Mrrzy writes:

"And I'd like an example of a religion that preaches that other religions are true, please, Mmario. I'd like to believe it were possible."

At first, my thought when I read this, I must admit, was a touch uncharitable, as I was thinking "well, read the bloody post right before yours, then!" Then I realized that LH's good and relevant post was only one minute before yours, so obviously you and LH were writing your posts at the same time, so my snarky attitude was wholly unjustified.

LH makes an exceedingly valid point, though, in bringing up the Baha'i faith. This comes from their official website at www.bahai.org:

Bahá'u'lláh taught that there is one God Who progressively reveals His will to humanity. Each of the great religions brought by the Messengers of God - Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, Muhammad - represents a successive stage in the spiritual development of civilization. Bahá'u'lláh, the most recent Messenger in this line, has brought teachings that address the moral and spiritual challenges of the modern world.

I've studied Baha'ism quite a lot over the years, and I don't think I'm out of line in saying that list is not meant to be exhaustive. I've had Lakota Baha'is include the White Buffalo Calf Woman in that list, for instance. I considered becoming a Baha'i convert for quite a while, but a number of factors weighed against that. One was the realization that because of the radical ecumenism of my upbringing and personal faith and belief, I'm pretty much immune to proselytization (the poem at the end of this post pretty much explains what I mean by that better than I could myself). Much of what the Baha'is profess had already been at the core of my spiritual life as a Christian before I hever heard of the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh. Another, sadly, was the centralized nature of the Baha'i organization and the "puritan" moral code forwarded by that central authority in Haifa. But again, as with the discussion of the Society of Friends on another thread, it's dangerous to make generalizations, and I want to make it clear that I'm not painting the Baha'i faith, for which I have great reverence, with a generalized "puritannical" brush.

Fortunately, I have found a spiritual home in a Christian denomination (United Church of Christ, or for the old-fashioned, Congregational) with no ecclesiastical hierarchy whatsoever--no bishops, no synod, and state and national organizations with almost no power to effect what happens in individual congregations. For that matter, the ministers of individual churches don't have the power to tell anyone what to believe. The marvelous result of this lack of hierarchy has been ministers who are free to practice and encourage free thought in spiritual pursuit, and indeed, to encourage their churches to view other religions just as you have asked. Our minister does just that quite regularly, and most memorably in a sermon a couple-three years ago that was entitled "The Ocean Refuses No River," which comes from a Moslem proverb, in which he exhorted the Church to abandon exclusivist language.

Believe me, were I not able to find a home where exclusivism is not practiced, I could not have remained a Christian in any formal sense. In our church, Lakota sacred pipe healing ceremonies (and Tai Chi lessons) have taken place in our basement. The Moslem student organization has also used our basement for meetings. We have sung and danced language of Universal Peace in Aramaic, and shared Sufi poetry. Most dear to me was a retreat in Illinois I went to with Steve, or pastor, where many religious traditions were very specifically celebrated and practiced side-by-side: Jewish, Moslem, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Native American...the list is actually pretty open-ended. At this retreat, a marvelous Dominican monk stated, "because God's very name ['Alaha' in Aramaic] means Unity, you cannot say you believe and God and exclude anyone. It's heresy."

What you asked for is all around you, Mrrzy, if you know what to look for. Is it in the minority? Sadly, I suspect it yet is. But look for a local group near you that does an Abwoon Study Circle or Dances for Universal Peace (both are Aramaic-related work), and you'll find good-hearted, open people who believe, live, and advocate ("preach" being a little too politically charged a word for it) exactly what you ask. You write above of religious people that "they are not out for the good of all," but I'd say that the good of all, regardless of creed, religion (or lack thereof), color, gender, sexual orientation, or any other divisive classification that rends Unity, is exactly what Dances of Universal Peace is about. Read any book by Matthew Fox or Neil Douglas-Klotz, and you'll see what I mean.

That is not to say that I'm seeking to convert you to any particular spiritual way or suggesting that you need to go to one of these spiritually-open-and-seeking groups and become one of them in order to see what I'm saying. I'm only telling you where you might see in action what, from what you say above, you wish you could believe possible.

Not only is it all around us, I'd say that it's been around us for a lot longer than you'd suspect. This from a Moslem, a Sufi to be precise, the 13th-century mystic and poet Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi:

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.

(Version by Coleman Barks)

This post has all practically spilled out of my head onto the keyboard in one headlong rush, and it's my sincere wish and prayer that it makes at least a wee bit of sense, and that it offend or distress no one.

Salaam,

Chris--Christian, Sufi, Baha'i, Taoist, Pipe follower, human