The right to be
different, upheld at this conference, often is
understood as indifference to the difference. Our
civilisation proclaims this indifference; by the
name of ‘political correctness’ it is elevated to
the enlightenment paradigm level. We are supposed to
be indifferent to the race, sex, physical abilities,
and first of all, to the faith. The religion was
considered the most important feature of Man, but
now it is relegated to a question of personal
choice, like the choice of a tie. This change was
supposed to usher us into the world of no wars, for
religion was considered a strong reason for
confrontations. But wars are still with us, while
religion is marginalised. Anti-religious leaders of
the World War Two killed more people than all
religious wars from Crusades upwards.
In the Byzantine Empire
the great confrontations were caused by differing
views on the nature of Trinity or on Divine Energy,
as in the crisis caused by St Gregory Palamas. In
the West, the confrontation between the mainstream
church and breakaway movements – Albigensians,
Lutherans, Calvinists – caused great upheavals.
Though one regrets that these discussions were
solved by administrative or military means, still
one can’t but feel envy towards a society that cared
so much about a way of man to God.
Religious indifference
is a greater enemy than the fight over difference.
If we fight over our differences – and such a fight
does not have to lead to bloodshed – we still
recognise the importance of faith; we recognise our
communality of one people under God. When we embrace
indifference, we slide into disintegration, into
‘each man for himself’.
Even as a war-limiting
device, religious indifference failed, for it
brought in unmitigated wars for resources, for
domination, for trade privileges. But its more
profound failure was the promotion of crass
materialism. A Jewish joke tells of a man who had
met a wife of his acquaintance whom he did not see
for a long time. How is he, he asked, and she
replied: he is niftar, that is ‘rested in
peace’, in high Hebrew. The man did not want to show
he did not understand the word, and laughingly
replied: “niftar, shmiftar, who cares? But he makes
money, does not he?” This is what happens in our
world: we are dead, but still make money; and some
people try to convince us this is the only thing
that matters.
But even that is not
the end of our failure. A godless world is
impossible like an airplane without a pilot, engine
or fuel. By removing God into the sphere of
unimportant and irrelevant differences, we enthroned
Mammon, His opponent. The priests of Mammon try to
convince us that their god’s reign is more
benevolent than that of God, but we witness daily it
is not so. Mammon is a form of Domination Drive, and
he is devastating our material earth as much as he
devastated our spiritual world.
That is why I am not
sure we should promote the right to difference
unless we promote a free discussion of the
differences. We may and should open the grand debate
stressing the difference between those who believe
in God and those who choose Mammon.
Here we should note a
special position of our Jewish brothers. As a highly
organised world-wide religious community, or a
church, they have a very unorthodox position on God
and Mammon. While they are divided on the question
of God for them, and some believe and some do
not, both fractions are actively against God for
others. Those who do not believe, their position
is clear. But even the believers, for complicated
theological reasons, doubt, or outright deny
accessibility of God for the outsiders. “So do we”,
many of you will say. But for you, every outsider
may become insider, and you want it. In the One
Thousand and One Night, whenever a good Muslim wins
an argument with a Jew, he converts him into Islam.
In the West, Antonio baptises the Merchant of Venice
who tried to kill him. Even in the days of high
religious intolerance, there were many stories of
women converted, either to Islam or to Christianity;
while in the contemporary Jewish stories, a
righteous man preferred to die rather than to
cohabit with an outsider woman.
Their position was of
no importance for centuries, but now, with their
spectacular rise to prominence, this view provides a
great ideological support for Mammon. That is why,
while recognising the legal right to be different,
we should augment this recognition by vigorous
dispute, by stressing the difference instead of
eliminating or hiding it.
