Not Heaven Yet

If for so many good reasons, I try to extend respect to others, I also want to receive respect in return. But that is not the way of the world, is it? Nor is it the way of many who claim Christianity—not even toward other Christian groups or traditions. To entrust that expectation of respect to others—including those who dislike or disagree with you—would appear to most folks as innocent or naive, even unwise and trust misplaced, wouldn't it?

But if not respect, then what about tolerance? Surely that is a reasonable expectation. As I posed the question in Out of the Box:

So, how about this: I'll live my life as well as I know how, and others can do the same. We will try, so far as we are able, to respect each other. But failing that, we will politely tolerate each other. Civility. I can live with that. How about you?

But even the guarded hopefulness you might struggle to infer from that question might be misplaced, even naïve, might it not? We are not nearly ready to see each other as one family of humanity, and certainly not as one family of God. It is not the way we've evolved genetically or been molded socially, culturally—or at least not most of us. As my pastor is wont to say, it's not heaven yet.

We are competitive and contentious as a species, and given too much to disagreement and argument. Not only are we contentious and disagreeable among our various nations, races or ethnicities, religions and ideologies, we are constantly disagreeable within them. We are continually in the process of finding reasons to distinguish or differentiate ourselves from others, lift ourselves above them or remove ourselves from them. This is an observable, predictable process, and we are too often unpleasant and hurtful in doing it. And it all breeds deep prejudice and discrimination, anger, even hatred. It's clearly not heaven yet.