In a 2018 interview with a progressive radio station in Spokane, I was asked if there was islamophobia on the left. It was a thoughtful question and one that took courage to ask. I respected that.
Part of my response was to acknowledge that there is, indeed, some anti-religious bigotry in the United States. Some of this is understandable, rooted in the trauma and exclusive in-group behavior of certain leaders and traditions. Additionally, some of this bias is a holdover from how the wars that established European countries and kingdoms were understood (see William Cavanaugh’s book: The Myth of Religious Violence).
There is much more to say on this topic.
But over the years, another reason for bigotry against people of religious traditions has become clear to me. I’ve had maybe thirty people ask me: “How can you continue to be a Christian, given all the pain that Christianity has caused?”
Again, this question is understandable.
While some people within wisdom traditions seem to base their sense of goodness on their participation in a particular group, these thirty seem to believe they are good because they are unaffiliated.
But, of course, affiliation is inescapable. We are all affiliated. We are all part of humanity.
And, we are all full of dignity and worth, in the teachings of so many traditions irrespective of our culture or tradition.
And all of us have failed to honor the dignity and worth of others.
My only response to the question I’ve been asked is this: I strive to live up to the highest ideals of my tradition, to learn with and from other traditions, and to take responsibility by behaving differently.
We live in a complicated world, filled with untold trauma and unrelenting dreams for a brighter future.
I hope we can begin to see each other with greater compassion. I hope we can take responsibility for learning from our own group’s and humanity’s mistakes. I hope we can spend less time blaming each other and more time building the world we long for.