True Discernment

In a relative & subjective truthiness world, “encouraging respect” has a whole different meaning. In that false world the term  is used in the context of “encourage the giving of legitimacy” to false belief systems at the cost of undermining Biblical Christian teachings.

And the groups who do this are false Christians! 

from the Demcrat & Chronicle:

Two Christian churches included Jewish and Muslim readings in their services Sunday to demonstrate respect for other faiths and to counter recent religious conflicts.

The Rev. Denise Yarbrough, pastor of Episcopal Church of the Ascension, 1360 Lake Ave., was joined by Nathan Jaschik, a member of Temple Beth El, who read from the Old Testament, and Abdurrauf Bawany, the Muslim chaplain at Rochester Institute of Technology, who read from the Quran.

At Lake Avenue Baptist, 75 Ambrose St., the Rev. Gordon V. Webster, the pastor, was joined by Paul Duberstein, a member of Temple Beth El, and Farzana Islam, a member of the Islamic Center of Rochester who is on the staff of the Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue at Nazareth College.

The interfaith services were in part an answer to anti-Muslim campaigns, such as the highly publicized plan of a Florida minister to burn the Quran and the controversy surrounding a plan to build an Islamic center near the site of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

“We have learned how to fly in the sky like birds. We have learned how to swim in the sea like fish. Yet we have to learn how to live on Earth like human beings,” Bawany said during the service.

Nancy Welcher, 63, of Hilton, a member of Church of the Ascension, called the interfaith services “a wonderful way to break down barriers, whether they exist, or are perceived to exist.”

At Lake Avenue Baptist Church, Webster said Americans, unfortunately, are “stuck in the past.” 

“And the past has been confrontation and conflict. But God is calling us into a new future, especially since Sept. 11, 2001,” Webster said. “While the United States government responded with two wars, religious leaders are calling on one another to better understand one another to be in dialog, not confrontation.”