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Dublin Unitarian Church Lunchtime, Tuesday 2nd May 2006 Below is a summary of the talks given by the two speakers; Rev Gary Hastings, Rector, Church of Ireland, Westport and Dr. Enda McDonagh, Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology, St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth. Some of the issues discussed at a Q and A after the talks are also outlined. The meeting was chaired by Rev. Bill Darlison. Rev. Bill Darlison introduced the first speaker, Rev. Gary Hastings, whom he described as an “extreme ecumenist”. Rev. Gary Hastings began by saying he does not believe in tolerance, seeing it as a very poor excuse for a virtue - a device to paper over the cracks and make us think that things are other than they are. It is related to ‘respect’ another dubious virtue. In the North of Ireland, respect means not being bad to the other sort, being fair in your dealings with them and not saying bad things openly about them. But mere respect allows hatred, ignorance, false myths and propaganda to grow. It is not enough because it implies distance. It allows bad things to grow under it. The opposite to love is not hatred and violence, it is indifference. Tolerance is a big part of being liberal – you let me be and I will let you be. The dilemma of liberalism is that at some stage, tolerance may not be an option when something has become a real threat. Then, by one’s own liberal lights, one becomes a 'baddie'. Liberalism, like tolerance has its limits. It can be seen as the thing to aim for until we find ourselves pinned to the wall by the gun of some nation or ideology taking over the world, or as it seems nowadays, some multinational taking over the world. My father was a very liberal, kind, open man, but he would have liked to take extremists from both sides outside and shoot them. A form of militant, extreme liberalism was seen recently on a t-shirt - ‘Kill a fundamentalist for Jesus’. A Secretary of State for Northern Ireland once said there was a ‘acceptable level of violence’ – a wonderful example of the shadow side of tolerance, when limits are reached that were not expected. This shadow side of tolerance means that we can cover up, and put up with, things that should not be tolerated, i.e. child abuse, poor health services, global warming, the Iraqi war, the drink culture, political corruption, the way we treat old people, immigrants, refugees, violent crime, drug abuse, child labour, slavery, world economics etc. Decent respectable people refuse to recognise things that exist, perhaps because of laziness or impotence. It masks a tension which can resurface later, because tolerance is putting up with something we don’t like. We are paddling like mad underneath the water like schizophrenic ducks in order to cope. We have disengaged ourselves from part of our psyche. No communication is implied or necessary in tolerance, no explanation, no dialogue. In any relationship there must be something other than keeping the shadow hidden. What sets the limits of tolerance? How much genocide is enough? How many children need to die of disease? Tolerance and respect are not enough. So how can true balance be achieved? St. Augustine, in De Civitate Dei, posited the idea of the State, Rome, as the power of protection within which the kingdom of God could flourish. This idea helped Christendom, as distinct from Christianity, to grow into a world monster. Only in latter years has its contradictory nature been recognised by some. The liberal secular state replaced it and also inherited the inbuilt contradiction. Christianity is one of the most intolerant of the world’s faiths. Those not with us are damned. Yet at the core of Christianity lies an ideal of love and compassion, non-judgemental acceptance and forgiveness. Christ pushed beyond laws of external behaviour into the realm of our internal nature, our mind and thoughts, our heart our attitudes. We had to be right inside. But historically Christianity reserved love for ‘people like us’. In our time has come tolerance. The churches are a wonderful example of tolerance and its potential for falsity. Ecumenism at the moment is in a backwater, sliding backwards. Nothing changes, there is little dialogue at grass roots level about beliefs, the initiatives for movement are not happening. Tolerance is a description of in-between states that can go anywhere. In the North, sectarian murder did not make ecumenism break out amongst the faithful to distance themselves from the murder being done in their name. Where was the Christian leadership that should have appalled Rome and given Paisley apoplexy? That the Eucharist which took place in Drogheda on Easter Sunday should be news at all is laughable. The churches have come out of the troubles respecting each other more than they ever did. This is not praiseworthy. In the gospel Christ used another word, not respect, for how we treat our neighbour and our God. Tolerance leaves old fears and hatreds, misinformation, myth and propaganda, untouched. There is more tolerance in the North now than there ever was, even with the peace process, because there is so much under the surface needing toleration. There is massive subconscious tension and polarisation. ‘No shooting’ is not peace, tolerance is not peace. It is not enough. So what is the answer? In the Christian church we think the answer to everything is always Jesus. In this case, Jesus may not be the answer, but what he taught may be the answer. A vast amount of what he taught is common to many faiths, is undisputable, whatever standpoint you come from, religious or secular. There is a commonality out there that we ignore that tells us the answer. The axial faiths speak of the same answer but in different ways. We must step outside our own traditions to see our own faith more clearly. We must understand to be changed. To be changed is the point of the whole exercise, not to change is frozen, cold death. The ego wishes to remain the same and takes steps to ensure this is the case. Tolerance is about that, it is of the ego. Our religions teach differently. The thrust of most religious faiths is toward union with the Other at a deep level, towards compassion, love and caring, acceptance and forgiveness. But to achieve this, change must happen at the realm of self. The propaganda of warfare, hatred and dislike depersonalises the other. But we need to recognise the full person of the other, they must become real to us, and not just like us, but ‘they’ must become 'we' ourselves. There is a common identity at all sorts of levels. At the level of Self we are all one. But realisation