condescending. It seems to imply “you
may be wrong, but I graciously have chosen to tolerate you in spite of
this.” If this is what you think, then
recapture the development of this important virtue.
The history of all denominations and indeed faith groups
are often replete with examples of intolerance.
Catholics did not tolerate Protestants. Protestants persecuted and
murdered Catholics. Lutherans did not tolerate Calvinists. Anglicans did not tolerate Congregationalist,
Presbyterians and even Methodist.
However as these different churches emerged from bloody wars and acts of
repression and then found their way to places like the new world, they learned,
sometimes painfully, the importance of toleration. And in cultures and countries where religious
liberty is truly exercised, as opposed to merely given lip service, religious
leaders have learned that the defense of someone else’s right to their beliefs
is defense of our own.
In the U.S., the two clear early beneficiaries of
tolerance were Roman Catholics and Jews.
I do not say this to deny the often deeply held anti-Catholic and
anti-Semitism that existed in American history, but the truth is that over
time, the toleration given between Methodist and Baptists as well as other
protestant bodies, created a religious umbrella that allowed these two groups
to exist and most importantly to exist without state sponsored repression. Today,
the Roman Catholic Church is the fastest growing and largest Christian body in
the U.S.
Let me underscore what I just said. The learning by religious leaders that in
defending the free religious beliefs and practices of others they provided a
strong defense of their own religious freedom was a direct result of the practice
of the virtue of tolerance. Tolerance
carries an implied two way bridge, a kind of covenant, that I tolerate your
religious values because it insures a wider context of religious freedom that
benefits us all.
This is why I am prepared to say unequivocally that
tolerance for its own sake is worth it.
In other words, even if Christians learn nothing else about the beliefs
of Muslims and their practices, our ability to provide an attitude and even a
place of tolerance is a significant accomplishment. Of course, few early religious leaders in the
U.S. could have imagined the religious pluralism that exists today in our
nation. Now we have a significant number of Muslims as well as other non-Judeo-Christian
traditions, but it is a natural evolution of the virtue of tolerance that it is
extended to this wider circle.
Further, and this
is the really provocative thing that I have to say, in the face of growing
secularization and a more vocal and hostile atheism, Christians, Jews, and
Muslims have an overwhelming stake in religious toleration. Imagine a society in which religion is
allowed as a personal freedom, but public displays, such as corporate worship,
holidays, and tax free worship spaces are denied. I think this is not hard to imagine and could
happen within one generation! I continue
to fight this battle by pointing out that separation of Church and State is
something I value as a citizen of this nation, but that for Christians, Jews
and Muslims, separation of politics and religion is impossible. As a Christian, my beliefs in Jesus and his
teachings have social, ethical, cultural, and political applications. I cannot separate my personal beliefs from my
public behavior. If the early Christians
could have done this, all of them would have been happy to burn incense to the
current Caesar!
So, in the unfolding relationships between religious
groups including Muslims in the country, I vote for toleration. It is possible that I may learn more about the
religion of Islam in doings so, but I do not have to do this to justify
toleration. Neither must I become syncretic
or Universalist in my own religious views to do so. In fact it is exactly the defense of my own
views, those of my Church, and of my fellow citizens that compels me to exercise
toleration. So I say “Tolerance for its own sake” is something to affirm just
as all virtues are good in themselves.
I do know, of
course, that there are plenty of Christians in this country that take the view
that Islam is a false religion and its adherents are at best deceived and at
worse evil. They point constantly to the
atrocities of ISIS and other extremist and Jihadist groups as examples for
their beliefs, but this is wrong. We can
no more do this than to have people point to the evils of extremist Christian
groups as justification for condemning all Christians. As Karen Armstrong has argued, at the heart
of all religions and at their best stand the equivalent of the Golden Rule, “do
unto others as you yourself wish to be treated,” and the truth that compassion
comprises the deepest expression of the Spiritual Life. The virtue of tolerance provides the
environment for the best in religion to flourish. This seems to me to be a
worthy end in itself.
