Religion posits one characteristic as an absolute: faith. Compared
to faith, all other social distinctions and sources of conflict are
insignificant. The New Testament says: 'We are all equal in the
sight of God'. To be sure, this equality applies only to those who
acknowledge God's existence. What this means is that alongside the
abolition of class and nation within the community of believers,
religion introduces a new fundamental distinction into the world
the distinction between the right kind of believers and the wrong
kind. Thus overtly or tacitly, religion brings with it the
demonization of believers in other faiths.
The central question that will decide the continued existence of
humanity is this: How can we conceive of a type of inter-religious
tolerance in which loving one's neighbor does not imply war to the
death, a type of tolerance whose goal is not truth but peace?
Is what we are experiencing at present a regression of
monotheistic religion to a polytheism of the religious spirit under
the heading of 'a God of one's own'? In Western societies, where
the autonomy of the individual has been internalized, individual
human beings tend to feel increasingly at liberty to tell
themselves little faith stories that fit their own lives to appoint
'Gods of their own'. However, this God oftheir own is no longer the
one and only God who presides over salvation by seizing control of
history and empowering his followers to be intolerant and use naked
force.
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