Jesus teaches us, “In everything do unto others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 6:12) We know this today as the Golden Rule. It seems basic, but to actually follow the Golden Rule takes work. You have to ask yourself, “Would I want this to happen to me?” Then you have to be prepared to act accordingly.
The burning of copies of the Quran by NATO troops in Afghanistan this week is another on a long list of high-profile examples of not caring about the other.
The holy books were among religious and other materials that had been removed from a library at a detention facility “because of extremist inscriptions, and because of an appearance that these documents were being used to facilitate extremist communications,” according to a CNN report.
Afghan religious scholar Anayatullah Baligh said it best.
“I can’t tell you whether Americans intentionally burned the copies of the holy Quran to make Muslims angry or if they did it mistakenly,” he said, but said their “carelessness” was “a crime they have committed against the holiest book of two billion Muslims around the world.”
The Golden ball is being dropped all over the place. Weeks ago it was the deliberate offense of desecrating soldiers’ dead bodies . Here it is simply not being mindful and thereby being insenstive to religious others. It’s time for us to pick the ball up and start playing the game by the one Rule that matters.
Theo-logical Tijuana 