Well, that’s the inevitable content of the phrase “I believe”: unless you believe what I believe, then you are wrong. Of course, this begs many of those wonderful logical paradoxes such as “I believe I am always wrong.” However, our beliefs in whatever religion/spirituality & c, involve us making a statement of fact which contains some integral premise that we cannot justify with empirical or logical evidence.
Even science is founded upon belief, that what we encounter with our senses, or can make some measurement to determine quantities, or can infer through the use of reason is in someway an accurate impression of Reality. It is possible for a scientist to hold to a religious belief since this requires making statements about some quantity that has an unobservable aspect which may or may not affect the observable universe. A Christian who happens to be a scientist may conclude that the existence of an unobservable God whose empirically observable effects are beyond the scope of scientific exploration, such as the Beginning of the Universe, or in the keeping track of the behaviour of countless billions of fundamental particles pinging about the universe like a colossally frenetic game of table-tennis – if indeed we can understand particles in that manner. It is impossible to observe the beginning of the universe: it is impossible for us to keep track of each and every particle in the Universe. There is therefore the necessity of belief, even among scientists.
And then of course there are people who disagree with your beliefs. Now, either they can convince you that there is an error in your belief, or not. If they cannot convince you of error, then quite clearly their belief is either wrong or at best incomplete. So now it is your duty to convince them of an error in your belief. Can you do so? If you can, then nothing changes for you and everything changes for the other; if you can’t then there is some form of stalemate. Worse, if your belief is diametrically opposed to the other, then only one of you can be right. But of course, your belief is still intact, isn’t it? If you really believe what you believe then you must believe that you are right, otherwise your belief makes no sense. Thus your belief has to be right, and the other’s wrong.
So what do you do now? Keep trying to convince the other person of your rectitude, or give ’em up as a lost cause?
So here is the dilemma facing Christians. How far can we tolerate other’s beliefs?
Now the word tolerate seems to have gained some rather interesting baggage, particularly among the Liberal wing of the Church. “Tolerate” really means “to bear”, “to put up with”, “to carry something which you regard as wrong in respect of another”. However, this last statement seems to suggest some form of capitulation to that which you tolerate.
Do we allow Moslems into our pulpits? Well, what’s the pulpit for but to spread the truth about Jesus Christ? How does a Moslem preach about Jesus Christ? Well, he doesn’t because he doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ as being the Son of God. It is debatable that the prophet Isa in the Islamic religion is the same person as the Lord. Certainly He isn’t believed in in the same manner in which we Christians believe in Him. Yet some parishes permit an Islamic person to explain their faith from their pulpits? Why?
It is important to engage in dialogue with others; that’s how beliefs are explored, tested and probed. But should this dialogue occur in the pulpit? What if one sits in the congregation in a flurry of doubt and hears the Islamic faith being preached and thus renounces Christianity for Islam? What service has that parish afforded to that one weak in the faith? It’s all done for the sake of tolerance. I say that the Islamic religion is incorrect, and Islamic person would say that the Christian religion is incorrect. Where we will agree is that our beliefs cannot allow us to do anything but disagree about the veracity of the other’s religion.
Surely, if we wish to engage in dialogue with an Islamic person, then it must be done on neutral territory, not in one another’s place of worship.
This is our basis for tolerance. As Christians, we have a duty to engage people in the Gospel of Christ. Realistically, we will preach better if we say nothing and live our beliefs to the best of our abilities. However, we are called to dare to find that neutral ground, walk into its centre and invite others to come into dialogue with us with the utter assurance that our faith gives us that the Christian Faith is the true Faith. We need to dare to enter into conversation, utterly respectful for the other’s freedom to be wrong, utterly mindful of the presence of God within any human being whatever the belief, but utterly prepared for heated discussion (if there is no heat then the discussion will be palliative and platitudinous). Then, at each adjournment of the discussion, we bring all that we gain from this discussion back to our Church and offer it up to God.
This is what the Church is for. The ministry of the Laity is precisely to bring Christ to the coal face of life and to bring that coal-face to Christ. How can we offer this ministry if we accept other viewpoints as possibly being right? Other views may be valid –possible logical alternatives – but if we sincerely believe what we believe, those views are incorrect, inconsistent, or incomplete.
Either we believe, or we don’t. What do you believe? Am I right?
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