True, most everything that is best about religion happens in the countless acts of kindness and service, charity and community that take place in everyday life far from microphones and the public eye. But sometimes public actions speak volumes about religious sensibilities, and only rarely have we seen as stark a contrast in those sensibilities as we recently did in actions by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod on one end and the Dalai Lama with his friend Archbishop Desmond Tutu on the other.
One situation confirms all that has been most divisive about the practice of religion over the eons, with its oppressive doctrinal disputes and claims of exclusive access to ultimate truth. The other points to possibilities—and actually, the necessity—of where religion must continue to evolve if it is to maintain widespread relevance in the future.
Out there in the Lutheran Missouri Synod, church authorities deci...
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