The heart has its reasons, says Pascal, and sometimes those reasons have a long history. Recently I signed a card for a friend, a devout Baptist, who was raised to have a suspicion of Catholics. It’s something he still struggles with; but don’t we all? History eventually infects our DNA. Who of us is entirely free from suspicion of what’s religiously different from us? And what’s the cure?
Personal contact, friendship and theological dialogue with those of other denominations and other faiths does help open our minds and hearts. But the fruit of centuries of bitter misunderstanding doesn’t disappear so easily, especially when it’s institutionally entrenched and nurtured as a prophetic protection of God and truth. And so in regard to Christians of other denominations there remains in most of us an emotional dis-ease, an inability to see the other fully as one of our own.
