[soc.religion.christian] On Two Attempts to be Nice

ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) (02/16/91)

This is related to the "tolerance" discussion, but not closely enough
to continue in the same thread.  (What further basis for tolerance do
we need than the Tanach's insistence on justice for all, including strangers?)

A couple of weeks ago I came across two passages in which someone attempted
to say something respectful about another religious tradition.  One of them
"worked", the other, for me, is almost an insult.

	"Written on Scrolls, Inscribed in Hearts"
	David M. Thomas
	Abbey Press, ISBN 0-87029-220-X
	[A Catholic book about marriage.
	 What's a "Baptecostal" doing in a Catholic bookshop?
	 Buying books in order to learn from them, what else?]

p13:	My evangelical sisters and brothers have taught me something
	important.  They search for truth in a focused way.  I once
	dismissed this approach to the complex issues of modern life
	as being simplistic.  I faulted them for looking to answers
	only in the Bible.  I have since learned to respect not only
	the concentration of their research, but even more, the
	humility of their search.  They seek truth with a listening
	attitude; they turn to God in matters both deeply religious
	and deeply human.  They believe--and so do I--that God reveals
	himself in the written word of Scripture.

Frankly, this man is a menace.  If everyone wrote like him, we'd have
a hard time maintaining our divisions.  A paragraph like this, in which
he in effect says "I see the value in your approach, *in the terms in
which you see it*." encourages the reader to try seeing things from
_his_ viewpoint.

	"Who Needs God"
	Harold Kushner
	Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-671-71500-3
	[A "liberal" Rabbi writing about religion.
	 What's a "Baptecostal" doing in a Jewish bookshop?
	 Buying books in order to learn from them, what else?
	 But this one comes from the public library.]

p197	If believing in the Resurrection makes my Christian neighbour
	a better person, more loving and generous, better able to
	cope with misfortune and disappointment, then that is a true
	belief, whether historically true or not.  If believing that
	God commanded him not to eat pork or shellfish gives my
	Orthodox Jewish friend the gift of controlling his impulses,
	then his belief is a true belief, irrespective of whether
	God actually spoke these words. 

Harold Kushner comes across as an extremely nice man, even one of the
wisest people I've come across.  I own a copy of "When Bad Things
Happen to Good People", and wouldn't be without it.  He seems to be
everything that a religious liberal (which he proudly identifies
himself as in this book) should be, and there is much in "Who Needs
God" which will continue to influence me.  Indeed, on reflection, I
shall probably buy a copy of this book too.  But this particular
paragraph was like a slap in the face.  (I suspect that an Orthodox
Jew might feel the same way.)  What Kushner is doing in this
paragraph is *redefining* "true" so that it no longer refers to the
sense which Socrates used and Tarski made mathematical but to some
vague sort of helpfulness/effectiveness.  The previous page says
quite explicitly "religious claims can be true the way that a great
novel is true".  But a great novel is, except for a few corroborative
details added for the sake of verisimilitude, FALSE, not true.  A
novel may be as *lifelike* as you please, as *inspiring* as all-get-
out, as *edifying* as you could wish for, and yet, if the events it
purports to recount did not happen, it is FALSE.  A history may be
threadbare, ugly, degrading, but if the events it purports to
recount did in fact happen, it is TRUE.  Kushner's redefinition of
"true" to stand for "edifying" fails to be irenic, because he is
saying (and does on pp 196--197 say) that it doesn't MATTER whether
Jesus rose or not, it doesn't MATTER whether the Torah was given by
God, and he is in effect telling people who think it does matter
that they are wrong, that they have misunderstood what their own
religions are about.

I would rather have someone telling me "I don't mean to be rude but
you are an idiot for believing in a religion" than someone telling
me "your religion is true but it didn't really happen".

-- 
Professional programming is paranoid programming