First Things friend Francis Beckwith of Baylor University recently reprimanded a Facebook friend for sending him a secretly made video of a Mormon temple service. Professor Beckwith rightly described this violation of trust and act of disrespect for others as shameful. People of different faiths can, without compromising their own beliefs, treat people of other faiths with respect.
We do this “negatively,” as it were, by, for example, refraining from ridiculing beliefs, customs, or rituals of other faiths. We do it “positively” by, for example, addressing clergy of other faiths in the manner that is customary or prescribed within those faiths. So, for example, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and others address Catholic and Eastern Orthodox clergy as “Father.” Christians and others address Jewish clergy as “Rabbi” and Muslim teachers of certain traditions as “Shaykh” (and Muslim clergy of certain traditions as “Imam”). Another way we do it positively is by facilitating each other’s religious observances when we can. For example, Jewish workers will sometimes offer to substitute for Christian co-workers on Christian holy days, and vice-versa. I myself and many other professors who are not Jewish make special arrangements for our Jewish students to make up classes they have to miss in order to observe the fall holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur when they fall on weekdays.
G.K. Chesterton, in chastising a liberal magazine for its criticisms of a Jewish industrialist who in his will had left money to his children conditional upon their maintaining the Jewish faith, put the point this way: “As an old-fashioned radical, I was brought up in the tradition of doing justice to a another man’s religion. But it is only his irreligion you moderns are disposed to respect.” Let’s not be like those whom Chesterton described as “you moderns.” This is one point on which all of us should, I believe, be “old-fashioned radicals.”
September 3rd, 2012 | 12:30 am
I agree with all except the first listed positive aspect. While I personally do not have a big problem with it, I know many Evangelicals for whom it is a matter of conscience not to call any clergy “father” or any other term of similar meaning, because of the Scripture, “Call no man your father on earth, for one is your father, which is in heaven.” (Mt 23:9) For the same reason, two verses earlier, they prefer not to call anyone Rabbi, either.
It would be wrong to interpret these scruples as lack of respect.
September 3rd, 2012 | 11:24 am
Well said. There is a distinct difference between those who profess to be Christian and those who act Christian… those who act are typically more quiet.
September 3rd, 2012 | 5:55 pm
There is absolutely no need to grant religion a privileged status. If beliefs are open to criticism, so should religion be.
September 3rd, 2012 | 5:58 pm
Can I ask people how they would react to a wealthy industrialist who, in his will, demanded that his children abandon Christianity for atheism, if they wanted to be included? I am not curious about whether people think he’d have the right to do it, but what your moral judgment would be about such an imposition?
September 3rd, 2012 | 7:42 pm
@Maximilian, to your first comment: there is a difference between disagreeing and even criticising on the one hand, and being disrespectful on the other.
And in reply to your second comment: My reaction would depend very much on whether the man had claimed to be a Christian before his death.
If so, I would probably decry his apostasy and/or hypocrisy.
If not, and if he had been opposed to his sons’ faith while alive, I would not be very shocked or surprised.
But in the first place I would hope that his sons would have the courage and faith to forego their inheritance rather than their faith.
September 3rd, 2012 | 8:26 pm
Maximillian. It’s the man’s money. Of course we should honor his wishes. But we should also honor his children who refuse his bribe for infidelity and choose to serve God rather than mammon.
In the same way, we should respect Catholic business that do not want their money to directly pay for contraception and abortion drugs. Same principle applies. We can’t respect the atheist without respecting the Catholic. If you understand that, then you understand religious freedom, and you are on the side of the angels, even though you may not believe in their existence.
September 4th, 2012 | 8:01 am
Wolf Paul: to your first comment: there is a difference between disagreeing and even criticising on the one hand, and being disrespectful on the other.
Any criticism is called disrespectful. Example: apparently, torching embassies and kidnapping people is not “offensive”, but a few Danish cartoons are. Also, I strongly believe that respect has to be earned. People are not just entitled to respect, and neither are religions.
