(This weblog creates, for us all, a chance to meet at the interaction of Life and the New Spirituality. It is written by the author of Conversations with God, the worldwide best-selling series of books. The “New Spirituality” is defined by the author as “a new way to experience our natural impulse toward the Divine, which does not make others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.”)
This is the first in a series of entries here on the seemingly unending conflict in the world. The series makes the point that there is a way to avoid the constant conflict and killing upon the earth, and that way is for the earth’s people to adopt a New Spirituality — a new “story” about God, about Life, and about Each Other.

HIGHLIGHTS OF TODAY’S BLOG…
* The fastest way to end violence
* How religions are failing our world
* Can peace ever be created through violence?
* Where does religion ‘fit in’ to healing the world?

What just happened a while ago in the Gaza Strip is one more example of the use of violence as a means of conflict resolution. There may be more ways than one to stop this trend, but I think I know the fastest way: Religion must stand for what it says it stands for.
As you surely must know, Palestine is now effectively divided into two separate but undeclared “states” — Gaza and the West Bank — after the takeover in June of the Gaza Strip by Hamas, the militia-turned-political organization in that torn country.
The West Bank is still, at this hour, controlled by the rival Palestinian faction, Fatah, the political party founded by Yassar Arafat. Hamas has been trying to wrest control of the whole country from Fatah since Arafat died several years ago (though it says it has been seeking to work within the political system since it won majority control of the nation’s legislature in the last election). It has now succeeded — by use of force, not use of the political process — in bringing the Gaza Strip totally under its control.
What we have seen here is the same kind of internal power struggle, fighting and killing that typifies the ongoing battle between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq. And the one institution with those societies which could bring an end to this carnage seemingly refuses to do anything about it, preferring to stand idly by the sidelines and watch the violence go on.
I am speaking, of course, of…

… the Islamic religion. Radical Muslim religious figures seem to foment violence on both sides while moderate voices appear to have been intimidated by those more radical elements within Islam, and so provide insufficient or ineffective leadership in the call for non-violence on religious grounds.
When God’s main message is one of peace and love, forgiveness and compassion, understanding, patience and forbearance, one wonders how long Islam can sustain itself as the moral voice of millions if it does nothing but stand by and countenance (if only by its silence or utter ineffectiveness at stopping it) all this violence. What is particularly stunning is what appears from a distanceand at first glance to be a cultural tendency toward violence within the Islamic community — not only against those who oppose that community, but against that community’s own members.
In America, this would be analogous to Christians killing each other on the streets of Birmingham or Chicago, Baptists slaying Presbyterians, Lutherans slaughtering Methodists, simply because they are Presbyterians or Methodists.
Of course, Christians have done exactly that for 50 years in Ireland. Protestants and Catholics killed each other nightly on the street corners. And so one wonders, is this killing of one’s own a cultural thing? Or does it spread across the whole of humanity?
Sadly, the answer seems to be the latter. Which leads to a very much larger question: Where is the moral fiber of our global civilization to be found, if it is not to be found in its religions? Do political, social and spiritual disagreements, however long-standing or severe, grant us license to ignore every teaching of God that the religions of all our cultures have taught us?
More pertinent, perhaps, is another question: Is the human race simply so barbaric as a species, even now, after thousands of years of evolving, that it knows no other way to resolve differences?
What kind of future can we look to for our children if we can’t even stop from killing each other as a means of redressing our grievances or getting our way? Will humanity ever understand that peace cannot be created with violence? Does this contradiction not cry out for recognition, if not repudiation?
What would it take, do you think, for our species to retreat from violence forever? Is such a thing even possible for a civilization and a culture such as that which we have forged on this planet? Are we just dreaming here? Is peace, as defined by the absence of killing and war, simply not possible?
What is the true status of the so-called Peace Movement? Is it just so much lip-flapping, with no hope for any real effect in our world?
And where does religion — Judiasm, Christianity, Islam, or otherwise — fit into all of this? How can people who are fighting OVER religious differences hope to USE religion to solve them?
(To be continued)
NOW…A ‘POSTSCRIPT’ FROM FRIDAY…
Following last Friday’s blog here there appeared a number of Comments from readers. About 20 Comments down was this Entry…

I just want to point out that you’ve written a couple times that the Pope said that no other church offers a path to salvation, when in fact he said no such thing. The document states:
“It follows that these separated churches and Communities, though we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church”.
The Catholic Church and the Pope may have other issues, but neither teaches that there is no salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church.
Posted by: SB | July 13, 2007 7:02 PM

I wanted to comment on that, because it was a little unsettling to me to see that I could have gotten such a thing so wrong. So I went back to the original news story about the Pope’s declaration, as posted right here on Beliefnet.com last week. Let me quote now directly from that source…

Benedict, who attended Vatican II as a young theologian, has long complained about what he considers the erroneous interpretation of the council by liberals, saying it was not a break from the past but rather a renewal of church tradition.

In the latest document – formulated as five questions and answers – the Vatican seeks to set the record straight on Vatican II’s ecumenical intent, saying some contemporary theological interpretation had been “erroneous or ambiguous” and had prompted confusion and doubt.
It restates key sections of a 2000 document the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, “Dominus Iesus,” which set off a firestorm of criticism among Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the “means of salvation.”
(boldface mine)
In the new document and an accompanying commentary, which were released as the pope vacations here in Italy’s Dolomite mountains, the Vatican repeated that position.

Now I don’t know how YOU read that, SB, but I read it essentially as I have reported it. Namely, that the Pope is once again, by reiterating the Church’s earlier position on this subject, declaring that only the Most Holy Roman Catholic Church offers the “means of salvation.”
So it seems we have some contradictory information here. Perhaps some others within our Blog Community of Commentators might help us to straighten this out…
NDW