News stories make us constantly aware of the tensions and
conflicts that divide our world, and so often the roots of the conflicts are religious. Amidst
all these divisions, it was refreshing to hear one of NPR’s Easter stories. The
reporter broadcasted from Jerusalem and hailed the day as the most important of
Christian holidays to which most Christians would likely agree.
The correspondent situated her story at an outdoor Christian
service on Mount Scopus, where chiming bells provided the sound postcard. Then she
moved seamlessly from the Easter service to show a
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| Courtesy en.wikipedia.org |
Despite the frequent reminders of the deep chasms among
these faiths and especially in the Middle East, I thought the report
represented a shift in our collective consciousness regarding the value of
diversity. I felt pretty sure that this is a relatively recent development,
that 20 or 30 years ago, maybe even a shorter time ago, the Easter report would have
been exclusively Christian, no mention of the presence of other faiths in the
city that Christians recognize as the locus of the first Easter.
