Hate, anger and the desire to control and punish others in the name of God are forces that corrupt spirituality, just as surely as accumulating wealth in the name of religion renders it the bane of the soul. The media likes to target Islam for these faults, but Christianity, especially forms of it practiced in America, are guilty of the same transgressions. When Jesus vented his anger, it was toward hypocrites, the intolerant, and profiteering on religious obligations. However, Jesus was primarily about teaching people compassion and social-spiritual inclusiveness. What is more, Jesus was not about the subordination or humiliation of any portion of society. Men, women and children, both rich and poor, were all equal before his eyes.
Interestingly, the religion so often singled out for its meanspiritedness, namely Islam, turns out to have as many forms as Judaism and Christianity, and it includes faith traditions defined by compassion and peaceful coexistence. One of these Islamic sects in particular not only possesses these benign traits, but also a positive creative and community-building spirit. It is called Sufism, and it is a spiritual tradition that embraces the whole heritage of monotheism since it first emerged as a concept among human beings. Sufi Muslims include holy men and holy women who forgo a worldly existence to cultivate a more intimate connection with God. They employ prayer, meditation, the study of sacred texts and moral philosophy, communal gender-integrated spiritual discussion, asceticism, poetic composition, musical performance and ritual dance, all to achieve mystical union with God. Sufism also encompasses ordinary members of any given settled or nomadic community, who pursue regular lives but who also practice sociopolitical pacifism. For Sufis, the jihad is practiced not against others but against the moral weaknesses that spiritual reflection reveals within their own selves. The weapon they use against the human failings they share with all humankind is wisdom fueled by love. Sufis have festivals outside the normal Muslim calender of holy days, where they honor the memory of male and female saints of their sect, stretching back to its historical beginnings in the Eighth Century CE. These community-wide festivals manifest worship in the form of singing and dancing that pitch the celebrants into spiritual ecstasy and the purgation of accumulated woes, and bring on a sense of joyous immersion into a Divine reality.
The closest analog in America to Sufism in terms of its communion with God through dance, song and music would probably be the African American Gospel Churches, whose style and rituals have their origins in the secret holy services slaves held at night in the woods of the South to throw off the sense of mental and spiritual oppression they suffered at the hands of their slave-masters and overseers. This tradition ran as a subversive yet sincere parallel form of Christianity in opposition to the false Christianity whose services slaves were forced to attend and which "taught" them that their enslavement was "ordained" by God. In light of this, it is amazing that these slaves, who could not read the Bible for themselves, somehow discovered that the One True God actually wanted them to be free in soul, in mind and in body, and so intuitively created a true form of Christianity for themselves.
Many forms of Christianity in America are now more and more resembling the militant, politicized, fundamentalist forms of Islam that currently plague the world. If Christianity takes this path, it betrays Jesus as much as Islamic Terrorism betrays God and its fellow Muslims of righteous and peaceful nature. Since the Reformation, Christianity has developed different sects, and since the Enlightenment, Judaism has also branched off into a number of separate sects. These different sects evolved to serve the varied needs of different subcultures and even different socioeconomic classes, as the world grew more complex with the onset of the Modern Age. Different sects do no harm to a broader faith tradition, so long as they do not preach that those who follow other sects are damned and foment intolerance toward other people in the secular community at large, because of religious differences.
We are all coming out of a variety of ethnic, social and vocational experiences in America, where there are a wide assortment of denominations to choose from. Among these, a person of faith is free to choose a church or synagogue where they are most comfortable, whose style and emphasis of worship appeals best to that person's sensibilities and temperament. Yet no matter what the sect, if hate and intolerance is preached, it is a betrayal of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. On this point, the Sufi sect of the Third Abrahamic Religion (Islam) has much to teach us. The fact that Sufis themselves have been persecuted by Islamic fundamentalists throughout the Muslim world is indicative of their dedicated fidelity to the loving wisdom of God expressed in the Koran, over the dogmatic intolerance of their oppressors. For Sufis, the love of God and the people who are His children is their central law. Socially repressive laws are not their path.
So let us throw out rituals and sermonizing that cultivate hatred and contempt for people of other faiths, and replace them with rituals of music and dance that throw off intolerance and engender a sense of peace. Peace is what God wants us to have, for it is the only means to truly free ourselves from spiritual misery. Sufi Muslims, Progressive Christians and the Jews, unite!
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