That’s a fancy title, but it gets at the heart of what I think is happening in the Middle East. Like almost everyone else in the world my news channels have been bringing stories of the happenings from kidnapping to humanitarian crisis, and all the terrorism in between. All of us are watching a crisis that has been thousands or hundreds or decades or weeks in the making, depending on who we listen to and who wants to dominate the mic.
The truth is something less simplistic and more compelling: One of the main problems in the Abrahamic traditions is the assumption that each of us have, that Christianity, Judaism or Islam in turn have decided we are the most important and the only ones who should have a voice. Even in historical times when there have been attempts to treat each other better, the status of ‘second class citizen’ has accompanied any senes of tolerance.
It doesn’t matter which tradition we look at, there are plenty of Christian, Muslim and Jewish fascists, totalitarian governments and terrorists. No one is prepared to budge from their position of absolute domination.
And in that arrogance, people are being killed.
It takes nothing to whip people up into hate and justification for their actions. Being angry is easy.
The hard job is saying what part did we play to contribute to this situation and where do we go from here. That’s the mature conversation that no one in the Middle East or any of their hardline supporters want to have.
All of the Abrahamic traditions have scriptures, songs and prayers of peace and positive relationships with neighbours, but none of the leadership is listening.
When God made the promise to Abraham that his generations would be more numerous than the stars in the sky, there was never a conditioning statement that said only some of them would have the right to live in the promised land.
The Barefoot Evangelist 