The American Public Media radio broadcast, On Being with Krista Tippett, is an hour-long conversation featuring intelligent, spiritually-insightful people and their perspectives about important life questions from spirituality to science, God to atoms. Tippett has a Masters in Divinity from Yale and a full wealth of experience as a writer for the New York Times, correspondent for the BBC, special assistant to the Ambassador of West Germany, as well as having been a Fulbright Scholar in international politics.
This Sunday, the broadcast featured Lord Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain. Sacks made a statement: "God is bigger than religion." The context of his statement was in promoting acceptance and tolerance of different spiritual traditions and faiths. Current events seems to point us toward the desperate need for a refresher course in this simple concept.
Recent attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates and the resulting murder of four Americans is fueled by the hostility of an extremist faction of individual Muslims who believe an anti-Mohammed film posted on YouTube by a citizen of the U.S. signifies a direct attack on the religion of Islam by the U.S. This misunderstanding of politics as well as the use of violence against innocent people as repudiation for one person's viewpoint is evidence of a general atmosphere of religious persecution. The extremists are imposing their religious standards ("if you depict Mohammed, you will be punished") upon innocent people who had nothing to do with the original film that sparked their anger and retaliation. Their actions were an echo of the same act (the film) they felt persecuted by: dogmatism and narrow-mindedness.
To depict God as a product of religion carries the same insularity. God/Creator has no absolute form except through the stories our religions create. This does not mean God/Creator does not exist outside of religion; it simply means God/Creator exists beyond religion.
This is the exact point the Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was making. You cannot box God; not in a world with over 6800 different spoken languages.
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