Fearing the Man from Nazareth

by Rebecca Bynum (August 2013)

Pamela Geller often says, “I don’t care if you worship a stone, just don’t stone me with it.” Or, Bill Warner: “Religion is just what you do to gain heaven or avoid hell,” the implication of both statements being that religious belief concerns no one but the believer and can therefore be safely ignored. Only that which is political needs to be dealt with. Politics is something we’re comfortable with. Religion is something we think we’ve left behind, or is something so personal, we’re afraid to discuss it in the public arena.

Christians are taught to serve God by serving man, Muslims are taught to serve God by serving Islam at the expense of man. Has there ever, in the history of humanity, been a more clear-cut moral difference?

On the other hand, if it is understood that God himself respects the free will of his creatures (within a morally structured universe), then and only then, will men consistently respect the free will of other men. Order can be maintained through inner restraint rather than the outward restraint of law and social coercion. The only way that the present trend toward increasing coercion can be inhibited is through the realization that true morality results not from societal form, but from the guidance and insights originating from spiritual forces within each human being.

One thing is certain, religion cannot be safely ignored.

 

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Rebecca Bynum contributes regularly to The Iconoclast, our Community Blog. Click here to see all her contributions, on which comments are welcome.