August 29, 2010     Vol. 23, No. 16

From Your Pastor

This summer on vacation, I attended a worship service where the guest preacher was from a tradition different than mine.  That caused to wonder:  How do I evaluate the rightness or wrongness of other theological traditions?  I’ve come to believe there is much good to most of the world’s religions.  So how do I compare other views with what I’ve come to see as Truth? 

Perhaps the best answer is reflected in Jesus’ words “you will know them by their fruits.”  (Matthew 7:20).  If the adherents of a faith radiate qualities like Christianity’s fruit of the spirit listed in Galatians 5:22 (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control), there must be something good to that faith.  A faith’s theology is more than that, and I hope you and I would use our minds to evaluate critically a doctrine’s worthiness, but seeing those fruits displayed in a believer is compelling.

 

            Take kindness, for example.

 

            The Dalai Lama (14^th) wrote “my religion is kindness.”  I know little about Tibetan religion and imagine there’s more to it theologically than that, but if it leads its believers to being kind, I like that.

 

            An ancient meditation taught by Buddha goes:  Breathe in pure light, kindness, generosity and love — breathe out anger, breathe out any thoughts of harm to others or yourself or feelings of fear or failure.              That seems like a spiritually healthy way to breathe.

 

            In Judaism, the Talmud claims that "deeds of kindness are equal in weight to all the commandments."  Perhaps it was that kind of thinking that led Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel to observe:  When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.

Kindness is good for you.   Eric Hoffer wrote “We are made kind by being kind.”  Kindness is good for others.  Amelia Earhart said “The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.”  Kindness is good for society.  Goethe wrote “Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.”

Please note carefully that we are not worshippers of kindness, but worshippers and followers of God.  This is well-expressed in the United Church of Christ Statement of Faith:  We believe in you, O God, Eternal Spirit, God of our Savior Jesus Christ and our God, and to your deeds we testify.  Kindness is a fruit born of that belief. 

 Others may observe what we say and how we act and wonder about the rightness or wrongness of our belief.  May they see our fruit, like kindness, and consider “There must be something good to that faith, if that’s the way their adherents become.”

 John Zehring