Topic: spirituality
I'm sure you heard about the horror in Knoxville on Sunday. When a deranged man entered a Universalist Unitarian church with about 200 people and opened fire!
It's still under investigation, of course. Yet I heard this morning that this guy had a low tolerance for people who have a high tolerance for those of other beliefs. Ironic, isn't it?
Raises the question of how we can be tolerant and manage to keep the dangerous people or very immature ones from taking over.
To kick out all of the people who act like children, we'd all probably have to exit the church at times. And those who are in the most need would be so persistently like children that there would be no possibility of them coming at all.
Church, like life, can be very messy. For it's just a cross-section of society if we do act in tolerance.
Problem comes, as I see it, when we do not expect the professionals and elected leaders to be adults with very hgh standards. With clear boundaries in many areas. It's a monumental challenge.
At SNAP, Thomas Doyle reminded us that we do no need to have all the answers if we are comfortable within ourselves. That pertains to all areas of violence in church, no matter how uncomfortable we are about what we've witnessed--personally, as well as on national news.
