Perhaps you have come across bumper stickers, or seen someone’s personal quote on facebook like “All religions are the same” or “God is too big to be confined to any one religion.” These slogans promote religious tolerance, at one level, which at the least is a cultural necessity. But those who pray and worship will have to figure out what this means: “God is too big to be confined to any one religion.” Does eliminating intolerance, as Richard Dawkins, for instance, believes, require jettisoning all religion? Is religion in all its forms inherently "intolerant?" "Tearing down walls" doesn't mean, I think, nor did the concert organizers (practicing religious folk) mean, that we need to obliterate differences among groups of people, and substitute, for instance, the renunciation of a narrow and perhaps fanatical sectarianism for a new common religion with no particular content other than goodness in the abstract. Anything that exists merely in the abstract as amorphous, ethereal, and indistinct is usually unknowable, unhelpful, meaningless and unattractive; such a "blob," pictured in C rated science fiction movies, is menacing, lurking, scheming -- or at least misunderstood. "Tearing down walls" is about a real kind of tolerance, the kind that costs us something, demands something from us. Tolerance demands substituting humility for certainty, but without requiring the abandonment of the particularities of a particular faith tradition.
Most religious folks believe that we are all created in God’s image, and in every human face we see the same God we worship in our own way. But still, there seem to be definite differences between God as understood in one religion and in another. So, do we accept the implication of the bumper sticker that because differences exist, one's religion is better let go of than risk it turning into a source of intolerance and enmity? Problem: to use an argument from mystery (the God who is big) against mystery (better off not exploring that mystery through a particular revelation of that mystery), isn’t good logic.
We all remember jokes like “A priest and a rabbi and a minister walk into a bar….” [Actually, the funniest along that line continues, “and the bartender said ‘What is this, some kind of joke!?” -- never mind.] The implication was, as is the case today, that these three knew each other and got along pretty well. At the highschool baccalaureate, for instance, no one thought it offensive that the Catholic priest ended by making the sign of the Cross, or that the Protestant minister concluded “…through Jesus Christ our Lord,” or that the rabbi used a Hebrew phrase. Point being, we can be "peculiar," or, in a technical sense, "particular." Some might say being "particular" means being true to “who we are” – and that it is not in the interest of developing tolerance to water down “who we are” in public so as not to "offend" in the abstract. The three knew themselves to be friends, and would have enjoyed the wealth of each other’s tradition, and, mindful of their differences, in humility would have “suspended judgment” about their respective beliefs, content to leaving it to God to sort out in the end. In the meantime there were good times to be enjoyed together.
There are attempts to reconcile the different religions. Christianity does it by saying that what we see as good and true in any religion is also seen in the Person of Jesus. Muslims, Jews and Christians recognize the One God of the monotheistic faiths. In their ethical dimensions, Buddhism and Hinduism emphasize the world's oneness through compassion to our fellow beings. And attempts at reconciliation evolve. See, for instance, Pope Benedict's recent remarkable address to the Muslim leaders of Cameroon in Yaounde on March 19: (http://thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?ID=10823). This seeking of common ground, however, is not the same as what is meant, I believe, by the jingoisms "All religions boil down to the same thing," and "All religions lead us to God." In the end, tolerant people believe (what is also taught officially in Catholicism and elsewhere) that God honors the individual's effort to be in right relationship with the Divine to the extent one can discern that through serious seeking. Jingoisms like "We're all going to the same place, so what's the fuss?" and "All religions are the same," are not the same as real tolerance because they cost nothing; in effect or by design, they obfuscate and dismiss rather than probe and explore.
The mutual tolerance of our friends the priest, the rabbi and the minister, did not mean, I’m pretty sure, that each was not seriously convinced he had been given an insight that the others hadn’t yet grasped. Their tolerance does mean, however, that humility always trumps certainty.
If God is an Idea, rather than a person, then God as idea is definitely too big to fit into one religion. If God is an amorphous blob of goodness, like a big down comforter with no discernable edges, then trying to stuff "It" into one religion would be like stuffing a king sized comforter into one pillowcase: part will keep popping out, because ideas can generate endless counterarguments. But if God is known in relationship rather than as an idea or a philosophy -- as he has chosen in Christianity, for example-- then it helps to probe and go deeper into a particular revelation in order to know God and let God, through the particulars of a person's faith, lead her to insights and relationships that sustain, strengthen and encourage.
What is definitely true is that God is too big for us to be certain that we’ve got it right, even if remaining committed to our faith costs us a great deal. We use our minds as best we can, in humility, not having to abandon the fascinating pursuit of mystery through one religion in order to “keep ourselves above the fray,” so as "not to offend," but to find in other religions good we hadn’t yet thought about. We “Work out our salvation in fear and trembling,” and we keep working to Tear Down the Walls. ~ GKS
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