Humanly speaking, every person should have, as a fundamental right, the freedom to follow and practice the religion of his or her choice. So also the freedom to change from one religion to another. From this arises one's duty to respect the religious views and practices of others, however, convinced one may be that one's religion is the true one, just as an ardent supporter of one political party must respect the views and policies of other parties or a scientist who values his theories must respect even the contrary theories of the other scientists. It is a fact, moreover, that while some of the teachings of these various religions are identical, there is also disparity in respect of other teachings, some of which are even contradictory, so that it cannot be logically said that all religions are the same or all are equally true. While some of the religions have remained in the primitive stage, others have developed philosophical and doctrinal systems. Some have so many adherents spread over a large part of the globe that they have been called 'world religion' and 'otherwise'. May God blessing be upon us.

Christianity is a unique religion, because Christianity is a religion directly revealed by God, the Lord Jesus Christ who is the 'Son of the living God'. Amen! This conviction has been the basis of all missionary endeavor in the history of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church / Universal Church. Although it is Catholic Christian belief that those of other faiths or no faith can also be saved if they do not sin and live righteously according to their conscience, the Universal Church has never ceased from its inception till now to bring in non-Believer of God and non Christian peoples a knowledge of the true Christian faith. In history, it is recorded that this missionary has been carried out at great cost, in the face of numerous humiliation, hardships and the sacrifice of lives of many missionaries.

In spite of Christianity being the God-revealed religion, God's presence in other religions has to be noticed too. Catholic Christian attitude to other faiths has in the past [before Vatican II] been very much a negative one. The present positive approach to them, which is a very desirable change, has come mainly from Vatican II. The Council has given an impetus to the study and appreciation of the positive values of other religions and encouraged dialogue with them.

These religions are seen as a preparation for the Gospel and playing a providential role in the Divine economy of salvation. They contain "'treasures' - a bountiful God has distributed among the nations of the earth, but the Universal Church has to illumine these treasures with the light of the Gospel." This is in keeping with Christ Jesus instruction to his apostles, disciples, believers, followers and others, that is, 'The mission of the world'.

"Meanwhile the eleven disciples set out to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time." - Matthew 28:16-20 -

As a matter of fact, the Buddhists and the Hindus have one common root in their different traditions. They believe in Karma and reincarnation: They believe that the cause of all sufferings or evil is in human desire or craving. Thus, Buddhism teaches: Human beings are born into a world of suffering (dukkha) because of the illusory nature of things in this world. The cause of 'suffering' is 'craving' or sometimes translated as 'desire' (Tanha). Hence it is the craving after the unreal or illusory nature of things in this world that brings about dukkha, 'suffering'. The path to end suffering is to 'dig up the very roots of Tanha'. To be able to dig up the root of Tanha, craving in Man, he must be enlightened that all is transitory or illusion. It is by reason of this reproductive power of thought that the will to love makes man re-live or as its being said, 'We live eternally through our lust to live'. The Way to this enlightenment is the famous eight-fold Path: right Understanding, right Thought, right Speech, right Action, right Livelihood, right Effort, right Mindfulness and right Concentration. It is a programme of purification of thought, word and deed leading to cessation of craving. The total 'extinction' of craving is the ecstasy of Nibbana or Nirvana.

Hinduism teaches: Hindus believe that the world of which one is aware is illusory (maya) in the sense that it is a veil concealing the Absolute Reality (Brahman) or God who is One with everything, so much so that there is no longer any distinction between God and the whole of Nature. Man, therefore in his depth, his soul, Atman is Brahman. The unenlightened Man craves for life in its illusory form as he is aware of it, not realizing that beyond the "illusion", God is all and all is God. The root of existence, then, is craving or desire which is suffering. Hence to be released or liberated from the fatal chain of reincarnation into life, all desires must be extinguished. To achieve this, different paths are proposed, some better than others - the path of action with strict observance of rites, pilgrimages, prayers, yoga and the path of ascetiscism, etc, etc, etc.

Religion refers to a belief in true and living God, and reverence for true and living God, Who has supernatural power that is recognized as the "Creator" and "Ruler" of the universe. An organized system of doctrine with an approved pattern of behavior and character, and a proper form of worship. In fact, Religion has always played an important part in civilization in the world. It was a powerful force. Therefore, faith and love in true and the living God, and if he/she divorced from deeds is as lifeless as a corpse. In other words, religion can be or is equivalent to faith and love in the living God. Thus, love and faith in living God can be or is equivalent to true religion.

Religion is said to be on the increase. We actually overheard many people said that this was evident from the "increased of special interest." Apart from this rather silly justification, there is no doubt that there is more talking and writing about it. But would the situation be any different if it were said that there is an increased interest in ethics or morality? Christianity identical with a growth in moral beauty and a more profound interest in right and wrong? When others and Christianity are lined alongside one another, it appears, at first view, that the difference between them is only one of taste or degree, but not of kind, all being systems of right and wrong.

