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Reject religious bigotry, embrace Abrahamic kinship
The shared roots of Islam, Judaism and Christianity reveal common obligations to charity, hospitality and peaceful coexistence.
By Janet Marugg | FāVS News Columnist
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News.
My husband is spatially gifted. He has an uncanny knowing of where we are and how long it’ll take to get somewhere. Maps are art to him, the contours of topography, the squiggly lines of basalt fins and canyon bottoms. He reads the names of towns like the lines of a novel, traveling in his mind from the comfort of home. He is never lost because lines are relevant.
Our place in the world is always relatable to other places. We are perpetual neighbors, and neighbors of neighbors. My Mormon family is full of genealogists who claim my blood is Adam’s. I don’t think they have it quite right — less than a sliver of truth to it. But we came from somewhere. And look close enough — we come from somewhere similar. Maybe even the same place.
The genealogy of religion reveals that a person is right to find the same parentage in Islam, Judaism and Christian beliefs. Christianity is a Middle Eastern religion — rooted to the place that birthed Judaism and Islam. A shared placenta. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are Abrahamic religions — like brothers. As relatives, superiority culture is Abrahamic blasphemy, and elimination campaigns, religious filicide.
Respecting the paths of Abrahamic religions
Related words are not scary. The word sharia means “the path.” Christians might say “Scripture is the path.” Jews say the Torah is the path, and they are all mixed like blood from the veins of Abraham.The path is the same. Pro-Christians must also be pro-Islam and pro-Judaism and vice-versa twice. The steps Middle-Eastern Abrahamic brothers must take are the same.
Religiously speaking, Abraham’s God commands that acts of faith be shown in hospitality (accommodating others and welcoming strangers) and in acts of charity. Automatically, this makes hypocrisy of anti-Islam (or anti-semitism and anti-Christianity) sentiments.
The Bible and the Torah command Jews and Christians to accommodate others (welcome strangers) over 36 times. And for Christians in particular, Jesus took a whole chapter dishing out seven woes to intolerant religious hypocrites.
Abraham’s God also requires charity. Muslims use Zakat, an obligatory 2.5% tax on assets, to support the poor. Judaism has Tzedahah, a religious obligation to perform righteousness through charity. Christianity emphasizes that entry to heaven is gained by feeding the poor, healing the sick, welcoming strangers and showing kindness to prisoners.
There are Abrahamic similarities in dietary laws and fasting to foster spiritual discipline, humility and solidarity with the poor. Ramadan in Islam, Yom Kippur in Judaism and Lent fasting in Christianity.
‘The West did not invent Christianity’
Despite Greek and Roman influences, the West did not invent Christianity. If there is a religious DNA, Judaism, Islam and Christianity are Middle Eastern triplets. And if Abraham’s family is in opposition to or unaccommodating to each other, they are in hypocrisy.
There is something prophetic in ancient religious texts that commands people to get along and assist each other. It’s almost as if Abraham’s God knew that Earth’s people were always going to meet like we do today, when the ability to get along is the marker for human survival.
The nuclear Abrahamic family is now nuclear, and that requires all the acts of faith — all the accommodation and charity an Abrahamic religion can muster. Now is the time to use our evolving frontal lobes to counter primitive fear with reason. We are equipped to evaluate competing claims and make better choices. And to calm our fears.
The religious rules of Abrahamic religions, the required accommodations and charity are the built-in checks on extremism and harmful actions toward others. Harming others is the opposite of accommodating others, and charity is incompatible with harm.
‘I am not afraid of sharia’
So no, I am not afraid of sharia. I know exactly where it’s supposed to be going — toward a peace found only in faithful hospitality and joy found only in faithful charity. Same as Judaism and Christianity.
The acts of faith commanded in Abrahamic religions are themselves faith builders because there will always be a stranger to accommodate and an act of charity to perform. There will always be a blessed step of faith to take on a path like that.
Admittedly, this makes the Abrahamic path interesting to secular humanists as a method of evolutionary health and well-being — the kind that comes from rising to a challenge of adaptation and acquiring the ability to accommodate and care for others.
The ability to check religious bigotry in an economy of generosity is a valid method for continued human survival. And even nonbelieving humanists will faithfully step along that path.
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Thank you for this reminder that the Abrahmic religions all emphasis hospitality, especially toward strangers, and charity for the whole community. I wish that that the photo at the outset of your column showed a scene of hospitality, rather than the sacrifice of Isaac!