Anyone know this JW yahoo, Tommy Fasano? Is he "special"?
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Opinions:
DAVID YOUNT: Tolerant morality
Copyright © 2001
Scripps Howard News Service
(December 24, 2001 11:00 a.m. EST) -
Today, most middle-class Americans believe that conflicts can be avoided so long as we keep our beliefs and consciences to ourselves and refrain from inflicting them on others.
For example, a majority of Americans say that while they would not countenance abortion themselves, they prefer not to judge or oppose others who do. In Alan Wolfe's Middle Class Morality Project, those Americans who believed homosexuals were "born that way" (as opposed to choosing a gay lifestyle), did not condone homosexual behavior but still respected gays as free individuals.
The Boston College sociologist characterizes our growing nonjudgmentalism as "quiet belief." Tommy Fasano, a Jehovah's Witness in California, is a strong religious believer, but not an absolutist. He told Wolfe, "I am not here to judge anyone." Believers like Fasano, Wolfe notes, "would not object, and some would be quite pleased, if a pastor or rabbi advised a woman, in private, that abortion was wrong."
But "to do so in public, and in a way not directed toward a particular person but as a general moral injunction to all, whatever their circumstances, that strikes of poking your nose into other people's business," Wolfe suggests.
Unfortunately, by raising tolerance and individualism to the status of pre-eminent virtues, Americans of faith deny a role for religion in guiding public morality. Still, most Americans insist that government is not at all hostile to their personal religious beliefs and practices.
Quiet believers hold that the only fair and practical way to fulfill their religious responsibilities to others is by personal example, not by preaching. In Wolfe's survey, more than four out of five Americans who expressed an opinion held that "there are many different religious truths and we ought to be tolerant of all of them."
Tolerance and individualism depend on Americans thinking well of themselves and their fellow human beings. The events of Sept. 11 challenged that sunny sense of human nature, as we were confronted with evil posing as religious righteousness.
It is too early to determine whether our disillusionment will make us suspicious of people of other faiths. The surge of patriotism that followed the tragedies seemed to suggest otherwise, provoking human solidarity rather than suspicion. Moreover, being the victims of foreigners seemed to strengthen Americans' sense of personal innocence.
As recently as 1990, fewer than four of five Americans expressed a great deal of confidence in their religious institutions, whereas nearly all trusted their personal faith.
Wolfe suggests that "a deep-seated belief in people's goodness enables middle-class Americans to accept the principle that people should be free to choose their God, or even to not choose God at all, without worrying that the consequence will be anarchy, for good people will always make the right kinds of choices."
Contact David Yount at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22193, or [email protected]