Two women with headscarves at Barnes and Noble, 2000
Religion, Other and Otherwise
In 2000 I had an argument via letter with Pastor Tom Harrison of Asbury United Methodist Church, in Tulsa, OK. I had been thinking and reading about other religions, and realized that one of the big shortcomings of the church was that they were trying to talk to (and yes, convert) people they didn’t understand or know.
The church was then promoting something they called ‘friendship evangelism’ which meant getting to know the person, befriending them, before attempting to explain what you believe and how or why they might want to consider it themselves. We talked about this in our small group and I put forth the question, what if your neighbor you are trying to befriend is a Buddhist, or a Muslim? Do you get to know what they believe, and understand it, find it’s value, it’s reasons as well as find out what sort of sports their kids like and what sort of novels they read?
There was some discussion about that, some saying yes, some saying no. It was obvious to me that it was important to treat any friend’s religion with respect, not dismissing it by thinking it’s so unimportant that you don’t have to know the basics of it.
Beyond that we were now living in a very interconnected world. Often, in business, some of the congregation were having to travel all over the world, or have to negotiate and do business from home with people of very different cultures and beliefs.
I suggested to my small group leadership that I would like to do a series on other religions. They said maybe I could do a one day presentation, that would probably suffice. I declined the offer since I knew I couldn’t do any of the religions justice in the 10 minutes or so I could dedicate to them in a 1 hour stretch.
I sent a letter to Pastor Harrison with the idea that maybe he could do a series on other religions from the pulpit. Not in detail, but just in general overview, to help people see that the leader of their church was open and willing to understand other groups, religions, cultures, etc. I thought it was needed because I had heard a lot of very ignorant and judgmental opinions put forth in the discussions I had had. I thought he needed to take the lead and guide others to be educated and open, not ignorant and reactionary.
He responded angrily saying it was not his place to talk about other religions, that enough of our culture was talking about them, that he was there to talk about our own religion. That for him to bring up other religions in that way would be tantamount to giving them all equal weight. He told me he worried about my soul and where I might go if I continued to think the way I was thinking.
To say I was stunned was an understatement. While I can certainly understand a Pastor politely declining a sermon series idea for all sort of reasons, I did expect him to be considerate and thoughtful about the idea. Instead he was angry, defensive and abused his power by putting out a spiritual threat.
Due to this and a few other reasons, I decided to leave Asbury and go to another church. Not many months later September 11th happened. The idea of understanding what others believe and why all of a sudden didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
I have always been very intrigued by the Christian martyrs of the ancient and medieval era. What they went through for their change of beliefs was horrific. Not just at the hands of the Romans, but at the hands of other Christians who happened to be in power.
A recent day example is the case of Carlton Pearson. He was a leader of a huge evangelical, pentecostal church here in Tulsa. He was the darling of that part of American Christianity with a high profile in the public eye, accolades, fame and attention.
But his religious journey led him to change his mind about something. Something fundamentally at odds with fundamentalism.
Whereas his branch of Christianity had always stated that only those who accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, out loud and in their heads, are saved, he came to believe otherwise. He came to believe that everyone on planet earth, no matter what, was saved. Plenty of people argue about this and I am not here to do that. I am just saying Carlton Pearson had to be very religious to change his religion.
Within weeks of him publicly stating this he was anathema to those who formally embraced him. He eventually lost his congregation, his building, his friends, his money. He had a small remnant of people from his church who stayed with him, meeting at another church that lent them their activity hall and sanctuary on Sunday afternoons.
He eventually found a group of religious people in Tulsa who embraced him and his congregation. They said you can come here and worship. They said we have all sorts of people with all sorts of beliefs and they are all loved and accepted. They said if you change your mind again, we will still accept you, still love you. They said if you cease to believe at all, we will still accept you, still love you.
That church is All Souls Unitarian Church and I am proud to be a member.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Marie-Josephine de Suin de Beausacq, 1829-1899, French aphorist. She wrote 2 books of aphorisms under the pseudonym Comtess Diane.
Well, there is Darwin Day, but besides that Atheism just can’t compete with other belief systems. Celebrating an idea without an event attached to it is not as easy as one might think. You can’t really put the Big Bang on a calendar so that one is a bit tricky to nail down.
One of the things I love best about religious holidays is that while there is usually a historical event being celebrated, there is also an idea that is being celebrated as well. You can celebrate both or one or the other.
My favorite holiday within my tradition is Christmas.
What is yours?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
When you get right down to it, it’s about security. A person or an institution, when they are secure and at peace about who they are, can be made fun of, and can make fun of themselves.
When one is insecure and feel that their beliefs aren’t ‘water proof’ then they tend to get defensive and very serious, without a lot of tolerance for even mild ribbing (or questioning).
When much is invested in a complex belief system, and the consequences of that system being weakened threaten you and your position in the world, it is hard to allow it to be made fun of.
What that tells me is that the belief system is more important to you than the actual belief. That is not a good religious faith if you ask me.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by G. K. Chesterton, 1874-1936, English writer
Here is a little story about eavesdropping and the consequences it engendered.
My daughter loves to evaluate events she has been in, for example a choir show or cheerleading competition in high school. Afterwards we would sit around, maybe at a restaurant, and go over each and every routine we saw, telling her what we thought of them, good and bad. It’s a way for her to figure out her place in the world, to be reassured that she, and the group, did ok, maybe even great. She likes evaluating and critiquing, it helps her make sense of what she went through.
