It's time for religions to stop tolerating intolerance
I have always wondered why we tolerate fanatics, even bless them, as they divide and destroy our communities of faith. When I talk about fanatics, I mean those people who want to exclude others -- gay men and lesbians, for instance -- from our faith communities. They judge people who have had an abortion, but they may consider a community gossip to be their best friend. They twist the words of the holy books to fit their agendas. They tell lies to achieve their goals. They bad-mouth people who have fallen under hard times. Some years ago, a friend told me about one man in his church who was criticizing the pastor of the congregation and making statements that sounded like showdown talk. My friend overheard this whispering campaign for several Sundays. Finally, one day he asked the man to step into the empty kitchen of the church. The conversation was short and effective. "I've been overhearing you talk about our pastor the past few weeks," my friend said. "I was just wondering, are you trying to get our pastor fired?" "Oh, no, no," the man said. "Well that's good, because you would have one terrible fight on your hands and I would be your chief opponent." The two men stood leaning against the kitchen counters staring at each other in silence. Finally the man turned and walked away, took his wife's arm and left the church. And all talk about dumping the pastor stopped. It doesn't take a big effort to silence these people. We know they are cowards, the kind of people who will start a campaign and then drop out of sight. They're the little boy in your sixth-grade class who was always ratting on the other kids. The kind of children who were always trying to get someone else in trouble to make themselves look better. I guarantee these are people who will back down as soon as they are confronted. These are tiny incidents in comparison to what happened in New York City and Washington, D.C. But I think peace comes most often in small doses rather than in huge victories. I think it's time we told fanatics they don't matter anymore. We need to tell them their idea of religion is so twisted that it doesn't have a place in history. I think we have to tell fanatics they are full of crooked ideas and it's time to get things straight. In the 1960s, fanatics were everywhere, and nobody seemed to have a clear sense of where the nation was heading. One night I attended a forum on sex education held in one of the public elementary schools in Grand Forks, N.D., where I served a church. Some very mild films were shown, and trusted teachers talked about their goals for the programs. The gymnasium was packed, and people, including myself, were standing against the back wall. When the presentation ended, the questions started. Most of us could not believe the hostility, the accusations against innocent teachers, the claims that communists would infiltrate the program and that children would be sexually perverted if the program were implemented. When the questions ran out, I pushed away from the wall and started out the door. But then I saw a man approaching a male teacher, a well-known and admired professional in the community. The protagonist was a big guy, and he hit the teacher hard with one bony finger, knocking him back against the wall. He screamed, "I know who you are. I know what you think. You want our kids to be perverts. You want my kids corrupted." With each accusation came a hard poke to the chest. That was pretty sad. But the most horrible thing was that I was the only person who came to the teacher's defense. The fanatic was given freedom to violate another human being, a citizen, without restraint. That's what we are dealing with today. We have allowed the fanatics to violate us for so long that now they believe they can take over the world. It's no longer just a little sex education program or a small congregation in the suburbs. Now it's the whole world, and we sit in the middle of the fray. Pilgrims, we must be diligent, for evil is all about us and our faith and liberty are at stake. Clark D. Morphew Posted 9-22-01