I once read that humans share about 60% of our genes with bananas. The percentage goes much higher when comparing us with mammals and other animals. And yet among humans, our DNA can vary as widely as 12% between each other! It's amazing how closely we are related to all other life on earth, even though we consider ourselves to be so much different than, say, bats or snails.
An interesting realization came to me after I filed the paperwork to begin the process of divorcing my wife of 26 years. When we had married so many years earlier, we had shared the belief that divorce would never be an option for us. No exit doors in our thinking. Being devout evangelicals, we adhered to Jesus' teaching that divorce was inappropriate, except in cases of adultery. But now that our marriage had fallen apart, and yet neither of us had been unfaithful, I had resigned myself to the life of heartache and misery that lay ahead with a woman who no longer wanted to be married to me. However, once I moved beyond that doctrine and accepted that God did not want us to live in such hell, I went ahead and filed.
Then it hit me: I would soon be among the ranks of the divorced! Wow! And that is when the realization came that I had harbored an internal bias against divorcees all my life. Somehow, I had come to look down upon those who "just didn't have the commitment to ride out the storms" that every married couple eventually faces. I don't believe I ever verbalized this stigma to anyone else, but it was there in my heart. I pitied them. Felt sorry for them. Even felt better than them. And now this prejudice was causing me shame, because I was soon to be in this category myself! I had to repent to God for how I had been unknowingly judging this group of people unjustly! I was never better than them. I simply had no understanding of their perspective.
Several years prior to that, I had quietly joined a chapter of Sexaholics Anonymous in the Detroit area. For an entire year, I secretly attended weekly meetings with men who struggled trying to find a balance with their sexuality. Of course, for me, I was trying to "fix" my gayness, which I now see was quite silly. I was not addicted to sex, I was simply obsessing over the inherent sexual orientation that I was trying to deny and hide. During those meetings, I met rapists, sex offenders, and child molesters, and discovered that they were men who were just like me. Just a step or two (or many steps, in some cases) farther down the road of dysfunction than I. They were husbands, fathers and brothers who loved their families like I did, and did not want to harm them or anyone else. They had simply lost their way and needed help. Like me.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because we are all much more like each other than we realize most of the time. When it comes to religion, it is so easy for us to get locked into the "us vs. them" mentality, and demonize folks who have a different perspective than ours. But all of us share the same "spiritual DNA." Conservative evangelicals struggle with their sexuality, relationships, depression and failure just as much as atheists, Buddhists, or liberal Christians. We share so much in common, why focus on our differences and fight? Despite what the Apostle Paul taught, I just can't believe that God is pleased when we argue, judge, condemn, and attempt to proselytize each other! I say that "contending for the faith" is neither healthy nor godly! It's divisive, arrogant, and unkind! Dogmatism, like racism, sexism and homophobia, is assuming superiority over others, whom you are actually just like, though you may not realize it.
Conservative televangelists and Republican political leaders who are caught doing the very things that they publicly condemn are prime examples of how dogmatism fails us. It turns us into hypocrites and frauds. And it can eventually severely damage or destroy our reputations and lives. The great news is that you have the power to choose your own path! Choose compassion over judgment, and humility over arrogance! Choose reasonable doubt over blind certainty! Choose tolerance over dogmatism.
Next time you see or peel a banana, think how much we share with all living things around us. And then remember that our enemies are not those who disagree with us. Our enemies are the unreasonable dogmas that demand we fight.
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