of this can only happen at the level of the individual, not tribally, or communally or nationally. Faith is perverted easily by power. Christ refused power. Power does not love. Power is the small controlling ego successfully abstracted, inflicted and projected onto the world. But most faiths are about the removal and negation of the ego. The death we speak of in Christian baptism is the death of the ego. Toleration is a facet of power. Where toleration stops is where power, the ego, feels threatened. Then anger and hatred arise from fear. Each ego is a fundamentalist in its own right. Anywhere the Relative is made Absolute you have fundamentalism or vice versa. Anywhere anyone thinks ‘I am absolutely right’; you have fundamentalism. Ego defends itself against all comers who might change it. To do other is to allow the ego to become amalgamated with something larger. Here again is the death implied in Christian baptism, here the extinction, the blowing out of the flame in nirvana, the surrender implied in Islam. Here is where we admit that there is a bigger other, which gets called God, or ultimate reality, the ground of existence, Allah, the great void, which we cannot encapsulate, conceptualise, vocalise, imagine. And we don’t like that, we prefer the ego, a small God. We prefer to tolerate rather than to open up. There is a Zen Buddhist saying: Great faith requires great doubt. Our part in the world must be to keep producing doubt. Reformation must happen continually. Change must happen again and again. Great doubt, applied over and over. In science, art, politics, faith, economics, there is always a better way, and we must seek it. We have to tolerate tolerance for a while longer, but distrusting it, not being fooled that we can stay in it for long. To relinquish power is to relinquish tolerance, to move beyond it. Love, forgiveness, and compassion must fill the vacuum. This, it seems to me, is the goal of our religious faiths. Tolerance is a tool which can produce a ceasefire, but only love and compassion can bring the peace. Dr. Enda McDonagh began by paying tribute to Rev. Gary Hasting’s address and the many wonderful questions and issues he raised. While approaching tolerance somewhat differently, Dr. Mc Donagh said he would be, to a fair extent, in agreement with Rev. Hastings. I agree that tolerance as used as a social and socialising word is a weak form of tolerance, a week form of social interaction. Putting up with or enduring the other is not adequate to the situation in Ireland or in the world. But a view of tolerance as bearing each others burdens is a much more powerful sense of tolerance than simply enduring or being indifferent to others, and is an important element in any family, society or civilised world. To do that we need more than the respectability of saying ‘good morning’ to each other, or of not shooting one another. We need to come closer to each other, which tolerance in its strong sense demands, to get to know and understand each other, and so begin to accept one another, and be enriched by one another. The problem of a society that depends on weak tolerance is that we all remain weak, impoverished, reduced because we are not open to the diverse richness of the people with whom we live. If you are an extreme ecumenist (as Gary has been described) you have to take into account the rich traditions of the other when attempting to relate. By relating argumentatively you are on the way to a much richer understanding of the another. In the stages of moving towards one another, tolerance makes a contribution as a preliminary step by smoothing the ground. But smoothing the ground is not enough to build a society. To think this is a delusion. Tolerance , in Ireland now, should be talking about action not feelings. About doing together not just thinking nice harmless thoughts about each other. But to come to the two areas in which truth and justice are most divisive for us to day and how tolerance may play into that in a positive or negative way. I confine myself today to speaking of religion and politics, the two great points which touch our traditions very closely. In order to avoid argument it is sometimes said that truth does not matter. As illustrated in the courts, truth is very close to justice and thus well beyond any exercise of weak or mere tolerance. There was a letter in the Irish Times after the recent service in Drogheda which claimed that the clergymen who took part were ignoring the vast majority in Ireland’s longing for church unity. In 1962 I wrote a book about church unity. There are not many people today seeking unity. There is not even a near minority seeking it. There is no search for joint beliefs or action. The Eucharist, the great expression of the Christian search for truth and justice, is sometimes said authoritatively to be at the end of the search for unity, at the end of history, the end of the world. It is not seen as a means to that end. To think that this is the only Eucharist available to us, baptised people, who wish to be revived by it, to receive it in memory of what Jesus did is a mistake. Our church leaders and members need to make a stronger effort to give that symbolic representation, at least from time to time, in Eucharistic con-celebration. Looking at politics. In that longing voiced by some for a united Ireland, or others for a United Kingdom, we need to promote truth and justice against a background of recognising us as human beings. We need a real social justice society promoted North and South. We are still in the babyhood of weak tolerance in the search for that truth and justice which is essential to our society and humanity. While we give thanks to the Irish working abroad in their work to promote truth and justice it is hypocritical when we can’t promote it here. Our politicians will say ‘we can’t be seen to assist corrupt governments’. This is an extraordinary defence by any government in the western world, including the Irish government, given the range of corruption uncovered on both sides of the Irish sea and on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. The church is in the same bind. If you go to so-called underdeveloped countries you find it is not their Christianity, or their broader religious engagement, that is underdeveloped but that ours which compares unfavourably. Tolerance as tiny steps, in a week form, can do damage. But in its strong, powerful form, translated into the search for that truth and justice, which is, in social terms, the expression of our love for one another, and the love that God has for all of us, has value.
Question and Answer Session
The last in the series of |