Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 3, 1993 TAG: 9304050259
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cody Lowe
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A TIME FOR ACTION, NOT WORDS
It's a funny season.There are Christians who celebrate Easter's arrival at midnight, those who wait a week and those who don't give the holiday much of an emphasis at all.
There are "sunrise" services that don't start until 8 a.m., followed by pancakes, eggs and sausages.
Passover can last seven or eight days. Its beginning may be celebrated at home or in the synagogue or temple.
What is kosher for the week varies according to where one's anTcestors lived.
Yet differences that sometimes divide religious people often are not so important at this time of year.
Christians of virtually every stripe join with each other to celebrate what they believe is the pivotal event in human history - the death and Resurrection of the one called Jesus.
Jews of many backgrounds recall with one voice the experience of the liberation of their fathers and mothers - and thus of themselves - from slavery and oppression.
Muslims of many persuasions can agree on the cleansing power of the ritual abstinence of Ramadan.
Yet those groups - and some others - have yet to fully implement the noble goals the religious observances of this season urge on them.
Around the world, Christians, Jews and Muslims continue to commit atrocities against one another.
All three religions proclaim good will toward others, but the practice too often is flawed.
It would be unfair - and inaccurate - to characterize the general state of relations among these three religions as hostile.
In many places, perhaps most places on the globe, adherents of those three faiths - the best known in our own culture - are friendly.
But when tolerance fails, so does understanding and peace.
We're lucky, here in the United States.
Those of us who are religion reporters have a particular affinity for the First Amendment. The authors couldn't have linked three more important ideas.
Freedom of the press, religion and assembly all are vital to my craft.
More than that, of course, they are essential to maintaining what is for many of us the very core of our identity.
They were indispensable in guaranteeing that this great experiment in religious toleration would work.
Though we have faltered at times, as a nation, particularly in recent years, we have been willing to allow our neighbors virtually unlimited freedom of religious belief or unbelief.
We have decided, however, that religious practice can be limited.
While adults may freely refuse medical treatment on religious grounds, as a society we insist that children in need of medical care be given it if their lives are threatened.
We reject the use of violence as a means of persuading others to understand or adopt our religious points of view.
We decline to let government decide what religious values we will teach our children.
The limits to which we have agreed also have served us well.
This is a season of celebrating our religious distinctions.
It also is a time to fully apply the truths that we preach about tolerance.
Cody Lowe reports on issues of religion and ethics for this newspaper.