Whose Conscience, which Voice?

[…continued from last posting]

One would think that the conscience of a people, a nation, would be a people’s religious convictions, their faith.  But if that is so, what do we say about the likes of the Floridian pastor (his name need not be mentioned) that threatened to burn the Koran (Qur’an) on the anniversary of September 11th?  Yes, he finally backed out of this threaten action.  Still, his voice was heard.  What kind of voice was it, the voice of faith, conscience, wisdom?  On all accounts NO!  But he’s a pastor.  He supposed to speak, teach, and preach faith values, principles, priorities, and truths.

We must be discerning.  We must distinguish among voices.  There is the voice of reason, faith, conscience, and wisdom.  There is also the voice of fear, hatred, contempt, arrogance, anger, and pride.  There are nervous voices, full of worry and concern, extremely anxious and therefore reactionary.  And there are secure voices, calm, steady, and peaceful, with great insight.

Those who are most discerning are the highly self-aware with penetrating honesty toward one’s self; yet, one doesn’t need a Ph.D. in psychoanalysis to hear the difference between constructive and destructive voices.  It’s in the tone, attitude, body-language, gestures, facial expression, and posturing.  It’s most especially discovered in the outcome, the results or effects of what one says (and does).

Jesus warned his followers, beware of wolves coming in sheep’s clothing; though they appear to be sheep on the outside they are actually ravenous wolves on the inside.  How can we tell?  We shall know them by their fruits, by what they produce, their outcomes (Matthew 17:15-16).  The fruit of the Spirit is peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, self-control (imagine that!), against these things there is no law, the Bible says (Galatians 5: 22-23).

Have you noticed that we no longer talk to each other anymore?  What we do now is shout at each other.  We get “in your face!”  We frown, spit, shun, condemn, and scream obscenities and absurdities.  When we do such things we are not listening to the voice of conscience.  And we are most certainly not paying heed to our faith convictions.  For example, when we Christians do such things, we are not listening to our avowed Lord, Jesus the Christ.  Indeed we are outright disobeying his command (“But I say unto you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”), Matthew 5:44. 

The most dangerous voice is the voice of self-righteousness.  This is the voice that presumes to be unquestionably above reproach, admitting of no mistake or error.  It is the voice that judges all others as tainted, inferior, and less-than, as compared to its own.  The self-righteous voice not only asserts itself as the only voice worth hearing but as the only voice that must be obeyed.  And when it is not, it presumes the right to inflict punishment on the disobedient as a consequence, when it has the means or power to do so.

Every religious denomination or sect, indeed every movement or cause, be it secular or religious, has its self-righteous adherents among them.  These are the ones that become the terrorists, or the ones who burn Bibles or Korans, or those who calmly blow-up innocent men, women, and children in the name of their self-righteous cause, faith, or belief.  All we need do is to look at their fruit to realize that they are indeed ravenous wolves, feeding on and devouring others to sustain their self-proclaimed superiority and authority.  They are right and everyone, absolutely everyone who questions them or disagrees with them, are in the wrong and will pay dearly for it.

To whom are you listening?  Who is your voice of conscience?