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| Yes | 65% | 192 votes | Total: 296 votes | |
| No | 35% | 104 votes |
Yes
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Add to FavoritesReligion and Their Kingdoms
I once had the privilege of meeting Senator Hillary Clinton at a "Faith Based Forum". The room was full of religious leaders from all faiths. She arrived a little late and the other speakers had taken their places at the podium. They where discussing the criteria lenders sought before awarding grants to religious organizations.
The Senator, came in and sat at the table next to myself and my pastor Rev.Dr.Bobby Moore.
I found her warm and at ease in a room of "Top Gun" clergy. Once she went to the stage, the kid gloves came off and she said, "Why don't you, the clergy work more closely with one another? The room fell silent. The Muslims have excellent programs to educate children. The Catholic Church are great on immigration issues. The Protestant faiths do a good job in food distribution and drug rehabilitation. Why, don't you guys support one another and stop competing with one another? One church has a Credit Union and the Church two blocks down the street, wants to build a Credit Union and both seeking funding from the same financial sources."
The room was again silent they knew she was right, she received a standing ovation for her boldness and for speaking to the heart of the matter. Unfortunately, these members of the Clergy knew that what she suggested wasn't about to happen. We are looking at some very large ego's. Many of these men and women of God, can not separate the building of God's Kingdom from their own personal ones, in other words they seek to leave their own personal legacy, rather than the "Word of God" for the people of God.
Jesus spoke harshly to religious leaders of his day, for being political minded, prosperity seeking, and authoritarians in nature. They sought to maintain an image rather than to care about the physical and spiritual well-being of those in their charge.
God is not about religion, but relationships. Jesus told his disciples to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind and soul" and to "love thy neighbor as thyself." A spiritual event occurs with not only the Lord in prayer, but when two people come together for a common cause and the Spirit of God is in the middle.
Senator Clinton is just a politician, but God used her to let us know that enough is enough, and that we need to be in relationship with God and his people. This means we must put personal agendas to the side and work together, no matter what the religious doctrine. "How can one say that they love God whom they have never seen, and not their brothers that they see every day?"
Father God please be patient with us a little while longer.
Learn more about this author, Ron Lemont.
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No
If this question was asked to me a few decades ago, my answer would have been nothing less than "Yes." Catholic Church had a long standing policy that they were the official "church of God" and that no one else mattered. The protestants and Catholics detested each other. Muslims had long term conflict with all religions and Jews were not seen as equals in parts of Europe and even driven out of their homes. Eastern religions were seen as nothing more than a fantasy and some were not even regarded as religions. However, this has all been changing for the better.
This modern day, many of the long held superstitions and hatred are slowing giving way to more open dialog and cooperation between religious leaders and various churches. After the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, the Catholic church slowly but surely started opening its doors to fresh ideas from the "different side of the aisle." Catholic council started allowing protestants, Orthodox and other church leaders to attend their meetings and even partake in giving out opinions. More recently, Catholics started becoming more tolerant of other religious views and has allowed so much more freedom within its churches when compared to what the church used to be like. Protestants also started opening up to inter-church and intra-church dialogs as various denominations have started working together for each other's mutual benefit.
Judaism was and has been and still continues to be strongly supported by the Protestants and Evangelicals as they do believe in the Bible and the Biblical interpretation of Israel's destiny. Jews have also begun to reach out more to their brothers (sects) and even started working more closely with the Christians. Muslims still experience the most difficulty with regards to reach out and working with other religions as there are no leader in Islam.
Muslims who rise to prominent position cannot speak nor can they represent all of the religion or even most of the religion as Muslims only recognize the Caliph as the true leader and their mullahs or imams as their local spiritual guidance counselor. Thus striking a cord of union and dialogs within Islam or with other religions by Muslims have proven to be extremely difficult especially with the recent rise of the radical fundamentalist Islam. Yet, in small areas, Muslims have been able to reach out to community leaders and other religions.
Eastern religions have also experienced the same problem as Islam, in that there is no clear major leader to back their views openly since many eastern religions are not a "organized" religion but rather all considered as "individual Journeys." However, the most successful of the eastern religions would be Hinduism and it has clearly cooperated with religious leaders as seen in India. India used to be a radical Hindu controlled society but some it is a secular society tolerant of all religions, including Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and many others while Christianity seems to the fastest growing religion in India.
To simply say that the Christian clergy is too territorial would be extremely wrong as there is no clear evidence for that. Christianity have actually increased in dialogs and cooperation with various other religions than ever done in the past and it is mostly Christianity that has always been on the "reaching out" side of theological arguments. The past is the past and it is to the future we must now look towards. And Christianity has certainly done that and is still continuing to make connections and cooperate with various religions of the world in order to ensure a clear helpful and non-violent contact with each other's followers and believers around the world. However, many are trying to interrupt this clear effort through acts seen in India's Orissa this year (Dec 2007 - Feb 2008) or in Africa where nuns and clergy were killed or tortured (2006 & 2007)and through numerous other events as seen around the world (yes, even in Indonesia). But we must not give up, clear lines of communication and cooperation is the only way to avoid bloody events from happening and a more peaceful interaction with each other as God would approve of.
Learn more about this author, Ebey Soman.
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