We were doing just that this past weekend after her performance in her College’s annual big singing and dancing extravaganza. Eighteen groups performed over 4 hours. Eight of them were to be chosen to move on and perform next fall at another big event. It is a very intense competition.
We were at Denny’s around midnight going over each group’s performance, giving our opinions of everything from the sets to the dancing, music choices, solo performers, etc. We were laughing about some of them, saying how impressed we were with others. Some were good, some great, some terrible, and we were saying so. We all had different opinions. I liked some that the others thought were terrible. It was interesting comparing notes.
While we were in the middle of this discussion a woman from the table next to us got up and came over to us. She looked angry and said in a pretty huffy manner, ‘Could you please stop talking about these performances. I have friends in that show and you are personally attacking them. I am very offended and I would like you to stop.’ She then went back to her table and sat down. She stared at us. I was facing her and stared back. She had a friend facing away from us who never talked or showed her face.
My ire was up a bit and I responded by saying ‘We will say whatever we want, wherever we want’. She responded ‘You are offensive to me, what you said was a personal attack on a friend of mine.’ Our daughter’s friend had her head on the table by then, our daughter was looking uncomfortable and my wife I knew was wondering where I was headed. I told the woman, ‘what we were doing was not a personal attack, but an honest critique of a performance, our comments were restricted to how they did on stage and we said nothing about them personally.’
She then said ‘You know, we are Christian in this place and you shouldn’t talk like that. You should just say ‘I liked this, I didn’t like that’ and move on.’ Anyone who knows me knows that if someone plays the ‘Christian’ card without knowing what they are talking about (in my opinion obviously) is going to get a response from me. I said ‘Being Christian does not mean you are not allowed to critique and evaluate performances’. It went on for a few more minutes and then we let it go. We continued our critique, albeit in lower voices.
The rest of the evening was taken up with discussing this woman’s comments, her intrusion into our conversation, her eavesdropping in the first place. We were in turn defensive, offended, understanding, compassionate, angry, self-righteous and in hysterics over it.
After we got home, my wife and I discussed our feelings about it. While she was proud of my measured response we also both felt that we perhaps could have said things differently to the woman. Her belligerence at the beginning led the way to my response but we wondered if I couldn’t have gone in a different direction with it.
We could have been more sympathetic to the possibility that the other woman in the booth had been in the show and was really hurt by our comments. We could have been less confrontational back to the woman. In the end I don’t feel bad about my response but I do want to always be able to evaluate honestly who I am and what I do, for my sake, for the sake of the people I interact with and for the sake of my daughters and the example I set for them.
What ideas do you have for how I could have responded, or how you would have?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
“There’s nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head.” – Thornton Wilder, 1897-1975, American playwright
“If God Made Us In His Image, We Have Certainly Returned The Compliment.” Voltaire
Usually this quote is used as a negative statement about God and man. But read the story below and perhaps you will feel that just sometimes the image God creates of us and we create of God reflects well on us both.
I received a wonderful email yesterday from a delightful woman in Chicago. She is doing some advanced academic work in Theology and wanted permission to use 5 of my napkin drawings in her work and in presentations regarding peace building in Africa. I was happy to make the connection and give permission.
A number of wonderful things about it. She is in graduate school but offered to pay for the rights to use the images. Think of how many profit making enterprises don’t have the courtesy to ask permission to use an image much less offer to pay. I took her up on the willingness to pay since I believe they are worth the money and she will feel more freedom to use them as she sees fit in her work. She was telling me my work had value and was willing to prove it in a concrete way by paying me money that could help me in ways a mere complement could not.
The other wonderful thing is that she is using them in a serious thesis regarding peace building in the world and later in presentations regarding that same thing in Africa, where peace building is a hard road for all. It really made my day to know that.
They are just silly drawings on napkins, but good ideas well stated are powerful and transformative no matter where they are found.
“There Was One Who Thought Himself Above Me, And He Was Above Me Until He Had That Thought.” – Elbert Hubbard
I am not sure about this anymore. It seems to have a ‘false modesty’ thing that you find in Christianity often. There is a ‘rule’ that you are suppose to not know of your own greatness or goodness, that if you do it is pride. I now disagree with that to some degree. I think it is good to know who you are. That doesn’t mean you are conceited, it means you see clearly. That also does not mean you aren’t going to be humble and appreciate others and who they are and how they compare to you. If they are better, then you admit that as well.
“If You Make People Think They’re Thinking, They Will Love You. If You Make Them Think, They’ll Hate You.” – Don Marquis
This quote is particularly important for me. I have a long history within the christian church and I had to part ways intellectually with it, in many ways due to the truth behind this quote. The traditional christian church isn’t really interested in its congregants thinking freely. They want to give the illusion of thinking through ideas. But in the end they fully expect that the answer they supply will be accepted and further questions will be not be forthcoming.
I was not comfortable being a youth leader when I was basically not allowed to encourage the students to really think for themselves, especially considering I had daughters in the youth group. Luckily my daughters have all become thinkers in their own right, often leading the way for my progress in the world of ideas.
“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless we preach as we walk.” – St. Francis
While I am no longer a believer in Christian evangelism, I am a believer in practicing what you preach. This quote clarifies the futility of preaching if you only do it on the alter, instead of wherever you are. Figuring out how to live according to your principles daily instead of just talking about them is a very noble goal!
“Unbelief in one thing is founded upon blind belief in another.”
So, if this is the case, what are your unbeliefs? And once you tell us that, how did your beliefs, blind or otherwise, create those unbeliefs? Or, maybe you don’t believe this quote about unbelief?
