Educating, not proselyting

Walking down the streets of downtown Bloomington, I passed a father and his three-year-old son. When I smiled at the pair, the son raised up a pamphlet, and his father said, “Would you like to receive the word of the gospel, sir?”

Preachers on street corners with megaphones are hard to ignore. A smiling little boy passing out the Word is damn near impossible to ignore.

This was a whole new version of proselytizing. Using tactics to get the information into a reader’s hand is half the battle. Using these types of gimmicks only makes a case against the availability of religion. Religious choice is less of an option the more a person experiences pressure to accept a certain understanding.

As much as our government hates to admit it, religion is forced upon American citizens constantly. Sports include both the “Hail Mary” and “sending up a prayer.” Our money reads “In God we trust.” Our businesses have “come to Jesus meetings” to own up for their behavior.

With all of this sublimation, the outspoken, often-obnoxious preaching of the proselytizers is met with even less patience. Because spirituality and faith should be a personal thing, calling it into the public eye can be met with disdain.

Even our political campaigns, as we are seeing right now, center around not only the religious practices of the candidates but also the ideologies they bring to the government they hope to run.

Even though he is no longer on the forefront of the campaign, Rick Perry made an incredible statement by declaring his opposition on the war on religion.

Although I don’t agree with him on much, I do agree there is a war on religion. But not against the Christian right.

The war on religion is occurring every time a member of any faith is told that they are wrong by a practitioner of another faith. That isn’t to say that we must eliminate all religion from everything we do.

But the ethnocentrism of believing that to demonstrate “religious freedom,” Christians need the ability to take over the school system is what makes Perry’s claim so blatantly backward. As a Jew growing up in the public school system, I am a big believer that Christians have plenty of pulpits from which to preach (often inappropriately) in whatever setting they want.

Using such pulpits to educate is valuable. But to bully and pressure others is downright wrong. There are plenty of opportunities to profess religion, but you don’t have to do so in a way that detracts from my own spiritual practices.

Having opportunities to educate those seeking understanding in faith is an excellent part of organized religion and that freedom we experience in America. But if nobody is asking for this education, keep it to yourself.

­— azoot@indiana.edu