You've heard them before: Treat others as you would like to be treated; be respectful of individuals and their differences; and if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all.
They're what I like to call "playground rules" - a few standards for good behavior that we all learned during our first days of elementary school. Why some of us still have trouble with these rules as adults, I may never know.
But, it was with this in mind, that two stories caught my attention this past week. Both were related to religious intolerance and disrespect.
The more publicized of the two stories took place about 6,000 miles away in Cairo. As many know, this past week, millions of Egyptians waged public protests against President Mubarak and his administration. In addition to images of violence and police brutality, more tempered discussions about the roles of church and state have dominated the news.
Experts of Middle Eastern politics have debated the extent to which conflict between Muslims and Christians may serve to undermine new government reforms. They have detailed the long history of distrust and defamation between men and women of different faiths, dwarfing any religious conflict that most Americans have seen before.
Not wholly dissimilar, but certainly more local, the second of the two stories took place here in Charlottesville. Friday, I was surprised to learn that three students at the University posted a series of 10-minute YouTube videos attacking the impiety of students in sororities and fraternities. Having no personal affiliation with Greek life at the University, I still found the religious rhetoric in these videos to be both shocking and off-putting.
The students, who call themselves "The Divine Three," state on their website that the mission of their organization is to "wake up the Body of Christ by first helping Christians to realize that the end times are near and it must be taken seriously." Their plan is three-fold: to "help Christians to (1) know how to judge rightly; (2) become aware of their actions; and (3) conquer what God has in plan for us."
When I initially heard about the group, it seemed a bit too radical for me. Once I watched their videos, "radical" seemed a kind euphemism.
In the first set of clips, one member of the trio says, "These people going into these sororities and fraternities, are pledging their all to them. And they still think that they are Christians." Pledging your all to something that is not God and God alone, she adds, is tantamount to taking up arms with the Devil.
Another member of The Divine Three, who calls the pledge process "demonic," reiterates that "if you do not work for God, you work for the Devil." When you are "staying up late, drinking, smoking [and] bringing physical harm to yourself" - to his mind, all central parts of the pledge process - you are going against God. When (not if, but when) you are asked to perform sexual acts or "asked to drink until you can't even stand straight, you're not even in your right mind, you can't make the right decisions," he says. "[And] now the devil can attack you from all angles."
In truth, the whole thing left me with a bad feeling. No good can come from intolerance, no matter where you are or who you are.
Yes, people have the right to say what they want to, but to what extent is the way that they say it equally as important as the message itself? To what extent may they undermine the goals of their organization? To what extent may they shame those represented by their chosen faith?
The slope is very slippery. By no means do I want to discount the complexity of the issues underlying the religious intolerance overseas and at the University, but honestly, I will never fully understand them.
And on some level, I do not want to.
Intolerance and hatred are, in my mind, tools that people use to justify themselves and their ignorance. They blur the line between love and hate, serving to corrupt, not support, what is innately good, pure or pious. By lashing out against groups around Grounds, The Divine Three is not furthering Christian ideals, but rather tainting them with ignorance and radical dismissal of others.
Intolerance and hatred inspire backlash in almost all circumstances, whether 6,000 miles away in Cairo or here at the University. Maybe intolerance and hatred will never be eradicated from the world at large; despite what we are taught in grade school, maybe they will always influence the way members of the same country interact with one another. But at an institution like this one - where community and trust are honored and where education is presumed the foremost concern of students and staff - intolerance and hatred should have no room to stand.
Stephanie's column runs biweekly Tuesdays. She can be reached at s.waties@cavalierdaily.com.
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