I have begun to wonder how long we as a nation are going to waste our time on the pointless and destructive debate over whether or not Islam promotes violence. It isn’t possible to answer the question objectively. And it diverts our attention from the truly necessary conversations about how any of us learn to hunger for justice instead of violence, compassion instead of cruelty.
Of course it is true that there are passages in the Qur’an that can be interpreted as promoting violence. That fact would be more disturbing if it wasn’t also true of the sacred texts of nearly all of the world’s major religions. It is equally true that there are passages in the Qur’an that promote peace, mercy, and compassion — as is also true of those other sacred texts.
The presence of these dueling passages of violence and peace highlight a critical but all too often missing part of the conversation: it is impossible to offer an objective reading of a holy book.
As people of faith — any and every faith — we interpret our texts. We filter our reading through the lens of our own lives, created by our histories, our education, and our expectations. Which means that while the words of our sacred texts aren’t irrelevant, they are, in some important ways, often secondary. Secondary to the lens that brings into focus either the call for violence or the call for peace, the call for vengeance or the call for mercy, the call for cruelty or the call for compassion.
When terrorists went on barbaric rampages through Paris and Nigeria, they did so explicitly as Muslims in the name of Islam, on behalf of their God and their faith. And they found support for their horrific violence in their sacred text and from the mouths of their teachers.
And then Muslims worldwide — scholars, religious leaders, and every day Muslims on the street — lifted their voices in furious protest and insisted that their religion did not condone that horror. Are those scholars and religious leaders any less Muslim than the terrorists?
What I see are two groups of people: one of which brings to the Qur’an a hunger for violence and vengeance, and one of which brings to the Qur’an a desire for peace and mercy. Both find what they are looking for.
When I preach to my congregation that Islam is a religion of peace, it isn’t because there are no passages in the Qur’an that can be used to justify violence, and it isn’t because violence has never been committed in the name of Islam. It is because the vast majority of the nearly 25 percent of the world population that practices Islam says it is a religion of peace, finds proof for that belief in their holy text, and then live lives that make it so.
Isn’t it the same with every faith?
How can we claim with a straight face that Christianity is a religion of peace? The Crusades, the Inquisition, the use of the Bible to justify slavery, the bombing of abortion clinics, the brutal beatings of members of the GLBTQ community, the Christian militias currently rampaging through parts of Africa all suggest otherwise. These murderers and terrorists used, and continue to use, the Bible to support their violence. And yet the vast majority of Christians hunger for a religion of peace, seek and find proof in the Bible that Christianity is such a religion, and then live lives that make it so.
If we really want to decrease the religious violence we perpetrate against one another, we need to stop wasting time asking whether this religion or that promotes violence. The answer is that they all do. And none of them do.
Instead, we need to begin asking how all of us learn to orient our hearts toward peace, mercy, and compassion.
That is a conversation worth having.
The Rev. Jodi Hayashida is minister of the First Universalist Church of Auburn, Unitarian Universalist. She lives in Auburn.
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