PREPARATION IS PEACE

PREPARATION IS PEACE: ARE WE PREPARED FOR RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE?

Tolerance Is Peace: Religious Tolerance Makes God Smiles

The best form of preparation for religious tolerance is to say a big no to any action/inaction (Russett, 1974; Zelizer, 2017; Norris, 2016) that seems to discriminate (Jordanova et al., 2015; Ikizler & Szymanski, 2018) against any religious belief or faith. The Beautifully Peaceful Relationship Between Ghanaian Christians and Muslims (Abdul-Hamid, 2011) Makes God Smiles; we must protect it. Ghana is one of the countries around the globe where there is an admirable and peaceful relationship between Christians and Muslims. Unfortunately, my continued observation of our beautiful relationship has exposed some possible threats. The recent one was a unique wedding between a converted Christian lady and a Muslim Man at Techire in the Bono Region of Ghana, West Africa. The wedding (Pic 1) took place on the 30^th of June 2019.

Figure 1: Uniquely Unique Wedding at Techire, Religious Tolerance is Important

 

The chief Imam of the region started the ceremony on an excellent note by acknowledging this beautiful relationship using the program as an example. He however, unfortunately, diverted from this beautiful acknowledgement in his preaching which I suspect was not intentional. Though I am not accusing him; I see such preachings at unique and beautiful programs like that as possible threats to this beautiful, peaceful, and lovely relationship which we are all proud of. In a gathering like that bringing both faiths together peacefully, especially in a situation where one of the faiths is losing a member to the other, we must use speeches/preachings that unite us or console the losing side, but not that which add more pain. The lady is a Christian who has followed her heart beat to convert into Islam. The Imam himself acknowledged it nicely by saying that the family did very well in supporting her decision, as they did not give her any difficulty.

It is an open secret that Muslims are the ones who are mostly against their members decision to convert and marry a Christian or any other faith. I am a victim of that myself. I met a lovely Muslim lady who was deeply in love with me and was ready to marry me, but her father was against it. The negative mentalities that we create in the minds of believers of “All great religions”, like Christianity and Islam, are what normally lead to the fight for religious supremacy, but “All religions were more or less true” (Singh, 2004). I do not think that the family of the lady, and the Christians in general, were happy for losing their member to another faith. The family and the Christian community have made a painful and a difficult decision just to support her feelings and happiness as well as promote peace between Christians and Muslims.

Disrespecting her feeling/happiness or fighting against her because of that could result into a situation that no one can predict the end. Love or relationships breakup is the major reason why others commit suicide (News., 2011; O’Sullivan, 2017; Eran., 2018). I am sure that the family and the church has critically thought about that before making their decision to support her. Even before the wedding, the church members of the family came around to pray for them in order to console them. Almost all of them left immediately after that! This alone reveals the psychological or emotional pains that they were going through. So, in such a situation, I expected that anyone who preaches or gives a speech should choose a topic that would, at least, console the family and Christians who, though after losing their member, still came around to support the beautiful and uniquely unique program.

Unfortunately, the Imam chose a topic that seems to mock Christianity and rather add more pains to the already existing one. The topic was about Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; and that some even believe that Jesus himself is God. A topic that both faiths always disagree should not have been chosen for such a beautiful and unique program. The Chief Imam’s argument was that: “God is too big and powerful, He never sleeps”! To say that God became a human being to live inside the tiny womb of a woman is tantamount to limiting His powers! He wondered: “How can God who is bigger than even the whole world, be limited to just the tiny womb of a woman!”. He followed that with another question: “We all know that God does not sleep but we humans sleep; if you are saying that He became a human being and lived in the womb of a woman, are you now saying that God sleeps?”.

At this time the whole wedding ground was as silent as a cemetery! There were three (3) Rev. Sisters who also attended the program. When I turned around to look into their faces, I could see that their moods have suddenly changed when he was asking those rhetorical questions. I am sure that they would have loved to give answers to those rhetorical questions to defend their faiths but they stopped for the sake of the beautiful and unique program. I do not support either Christians or Muslims using such speeches in any program that brings both faiths together like this one.

