[This is a sermon I preached at Salem Friends Meeting, Liberty, IN, in April, 2008.]

In 1992 the world reverberated with the simple words of Rodney King, "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?" We continue to scratch our heads and wonder, "Why can't we all get along?" I think the simple answer is not everyone wants to get along. There are people who become committed to a very rigid view of how people are to live, believe that it's the only right way, and then insist on everyone conforming to their way. These are people we call extremists or fundamentalists.

They come in many varieties. The extreme can be on either end of the spectrum, whether that continuum is about politics, economics, or religion. We talk about them as being on the right or on the left. No matter which side of the aisle they are on, they do not have an aisle seat. They sit way over on one side or the other. Their extremism is the only thing they have in common. Everyone else on the spectrum are their opponents: The further away others are on the spectrum the greater the animosity, anger, and even hatred toward them.

In our current political climate, we most often hear the word extremist in conjunction with Muslims. The term "terrorist" has almost become synonymous with Muslim extremist. There do exist Islamic factions around the world that see Islam as the final and ultimate revelation of God to humanity. They believe God didn't get it quite right the first time with Judaism; God made some progress with Christianity; but God finally got it right when he divulged his secrets to Muhammad. The ensuing compilations of Islamic law, therefore, contain the ultimate pattern for community and national life. For many of these extremists, their way is the only way and all others must conform. We see this throughout the Arab world from the east in Indonesia to the western Maghreb of North Africa. We talk about Al Qaeda, Taliban, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Besides the more militant factions, there are Islamic fundamentalists who are working to bring Arab cultures back to what they see as the original intentions of the Islamic "founding fathers," to borrow a phrase.

They certainly are not the only kind of religious extremists terrorizing the world today. Remember back to 1994 when Yitzhak Rabin (then Prime Minister of Israel), Shimon Peres, and Yassar Arafat were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to bring peace to the Middle East through the Oslo Accords. On November 4, 1995, a right-wing Orthodox Jew, Yigal Amir, fatally shot Rabin because he disagreed with Rabin's moderate policies. Currently, the prime minister of Israel is Ehud Olmert, who represents Kadima, a more centrist party founded by Ariel Sharon. But there are other groups, like the Likud party, that take a more extreme view about maintaining Israel as a Jewish state. Zionists want to see the modern state of Israel continue to gain more land and more power. For them the military is a means to achieve their ends. What stands between them and their Zionist vision are the Arab people that surround them from the north, the east, and the south; the Lebanese, the Syrians, and the Palestinians.

There's a third group we could talk about, and that's Christian fundamentalists. For the Islamic extremists, the Qur'an must be read, analyzed, and even memorized. Reciting its words is a holy act. For orthodox Jews, the Hebrew Bible, the Tanak—a term representing the three parts of the Hebrew Bible (Torah, Neviim, Kethuvim; the law, the prophets, and the writings)—is the word of God. It is to be reverenced; it is to be studied, memorized, and recited. The scrolls themselves are sacred and treated as such. Christian fundamentalists reverence the Bible in the same way. They cherish the leather-bound, gold-gilded pages of the book and consider it sacred. Its words are to be read as coming directly from the mouth of God. The whole thing is equally inspired and every aspect of it is to be believed as if one's eternal destiny depended on it. Whatever it is deemed to say about any aspect of life must be held to be literally true no matter how inconceivable it might seem. Christian fundamentalists in the US see their country as a Christian nation and strive to get everyone else to recognize the original intentions of the "founding fathers" to build a Christian nation "under God." They want their view of science and sexual morality to be taught in the schools. They want civic society to uphold their standards of decency. They want US foreign policy to be guided by their Zionist views, which they think will fulfill the prophecies of the Bible. The scariest part of Christian fundamentalism is, although they do not tend to be militant themselves, they consider the US military to be their tool to bring the Christian empire to the world.

In all of these areas of the world, moderate voices are working at the task of getting along. At times that can seem like anti-religious groups are working to shape society. Those are times that the balance begins to shift to the opposite extreme. In the middle are the moderates, both religious and secular, who are trying to find ways for well-meaning people to build societies based on peace and justice for all people.

It is not easy to be a moderate centrist. It can seem like people are middle-of-the-road because they can't make up their minds which side they are on. It's like they don't believe in anything or have any commitments and just accept some loose set of principles. But that's not the case. It takes more work and intelligence to understand both sides of the issue and to refrain from becoming swept up by the extremes on either side. This extends to the basic decisions each of us makes about everyday moral choices.

