Keystone, Colorado.

In all the hoopla and hype about the arrival of new millennium and the over-saturation coverage of the Y2K problem, two important and significant news items got buried under the confetti. It is hard to pay attention to less spectacular issues when all the eyes and the cameras were trained at the sun’s journey across the earth. As I write this column from the snow bound Rocky Mountains, a day after the dawn of a new year, (being a purist I still insist that the 20th century will end at the end of year 2000), I am compelled to write not about the spectacular fireworks around the world, from Christ Church, New Zealand to the Pacific island of Samoa, but about two small but important news items.

One was about the ongoing religious carnage in the Spice Island of Indonesia where the Muslims and Christians are busy killing each other and burning each other’s mosques and churches. The second item was about the proposed building of a first-ever Catholic Church in the tiny country of Qatar in the Persian Gulf. The first is an example of increasing religious intolerance seen around the world. The second is a hopeful sign of religious accommodation.

Religion has played a significant role in the development of human thought. While it has the capacity to elevate humanity to sublime levels it also has, in the hands of overzealous believers, the power to turn the sublime into profane. Such devotees, common to all religions, consider it their God given right to inflict their own beliefs on other.

The Colonial history of Africa and Asia is replete with examples where the missionaries resorted to all sorts of pressures to convert natives. The Hindu fundamentalists have a point when they demand an apology from the Vatican for indiscriminate killings of Hindus by the Portuguese colonists during the inquisition in the 16th century. It may sound ridiculous to demand an apology for events that happened centuries ago but even today the missionary activities continue under the guise of education and medical care in the poor third world countries. It was also in the recent past that a scandal to export poor Hindu girls for convents was uncovered in India.

While on a recent visit to India Pope John Paul did ask for a dialogue between the Hindus and the Catholic Church, but these overtures were nullified when he reiterated his Church’s right to convert. Coming summer the Southern Baptists are poised to launch a countrywide campaign to convert Jews, Muslims, Hindus and other Christians to their own brand of Christianity. Over the years I myself have been the recipient of such unwelcome overtures from Christians, Hindus, Bahais and even holier-than- though Muslims to help me see the light through their own tinged glasses. All of them quoted from their scriptures to convince me of their position. All of them were woefully ignorant of the teachings of other faiths.

The same is true of their leaders; Muslim imams, Jewish rabbis, Christian ministers, Hindu pundits, Sikh garanthis and the rest. If they would only care to study other religions, they will learn, to their horror, that they have a lot in common. This would, one would hope, stop willful distortions and misunderstanding of other faiths. But as long as our religious leaders refuse to come off their celestial high horses, their followers will continue to look down upon others as heathens and nonbelievers and will try to convert them to their faith by hook or by crook. In many instances it has and still does lead to religious bloodletting.

It has become rather fashionable, at least in America, to have interfaith dialogues between various religions. When religious leaders sit around the table they profess equality. Same people when away will not hesitate to inflict their faith on others. One can not be equal and superior at the same time.

A story is told of a lone missionary who was found snooping around in the tribal hinterland of the Frontier. He was brought before the graybeard of the tribe who asked as to what he was doing in a strange land. The missionary answered that he was on a mission to discover lost souls and bring them to the righteous path. Upon hearing that the elder, wiser than his years, looked up to the heaven and remarked,” praise be to Allah, I did not know we were lost.”

It is commendable that the rulers in Qatar have allowed the construction of a church in their capital. Let us hope that this church will become a symbol of amity between Christianity and Islam and will not be used as a beachhead for conversions. After all such amity, between Jews, Christians and Muslims existed in the Moor Spain and was the catalyst for the development of a glorious civilization.