In order that religion may be discussed intelligently and lovingly, it must be borne in mind that Christianity is not a natural religion. The difference between Christianity and all other religions is like the difference between organic and inorganic. As Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ said: "He who is born of the flesh is flesh; he who is born of the Spirit is Spirit." In all other religions, human beings moves to God as the first of all movements; in Christianity, God moves to human beings and then human beings responds to that first impulse. No other religion except Christianity even makes this claim. The difference then between all natural world religions and ethical systems is the difference between seashells and crystals; the difference between them and Christianity is the difference of a crystal and the living cell. The others are philosophy, religion visionary and religion ideology; where as Christianity is a spiritual biology/religion.

A basic law of physics is that a body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless deflected by an outside force. The mineral in the earth remains mineral until life seizes it and transmutes it; the natural or the human man remains natural or human until a Divine Life outside of man seizes him and elevates him to a dignity which he/she cannot achieve of and by himself/herself. This was the whole purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ becoming man: "I come that you may have life." Hence, through the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible there is a division of men into the living and the non-living: "You call yourselves living, but yet you are dead." This means that some have a natural life; they breathe and walk and talk and feel but, from a Divine point of view, they are lifeless; they lack that God-given life in comparison to which all else is dead.

The morality of Christianity, therefore, is not a mere crystallization of psychological, emotional and ethical norms; it is rather the possession in the soul of a Higher Life Principle called Charity or Divine Love. In the Christian order, as in the scientific, there is no spontaneous generation: Life must come from life; God-life must come from God. Hence, as the soul is the life of the body, so the God-life is the life of the soul. There is no such thing as a man becoming more and more generous, less and less selfish, and then suddenly finding himself/herself a partaker of the Divine Life. The seashell cannot grow and grow until it becomes an elephant. As Our Lord Jesus Christ said: "Unless you are born again... " It is important to know this in all discussions about religion, just as it is important to know the difference between chemistry and physiology. The present tendency to identify Christianity: with Freud, labor unions, playing at benefits, tolerance and social service takes the heart out of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Religion of this kind may become popular even under the name of Christianity. But whether Christianity will ever be popular is another matter. I doubt it, for Our Lord Jesus Christ said: "I have taken you out of the world; therefore the world will hate you."

***  The God-responsive soul thinks of religion in terms of submission to the will of God. He does not look to the Infinite to help him in his finite interests but, rather, seeks to surrender his finite interests to the infinite. His prayer is "Not my will, but Thine, be done, O Lord." No longer interested in using God, he wants God to use him. Like Mary, she says, "Be it done unto me according to Thy Word" or like Paul he asks, "What will you have me to do, O Lord?" or like John the Baptist he says, "I must decrease, He must increase." The destruction of egotism and selfishness so that the whole mind may thus be subject to the Divine Personality that does not entail a disinterest in the active life; it brings a greater interest, because the person now understands life from God's point of view. Because of his/her unity with the Divine Source of energy, he/she has greater power to do good - as a soldier is stronger under a great general than a poor one. "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask whatever you will and it shall be done unto you. In this is my Father glorified; that you bring forth very much fruit." - John 15:7-8 - It is hard for self-centered creatures to realize that there are some souls that are really and truly passionately in love with God. But this should not be so hard to understand; whoever loves the light and heat of the candle should surely love the sunlight even more.

Life for God-responsive souls now begins to move from a circumference to a center.

A religion which holds up to admiration the surrender of wealth, and disables serious persons from enjoying it if they would; a religion, the doctrines of which, be they good or bad, are to the generality of men unknown; which is consider to bear on its very surface signs of folly and falsehood so distinct that a glance suffices to judge of it, and that careful examination is preposterous; a religion such that men look at a convert to it with curiosity, suspicion, fear, disgust, as the case may be, as if something strange had befallen him, as if he had an initiation into a mystery, and had come into communion with dreadful influences, as if he were now one of a confederacy which claimed him, absorbed him, stripped him of his personality, reduced him to a mere organ or instruments of a whole; A religion which men hate as proselytizing, anti-social, revolutionary, as dividing families, separating chief friends, corrupting the maxims of government, making mock at law, dissolving the empire, the enemy of human nature, and a conspirator against its rights and privileges; - a religion which they consider the champion and instrument of darkness, and a pollution calling down upon the land the anger of heaven; a religion which they associate with intrigue and conspiracy, which they speak about in whispers, which they detect by anticipation in whatever goes wrong, and to which they impute whatever is accountable; a religion, the very name of which they cast out as evil, and use simply as a bad epithet, and which from the impulse of self-preservation they would persecute if they could; if there be such a religion now in the world, it is not unlike Christianity as that same world viewed it, when it came forth from its Divine Author.

'If you would find Jesus Christ today, then find the Church that does not get along with the world. Look for the Church that is hated by the world, as Christ was hated by the world. Look for the Church which is accused of being behind times, as Our Lord Jesus was accused of being ignorant and never having learned. Look for the Church which peoples sneer at as socially inferior, as they sneered at Our Lord Jesus because He came from Nazareth.