It's rather easy to let someone else do your thinking for you. All you have to do is listen to what they say and then do it. Everything is black & white, right or wrong. Ethical choices for Christian fundamentalists could be as simple as asking, "What would Jesus do?" In fact, you don't really need to worry about any of that, as long as you've had a conversion experience. You don't need to be terribly concerned about the world because it and the devil are all going to burn soon anyway.

The trouble with being a moderate, however, is knowing where the boundaries are. If it's not a sin to drink alcohol, then what's to keep me from getting drunk regularly? If sex is permissible beyond procreation, then why shouldn't I live my life getting my jollies anyway I want? If I have freedom to interpret my faith and make personal choices, who's to tell me my beliefs and way of life are wrong?

We begin to figure that out for ourselves by coming to understand how human culture works. We then ask ourselves what are our values that transcend culture, those values humans have the most in common around the world. The more local the custom is--the more bound something is to our particular culture—the greater the tendency for it to be of less moral consequence. It may still be important to us and our community. But it is unlikely that it is something we should use to judge the character or value of others, try to impose on all people, or follow in some slavish way. Clothing styles, personal appearance, forms of music and art, manner of speech, etiquette, eating practices – these are all areas of life for which people in different cultures develop local customs. They may seem very important to people. In fact, extremists tend to make these things a priority and a test of allegiance to a particular religious worldview.

Our choices for how we think and act, first of all, should be based on how they affect the quality of our lives. Are we doing things that enhance our lives or are they potentially destructive? Do they give us immediate gratification but have long term detrimental consequences for what we want to achieve in life? Will the person we are ten to twenty years from now be grateful to the person we are now for the choices we make?

Secondly, our choices affect the people around us. We should be sensitive to whether our actions have a negative impact on others. We have a responsibility as members of the human race to live our lives in ways that at least do not hurt the people with whom we come into contact but also have a positive contribution to their quality of life and sense of well-being. At times that may mean voluntarily and temporarily giving up what might otherwise be something good for ourselves in order to do a greater good for someone else. In most cases, those expressions of love for others do not diminish ourselves but enhance and help develop the person we are becoming.

Thirdly, the way we choose to live life should have the least negative effect possible on the larger world of which we are a part and seek to have the greatest positive contribution possible to the welfare of people everywhere and also for life in general on our planet. All of this has to be in balance in our lives.

You could say that the best thing I could do to prevent harm to others and the planet is not to exist. But your human life has intrinsic value and has the potential to benefit the quality of life of others. We all should expect individual members of the human community to respect their own value to the whole, to do what's needed to pursue one's own aspirations, and to have the right to make use of a reasonable share of the world's resources.

The flourishing human life is characterized by freedom, on the one hand, and personal commitments on the other. We serve others but do so voluntarily. We suffer for others, but we do so in ways that benefit rather than diminish us. In all these choices, we hold up to ourselves for imitation the best of human ideals. For many cultures this is an expression of the divine life, a godlike existence, a participation in the holy presence of God.

The human family can get along in the world but not by falling into the trap of cultural ideologies and religious fanaticism, fundamentalism, and extremism. The way to make the world better is not by trying to convince everyone in the world to adopt the faith and practice of your group, movement, or religion. It doesn't work to say, "The world would be at peace if everyone would just be like me." We have to realize what we have in common as humans is the destructive tendency to think local histories, customs, and traditions are values that everyone must share. Or that what we think is the standard for all others. By that way of thinking, therefore, it becomes legitimate to use coercion, force, and even violence in order to superimpose those values on others. Wherever these extremist views happen, they should be suppressed by more moderate voices. The vocal minority should not have the last word in how the world is run. A broad education and cultural awareness is the only way to help people progress to see how their lives interact with others.

When we read about Jesus, the Apostle Paul, and others in the New Testament, we can see the ways in which early Christianity sought to include marginalized people, to break down cultural and ethnic barriers, and to make a qualitative difference in the lives of men and women. In this way Christianity was focused on bringing people together into God's kingdom. The message about Jesus was meant to be good news to all people everywhere. It was a ministry of redemption and reconciliation. It was a message about peace and the justice of God. The vast majority of people want these things in their lives and in the world. But there are some who don't want that. They want their way and only their way for all—or else. In the course of marginalizing those people we must not trample on the rights and freedoms of others. It takes all of us working together to achieve this task of getting along. We can't just sit around waiting for God to do it for us. God expects humans in all parts of the world to discern God's voice, to make good choices, and be on our best behavior for the benefit of all.