THE OTHERS

Muslims refer to non-Muslims as infidels; Jews refer to other people as gentiles; Christians refer to other people as pagans or heathens.  In more recent times the terms heathen and pagan have come to refer to people who are not one of the three major religions: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.  Some American Indian tribes referred to themselves as The People.  Other people were apparently "the others."  Sadly, we all seem to view other people as very different and separate from ourselves, in other words, they are "the others."  We name them.  We don't allow them to name themselves.  I recently read an editorial in the New York Times commenting that although Gandhi was certainly a good man he would obviously have to burn in hell, because he wasn't a Christian.  I knew a man in my church at one time who said that we should not even speak to a Buddhist, because, after all they were not Christians and we could not communicate with anyone who was not a Christian. 

We carry this concept of "the others"  too far.  In Iraq, the people are terribly divided even though they are all Muslims.  Some are Sunni, some are Shiites, there may be some Sufis, some are Kurds.  They each view the "others" as "the other." 

I believe that all the people of the planet Earth are children of God.  Some are not the children of a lesser god.  All are children of God.  I believe in Universal Salvation.  We all have different paths to God.  I see no problem with that.  We all have different personalities, different cultures, and different languages.  There are many reasons why one path or another appeals to each individual person.  The problem is that we fail to honor and respect other choices and other paths.  Now obviously when we deal with a serial killer, or a Hitler or Stalin, we are truly dealing with people who have serious problems.  Do they achieve salvation?  I am comfortable leaving that problem up to God.  As for the rest of us, we all have our shortcomings and we all have made mistakes.  I will leave the judgment of all of that up to God also. 

But can we really leave something as important as this up to God?  Maybe we feel compelled to inform God how to manage salvation.  I believe that we are too concerned with judging other people and other peoples' religious views.  Christians committed the Crusades.  We cannot hold all Christians responsible for that forever.  We cannot hold all Muslims responsible for 9/11.  We have to have some forgiveness and tolerance for "the others" among us.