A NEW INSIGHT 203

A poem, still being edited, that speaks of how our present-day churches and religions will be viewed in the future in terms of their claims to be the bearers of the only truth about God. This is a constant theme in Richard Dell’s STARS IN OUR SOULS. And surely it is one of the most important points that we can make about men and women and their spiritual journey. We invariably look back on past practices and wonder how such practices and beliefs could have been not only tolerated but espoused and considered invaluable. We no longer consider it moral or ‘Christian’ to burn heretics at the stake. We look back at such practices with repulsion. Our churches are rightly embarrassed that their institutions held such divisive and exclusive opinions and indeed acted upon them. Nowadays we would see nothing of spirituality, or Christian love, in burning heretics at the stake, or in condoning slavery. We do indeed know better now. But what of the fact that although churches on the whole do not condemn outright other belief systems, be them beliefs held by fellow Christians or by adherents of other faiths, our churches do not seem to be prepared to embrace other belief systems, to rejoice in the ways of other belief systems? In a hundred years – or fifty? – such implied exclusivity will be seen as un-spiritual and un-Christian as the beliefs and practices of five-hundred years ago. We are all on the same journey. We are all struggling towards the light, and we need to help each other in every way we can. Inclusivity is all. The inclusivity of love is all. The inclusivity that is the only pathway to spiritual and religious healing is all. This is one of the key sacred duties of our time.