Wolf Paul: If not, and if he had been opposed to his sons’ faith while alive, I would not be very shocked or surprised.
The question was not whether you would be surprised, but what your moral judgment would be about a man who would use his money to make impositions of conscience.
Wolf Paul: But in the first place I would hope that his sons would have the courage and faith to forego their inheritance rather than their faith.
And do you also admire the courage and faith of the children of the Jewish industrialist, if they decided to forgo their father’s money and not their sincerely held beliefs?
September 4th, 2012 | 8:06 am
Thomas: It’s the man’s money. Of course we should honor his wishes.
But that wasn’t really my question, was it? The question is what you would think of a man who used his money in a manner like that.
Thomas: We can’t respect the atheist without respecting the Catholic.
Catholics are respected and afforded freedom. Freedom is the right to hold beliefs, and they have that right. The demand that is rejected is the one for privilege: the ‘right’ to ignore laws that are not to their liking. I do not have that right, and neither should you.
Thomas: If you understand that, then you understand religious freedom
Freedom is a given, conduct is another. A Jehovah’s Witness may believe that blood transfusions are against his religion, but this does not license him to deny his children life-saving blood transfusions.
September 4th, 2012 | 10:08 am
I have no objection to what Robert George says, but it strikes me that it talking about American values, not religious ones. It doesn’t happen that much any more, but I have been told my father’s (Protestant) family was appalled that he married a Catholic (my mother). Religious tolerance has only rather recently been seen (and certainly not by everyone) as a religious value. People of various religions are still killing each other in many parts of the world (Hindu/Muslim, Christian/Muslim, Hindu/Christian, one Muslim sect against another, and so on).
September 4th, 2012 | 6:28 pm
It seems to me that deference to Judaic customs by a Christian is warranted out of respect for the divine origin of those customs. Matters of inheritance and the respect given to a man’s will are all tied to the virtue of justice. But none of this implies that we are compelled by either justice or decency to pretend that pagan idolatry (e.g. Mormonism) is respectable, or use honorifics for the heresiarchs of oriental religions.
All religions are not equal, nor are they beyond critique. To commit to this liberal vision of diverse “faith traditions” kowtowing to one another is to cede the authentic truth-claims of the gospel to a relativistic world in which secularism reigns by virtue of the silence of religion, and “faith claims” are incapable of being introduced into the public sphere. In short, we silence to kerygmatic power of the gospel and end up with the french directorate and the reign of secular “reason”. Is this where our catholic philosophers are leading us? If so, why don’t we just read Voltaire instead? At least he’s entertaining.
September 5th, 2012 | 8:17 am
Maximillian
In most civilised countries, since the law of 18 germinal an X, any condition in a gift or will requiring a person to exercise or to abstain from exercising a cult or to belong or not to belong to a cultic association is void. A fortiori, cannot constitute a ground for depriving a necessary heir (which would include children) of his or her reserved share of the inheritance.
This was already implicit in the Declaration of the Rights of Man – “No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation,” so no individual can thwart or encumber rights granted by the Nation, including the freedom of worship.
September 5th, 2012 | 12:55 pm
Michael, I understand that and I think that French law is correct in this regard. Unfortunately, we are talking about England, which great Napoleon was unable to take. I just wonder whether all the people saying that the Jewish industrialist in this case should not be criticized would think the same way of an atheist industrialist who attempted to force his atheism on his children. I have not yet received an answer.
September 6th, 2012 | 5:52 am
Maximilian
Well, yes, the atheist industrialist is open to the criticism that he is using a power granted by the nation (the power of testation) to undermine the public order of the nation and the rights it has conferred on all citizens, including his children – “No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, even religious ones, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law
If government should not be, itself, arbitrary, all the more should it repress arbitrary action in others. If the supreme power is not active, then the secondary powers will run riot and oppress.
September 6th, 2012 | 9:47 am
Wonderful principles, and eloquently stated.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact