CHRISTIANBOOKS

China and India are pagan, a word which I deprecate if it is understood to imply inferiority but which if used in a descriptive and respectful sense is very useful. Christianity and Islam are organized religions. They say (or rather their several sects say) that they each not only possess the truth but that all other creeds and rites are wrong. But paganism is not organized: it rarely presents anything like a church united under one head: still more rarely does it condemn or interfere with other religions unless attacked first. Buddhism stands between the two classes. Like Christianity and Islam it professes to teach the only true law, but unlike them it is exceedingly tolerant and many Buddhists also worship Hindu or Chinese gods.

My wife and I have slightly different religious beliefs because of our backgrounds, and as a result we faced several issues trying to decide how to teach our children about religion. Our simple solution was to combine our beliefs and let our children decide what worked best for them. The hard part was determining how to go about doing this in a way that would not confuse our children. We ended up opting for a mix of discussion and reading that not only gave our children perspective, but helped them to learn on their own.

What an emotive topic and when one looks at the synonyms we can see why with words like apartheid (coined in this country), bias, bigotry, discrimination, prejudice and segregation. The church that I belong to was one of the first openly multi-racial congregations in South Africa and it was started in 1986. This alone is a sad fact in a country that has been torn by racial conflict for decades. Before 1994 it was ruled by a predominantly ‘white’ government that had made many racist decisions in the previous 40 odd years and since then we have been ruled by a predominantly ‘black’ government that has carried on the tradition of decisions based on race. It seems that whoever is in power is unable to see the fact that they answer to God first and then to everyone else in their country.

According to the Bible’s teachings, Lucifer was the first elitist. He formed a secret society of angels, and tried to take over Heaven. Having been cast out and separated from the other “outsider” angels, believing himself and his group to be superior to them for his knowledge, he formed a hierarchy and series of boundaries. He then went to Earth, seduced Adam and Eve, and made them part of a splinter-cell organization that served his needs.

Most people seem to go through life doing what others do and never seem to question much about whether the people around them are actually right or wrong. How many of us do exactly what our parents, grandparents and great grandparents do? I was raised a Christian by Christians and they were raised Christians by other Christians and so on. I don’t know when or who in my family tree actually decided to become part of the Christian faith. I don’t think it really matters today.