Interfaith Day of Prayer and Reflection
May 3, 2007
Rev. Jonalu Johnstone
Indulge me for a moment and step back with me into time four hundred and fifty years, to 1557 – fifty years after Martin Luther posted his theses on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg. In England, Queen Mary had recently jerked the people back into the Catholic Church from the Anglican Church that Henry VIII had founded. The Colloquy of Worms, called for dialogue between Catholics and Protestants, blew up as Protestants wrangled among themselves over original sin. Catholics had been slaughtered in a medieval version of genocide twenty-five years earlier in the Peasants’ War. Muslims, organized into the Ottoman Empire, dominated the Mediterranean, while the Spanish Inquisition prepared to turn its attention from Jews, Muslims, and heretical Catholics to Protestants. Widely accepted in the Western world was the notion that the religion of the king or queen or prince was, by rights, the religion of the people.
Though some priests and prophets had begun questioning the idea of killing other people because of their beliefs or religious practices, lives continued to be lost over religious ideals. As they are today.
1557 – that was the year of the first decree of religious toleration. Issued by Queen Isabella, regent for her son John Sigismund, King of Transylvania – yes, Transylvania, home of grand mountains and myths of vampires, in today’s Romania -- the edict affirmed that "each person … maintain whatever religious faith he wishes, with old or new rituals, while We at the same time leave it to their judgment to do as they please in the matter of faith, just so long as they bring no harm to bear on anyone at all."
That message of religious tolerance from four hundred and fifty years ago must be heard again today in Oklahoma and throughout this nation and the world.
Each person should maintain whatever religious faith he – or she – wishes. The rituals may by ancient as the hills or as novel as the Internet. The government must leave matters of faith to individual judgment and conscience – just as long as they bring no harm.
The question is simple. Whom do we trust to make our decisions about faith? And when I look back to my Unitarian forebears like Isabella and Sigismund, I am inspired by the ideal of personal choice in faith. Our society does not need to come to agreement on God or gods or heaven and hell or dharma and karma to work together for a better tomorrow in this world.
Leaving faith decisions to individuals does not mean banning the conversation about faith. Inspired by faith, we act publicly and speak publicly, each from our own experience and stance, accepting one another’s different views, probing for truth as we may discern it together. For faith – as Sigismund said -- “is the gift of God,” or, as I might add, of the universe, of Life itself.
Will I like everything I hear in that public conversation? NO. But by hearing, the breath of the Spirit may inspire me – and you – to go to depths and heights we could not attain without one another. Perhaps it will even keep us from killing each other.
May we all find inspiration in new rituals or old, in words of Spirit transmitted through every culture from every time. May our diverse views lead us to ever increasing understanding and new ways of dwelling together in peace, justice, and love.
So may it be. AMEN. Blessed be. Shalom.
