MONDAY MUSINGS

May 19, 2008

An Intentional, Respectful Dialogue

Yesterday I invited the congregation to become engaged in an intentional, respectful dialogue about the human family with all of its diversity.  Theologically we all come from the same parents, the man and the woman God carefully and lovingly made in God’s image.  Anthropologists surmise our human ancestors originated in Africa, spreading out into the world from that common beginning. 

By living in different climate zones, and by eating different diets, and because we have been subjected to differing influences, we now carry distinctive features, such as skin color, facial characteristics, etc.  These differences have encouraged us to view those who are different as strange and threatening.  Our innate quest for dominance has caused a hierarchy of status, some at the top and others below.  The result has been a world divided into tribes and clans and ethnic groups.  Add to this the differing and often competing religious systems and we have the dangerous brew of strife and warfare and acts of inhumanity that has plagued our world.

There was a time when the butt of many jokes were the Polish, and then blondes and people from Kentucky (Iowa if you lived in Minnesota).  Catholics and Jews were often singled out, Easterners, and the political party you were not supporting.  Some would say this was all good natured fun, but often it was meant to be a harsh put-down of those who were “not our kind.”

In this political year we will elect as our next President a white male, a white female, or a male who is half African-American and half Kansan.  Each will be subjected to discrimination, either ageism, or sexism, or racism.  Each prejudice lies just below the surface and each awaits some invitation to poison our nation’s sense of fairness and equality.

I encourage a serious conversation about how we view ourselves and others, the diversity that challenges us.  I wonder what will win out, our theological oneness expressed in the creation story that is sacred to the followers of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, or the ideological distinctions that divide us into sub-groups and pit some of us against others of us.  I look forward to providing a safe place, a sanctuary setting, in which we can talk together.  Peace.  John Krueger