When Religion Becomes Evil

Death threats are now packaged in printer cartridges and sent by mail to synagogues only a few miles from this church. Even religion can become evil, when leaders corrupt the redemptive intent of their historic faith traditions. Professor Charles Kimball identified five warning signs of extremist faith in his book When Religion Becomes Evil:
1. use of absolute truth claims;
2. insistence on blind obedience;
3. establishing the “ideal” time for violent cataclysm;
4. leaders who argue that the ends justify the means;
5. the declaration of a “holy war.”
You will notice in the gospels that Jesus endorses none of these strategies. But today extremist leaders of our faith and others are endorsing indiscriminate violence against innocent people: burning holy books, bulldozing homes, and bombing houses of worship. It must stop.
This 21st century form of religious extremism is different from the Inquisition, which was planned and executed by a central authority. Today’s blasphemous religious killing campaigns are highly de-centralized, and thus even more dangerous and harder to control.
There is no battlefield in this war, and it lurks in places where we are not prepared to find it: office buildings, sanctuaries, schoolrooms, restaurants, subways and in improvised explosive devices planted along roadsides.
Warfare in previous centuries was limited to a proscribed battlefield and declared by leaders of nations or tribes. Today everyplace we go could be a potential minefield, because religious extremism runs rampant.
In response to the evil of religious extremism, terror threats and violence (by Christians, Jews and Muslims) this congregation has committed to participate in a year of interfaith dialogue. There is no roadmap for how we will learn to live together in this multicultural world with diverse faiths and shared respect. But we do have a spiritual compass: Jesus calls us in times of hardship to testify to what we believe (see Luke 21).
Our testimony is not about whether we are right and others are wrong. Our testimony is not about whether Christianity is superior to Islam or Judaism. Our testimony is simply that our relationship with Jesus Christ gives us peace . . . and that peace is not rooted in a building, or a piece of land, or one single word of the law, or even in the circumstances of our lives.
Our testimony is that Christ gives us words to speak and wisdom to sing, even in the face of suffering and death. Jesus Christ is not a battering ram, but the one sent by God so that we might have life and have it in abundance.
Rev. Leah Fowler and members of the adult education committee are building relationships with members of the Villa Park Mosque, and the next visit will take place on Dec. 5. Only through relationships like these can we transform conflict into trust, and build a world of unity that also celebrates diversity.