Look for the Church which is accused of having a devil, as Our Lord Jesus was accused of being possessed by Beelzebub, the Prince of Devils. Look for the Church which, in seasons of bigotry, peoples say must be destroyed in the name of God, as men crucified Christ and thought they had done a service to God. Look for the Church which the world rejects because it claims it is infallible, as Pilate rejected Christ because He called Himself the Truth.

Look for the Church which is rejected by the world as Our Lord was rejected by peoples. Look for the Church which amid the confusion of conflicting opinions, its members love as they love Christ, and respect its Voice as the very voice of its Founder, and the suspicion will grow, that if the Church is unpopular with the spirit of the world, then it is unworldly, and if it is unworldly, it is otherworldly. Since it is otherworldly it is infinitely love and infinitely hated as was Jesus Christ Himself. But only that which is Divine can be infinitely hated and infinitely loved. Therefore, the Church is Divine. Therefore, it is the life of Christ among peoples! Therefore, we love it! Therefore, we hope to die in its Blessed Embrace!

The denial of guilt or the effort to reduce ethics to psychiatry is as unsound and unscientific as the error of denying that there are genuinely mental troubles or the reduction of psychiatry to ethics and moral theology. In actual fact, no moral theologian denies the validity and necessity of psychiatry; but since many analysts do deny the realms of the moral, the Divine, and the supernatural, it is important to continue stressing the difference between the two.

Even when a client has his or her psychoanalyst's encouragement to laugh off the possibility of moral evil or a sense of guilt as the cause of his or her worries, his or her rejection of ethical standards is still a form of escapism. In such cases, it is vain for the frustrated soul to say that he or she will work the problem out "for himself or herself." For the soul that relics upon itself is unrealistic. Cure is conditioned upon the realization of two basic facts: There is some evil in the soul; and the perfection and cure are not to be sought in the person. Just as medicine must come from outside of the body, so moral healing must come from outside of the soul. Yet many modern men and women run to the ends of the earth to escape the one source of health or recovery.

Escapists refuse to face the fact that their own lives are disordered; or else they try an "easy" way out of their misery that lands them into worse confusion. Some of the "easy" ways out are the escapism of scandal-mongering which seeks to find others who are worse than the self and thus make the self seem good by comparison; the escapism of ridicule, which makes fun of the virtuous and religious to avoid the reproach of their goodness; the escapism of noise, of drowning oneself in excitement, crowds, collective trances, so that the sweet, low voice of conscience, through which God speaks, is never heard; the escapism of atheism, an anarchical revolution by which one covers up one's own need of personal, inner, spiritual regeneration by revolutionizing everyone else.

For by pointing out the wrongs of others, the atheist avoids the need of righting himself or herself; by spreading the ideology of class conflict, he or she creates the illusion that the evil he or she hates is not within himself or herself, but in the social system. The social conscience thus dispenses many people today from any compulsion to set right their individual consciences. There is also the escapism of calling religion "escapism." This atheistic at riposte is the most wrongheaded of them all - to throw it at a distraught friend, is like telling a person whose house is on fire that he is an "escapist" if he or she calls the fire department.

The real escapists follow many different routes, but none of them are humble enough to admit that there is some evil in them; all of them are too proud to admit that they need outside help to cure their misery. By denying guilt, they show that they are cowards; by denying any perfection outside themselves, they become snobs. The last, desperate stage of escapism is religious persecution; hatred of religion is projected self-hatred. It is not easy for normal persons to understand how goodness and truth can be hated, but they are.

Truth can be hated because it implies responsibility. Goodness is hated because it is a reproach. If the Lord Jesus Christ had been tolerant and broad minded, He would never have been crucified; it was the perfection of His virtue that constituted a judgment of the wicked. But since those who persecute religion as a form of escapism must constantly think about God and His universal Church, it follows that they are often closer to conversion than the indifferent person of a Liberal Civilization, who does not trouble making up his or her mind on any ultimate question.

Escapism never succeeds. In every sinner whose frustrations and neuroses are due to a burdened conscience, there is a latent contradiction. The person is pulled in two directions. He or she is not so much at ease with sin as to be able to make it his or her definite vocation, nor, on the other hand, is he or she so much in love with God as to disavow his or her faults. The dualism arises from a desire of God, on the other hand, and a turning from God on the other. Such people have insufficient moral energy to be bad or to be good; they have not enough religion to find peace of soul, yet quite enough of it to intensify their sense of frustration after they have sinned.

*** BY  VENERABLE / ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN   ( 1895 to 1979 )

-     WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY     - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -

Your generous contribution and support is profoundly cherish. I sincerely pray that: God blessing be upon you, always. Amen! Bank transfer: Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah - Public Bank Berhad account no. 4076577113 - Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.