Dealing with prejudiced comments

Today I taught the "Adult ed" class at church. We were talking about spiritual disciplines and one of our more educated members pointed out that the word "Islam" means submission. In response one of our members who has toured twice in Iraq and who wears the scars of his time there said, "No, Islam is nothing but violence." In the room with us at this time was a young man (junior in high school) whose father is a Muslim from Afghanistan. As a result, I could not be comfortable simply playing the role of the diplomatic, detached facilitator of the conversation. Instead I talked about how extremism in any faith, including Christianity (look at the Crusades) could lead to violence, but that the religion of Islam, supported by the Koran, is actually a religion of peace. Yes, there are some texts that are not peaceful - these exist in the Bible as well. I talked about the many groups of peace that are working for interfaith understanding and include many Muslims. I talked about the work that some very peaceful Muslim groups are doing in places such as Israel with Christians, Jews, and Druze, etc. to create understanding, peace, mutual appreciation and respect. I was not alone in expressing these views. But while I did offer the perspective that in the end, it was okay if we agreed to disagree, none the less I have no doubt that I alienated some people today. I would still choose to do the same. I could not listen to this without speaking up, especially for the young man in our midst who was not comfortable speaking up for himself and his family.

But I was reminded, again, of the difficulty in being in community with people who are of different beliefs, experiences and viewpoints. It is not easy to talk about things that people disagree so strongly about and then choose to remain in the same faith community together. We are seeing this in our national Presbyterian Church as whole churches are leaving our denomination over theological differences. And it is not easy within churches that actually choose to talk about real issues rather than just avoiding the hot topics. But even in churches that try to avoid areas of disagreement, they can't always avoid these hot topics. I mean, we were talking about spiritual disciplines when this came up. How innocuous is that? You can't just avoid justice issues, especially when people are being oppressed by prejudiced opinions. So how do you live with these differences? How do you create an atmosphere that allows for a diversity of opinions to be okay, while at the same time attempting to create a safe place where people are not put down or judged unfairly or injured more than they already have been?

I am still processing through these ideas and thoughts. I remain convinced that it is possible to be a diverse people together in community. But I am equally convinced that you cannot make everyone choose that and that some will leave when they understand that others strongly disagree with them. I would choose both unity and justice. But when a choice must be made, I will still vote for justice everytime. I just can't be part of standing quietly together when the wall we make together excludes some, injures some, oppresses some.