Article February 18, 2013 Issue

Accepting a greater love

Juli Vice

This article originally appeared on csmonitor.com

During a recent planning meeting for a women’s interfaith group that I’m a part of, one of the members raised the question of the need to know the basic religious beliefs of others. Some of us felt that in order to really understand one another, we need more information about the individual religions represented in the group. Certainly, part of loving others can include wanting to understand and appreciate their faith. That’s one of the reasons interfaith groups exist.

But the point was also made that we don’t need to know all the details about people’s faith in order to accept the people themselves. That particular issue was significant to our group because we welcome women of all faiths, some of which are quite unfamiliar to us.

That point really got me thinking. What is it about people that makes us love them as the Bible instructs us to love one another? Do we really need to know people’s beliefs in order to love the people?

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