This behavior is noted not only amongst Muslims but Christians too! Ioffe, (2016) has lamented a behavior at a dinner where Laura Ingraham conversing with colleague guests, said: “Raise your hands if you think Islam is a death cult”. She added; most of them raised their hands and in a political manner, each of them decided to explain to her that “unlike Islam, Christianity is inherently a religion of love”. Like that diner which was turned into a religious political ground, this uniquely peaceful and loving wedding ceremony was also religiously politicized. So, in short, the Imam gave a discriminative speech in that unique program that brought members of both faiths together peacefully. Such discriminative speeches must not be used during such important and uniquely unique gatherings, they are threats to PEACE.

To conclude, all religions on earth are supposed to be “Inherently respectful”; tolerating each other faith (Singh, 2004). We can only prove this respect and tolerance during such uniquely unique gatherings that bring people of different faiths together. I am from a uniquely unique and democratic family; apart from me and my parents who are Catholics, my siblings are in different Christian denominations and the rest of the family belong to different faiths. On the maternal side too, apart from two of my uncles and their children, the rests are all Muslims; but since childhood I have never heard of any violence amongst any of us. We still respect ourselves and tolerate each other’s faith. Whatever I am saying here is not intended to support any religious supremacy; but to help cement the beautiful relationship between not only different faiths in Ghana (especially Christianity and Islam) but around the globe. Thank you for Reading, share your comments.

References

Abdul-Hamid, M. (2011). CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM RELATIONS IN GHANA: A MODEL FOR WORLD DIALOGUE AND PEACE. Ilorin Journal of Religious Studies. Vol. 1, Issue 1. Retrieved from https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ijrs/article/view/90912 on 25.07.19 at 10:52PM.

Eran. (2018). The Center for Supportive Relationships: Relationship Problems Are A Leading Cause for Suicide. Education, Medicine, Uncategorized. Retrieved at 4:52PM on 06.07.19 from http://www.supportiverelationships.org/home/relationship-problems-are-a-leading-cause-for-suicide/.

Ikizler, A., S., & Szymanski, D., M. (2018). Discrimination, religious and cultural factors, and Middle Eastern/Arab Americans' psychological distress. J Clin Psychol. 74(7):1219-1233. doi: 10.1002/jclp.22584. Epub 2018 Jan 11.

Ioffe, J. (2016). If Islam Is a Religion of Violence, So Is Christianity. Retrieved from https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/14/if-islam-is-a-religion-of-violence-so-is-christianity/ on 04.07.19 at 6:43PM.

News., ABS-CBN (2011). Love is number one reason for suicide: expert. Lifestyle. Retrieved from https://news.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/09/26/11/love-number-one-reason-suicide-expert on 06.07.19 at 4:32PM.

Norris, C. (2016). The cost of inaction in response to violence and conflict. RISING Global Peace Forum. Retrieved from http://news.trust.org/item/20161115101101-6zimw on 24.07.19 at 3:02PM.

O’Sullivan, L. (2017). The Conversation: Teenage Heartbreak Can Kill: Breakups are the leading cause of suicide among teens. Demographics, Mental Health, Psychology & Romance. Retrieved from https://www.inverse.com/article/35834-teen-breakups-leading-cause-of-suicide on 06.07.19 at 4:37PM.

Singh, A., R., & Singh, S., A. (2004). Gandhi on Religion, Faith and Conversion: Secular Blueprint Relevant Today. Mens Sana Monogr. 2(1): 79–88.

Russett, B., M. (1974). From Peace Research to Peace Action: Some Pertinent Ethnical Questions. Bulletin of Peace Proposal. 5(4): 366-371.

Zelizer, C. (2017). 15 Actions for a More Peaceful and Just 2018. PCDN. Retrieved on 25.07.19 at 3:16PM from https://pcdnetwork.org/resources/15-actions-for-a-more-peaceful-and-just-2017-please-add-your-own-suggestions/.