Today’s Scripture Reading (August 15, 2018): Exodus 5
Minerva is the
Greek goddess of wisdom. Interestingly,
she is also considered to be the protector of all who believes in a god, any god. It is interesting that within a specific
belief system, in this case, the Greek
Pantheon of the gods, we have a belief and an entity that is designed to
protect all believers, including those who may not believe in her. So Minerva
has become the goddess who protects the concept of Freedom of Religion. Freedom
of Religion and Freedom of Belief is usually, in our contemporary society, considered
to be a fundamental human right; a right that should be available for everyone.
While Freedom of
Religion is often considered to be universal human right, our societies seem to
be moving in the opposite direction. We are becoming even less tolerant of
those who do not believe as we do. The United
States Muslim ban seemed to assume that all Muslim’s were radicalized, or that all Muslims were supporters of Sharia Law,
are just the edge of this intolerance. I often hear the complaint about Sharia
Law coming from Christians who do not even seem to understand that they have
their own version of this radical system
of laws within their own Bibles; we just call it Mosaic Law. But in our culture, we
tend to explain away at least some of the more radical aspects of that law. Even
within Christianity, we seem to be shunning other Christians who may not
believe exactly as we do. We separate
ourselves into smaller and smaller echo chambers of people who believe exactly as we do. Rather than a Freedom of
Religion and Belief, we are becoming intolerant of any deviation from what we
consider to be the norm. And it is a very dangerous trend. And what escalates
the problem is that we are not even willing to listen to people who believe
differently from what we believe, even when what they say makes sense and
conforms to our own beliefs. And that
makes conversation between echo chambers almost impossible.
It is interesting
that the first request of Moses to the ruling elite in Egypt was a request for
Religious Freedom. It does not seem to be a threat to remove the workforce from
Egypt, although it is quite possible that the ruling elite of Egypt believed
that it was an attempt to remove the slaves from Egypt. But the basic request
is that the slaves, Israel, be allowed to move into the wilderness for a
religious festival; an opportunity to worship their God. It was this request
that would set in motion all that would follow. It was a chance for not only
Egypt to understand the vast power of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but for Israel to come to terms with
the God of their ancestors who loved them and had a plan for the future.
In all that was to
follow, Israel would begin to learn a lesson that, in reality, they would never
really learn in its totality; that God was worthy of their worship and their
praise, and that he could be trusted with
their future.
Tomorrow’s Scripture
Reading: Exodus 6
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