“By identifying new learning with heresy, you make orthodoxy synonymous with ignorance.” -Desiderius Erasmus (Catholic priest and humanist philosopher)
I’m so grateful our church library committee has set aside an entire section for banned books. The books in the picture came from Pride Month. This month the library features books that look at our nation’s founding from the perspective the people who were originally here. The myths of Thanksgiving cloak an American holocaust.
There are those who believe that by learning about our nation’s flaws children will learn to hate America. It seems to me much more unpatriotic to say we cannot love America if we are honest about our history. It seems to me anyone who loves this nation will want it to be better -not just stronger or richer, but more just.
Many politicians don’t want school children to even hear about the experiences of non-white and non-heterosexual people. It’s obvious why. Once you see others as fully human, traditional hierarchies of domination can be seen for the violence really they are.
When Jesus was here to defend his teachings from religious demagogues it was quite clear that he was calling people to love.
Not to moralism, but to love.
Not to belief, but to love.
Not to ritualism, but to love.
Not to Christianity, but to love.
Frederic Farrar was an Archdeacon of Westminster Abbey and also a pall bearer for Charles Darwin. He wrote: “(People) may be heretic(s) in the truth, and if (they) believe things only because (their) pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing another reason, though (their) belief be true, yet the very truth (they hold) becomes (their) heresy.”
We cannot love universally within the boundaries of any nation or creed. Love calls us to be heretics to every lesser calling.
The Atheist Robert Ingersoll understood this aspect of love better than most Christians. He said:
“Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin.”
