In a recent report in the Washington Post, it was revealed that the Bush White House issued a manual on how to prevent protesters from attending any of the president's public appearances. It goes on at length to show how the administration seems to feel inordinately threatened by any and all forms of dissent- as if the right to free speech upon which our nation was founded were a grave inconvenience to the discharge of the president's duties.

Well, it is true that allowing people who disagree with you to express their disagreement is inconvenient - especially if all you want is to be surrounded with like-minded people who won't rock the boat with facts or views that might require you to revise your position. But it is the very dynamic of dialogue that allows true democracy to thrive. It is its life blood. There is an extreme irony in an administration that insists it is the standard bearer of democratic process for the whole world, yet fearful of anyone suggesting that its policies might not be well-thought out or realistic, much less genuinely in the best interests of the whole world.

This is not the first time this dynamic has prevailed in American politics. Those of us who grew up in the sixties and seventies remember Richard Nixon's "Law and Order" platform energetically repressing protest and dissent over domestic and foreign policies of the Nixon Administration, while engaging in illegal activities themselves. It brought Nixon down, in the end, despite his legitimate accomplishments in opening trade with China and ending the Viet Nam War.

What is disturbing about the present situation is its close parallel to the dynamic of fundamentalist ideologies around the world. Hardly an Islamic extremist monopoly, self-righteous absolutism is the trademark of many groups and people who feel threatened by rapid change, and shaken in their sense of security by developments beyond their control. As religious scholar Karen Armstrong has pointed out, the machine driving fundamentalism is fear- especially fear of change too rapid to allow its recipients to absorb and integrate the demands that change places on the society.

The problem is, of course, that it is part of human nature to question things. Our ability to think and question is what has allowed our species to survive, despite our relative physical weakness. A problem that cannot be examined cannot be resolved. A system- whether religious, political, economic or otherwise- that cannot withstand criticism, cannot long survive, and certainly cannot function healthily and effectively. We have forgotten that the original meaning of criticism is not "attack"- as is too often understood- but merely "analysis". It is the free exercise of our analytical abilities that permits creative and responsive solutions to complex problems. The wise have long recognized this. St. Benedict of Nursia, in his monastic Rule, insists that important decisions affecting the entire community must be made jointly, not merely by the abbot. The same principle has ruled the tribal councils of American Indians for millennia. Moreover, in Benedict's Rule, the youngest in the community is granted the privilege of expressing his or her view first, on the biblical premise that truth often comes "out of the mouths of babes". Leaders from the White House, to the Vatican, to the Madrasas would do well to remember this.

In both the secular and religious realities of today we have numerous examples of intransigence being mistaken for noble loyalty, denial of reality being mistaken for the virtue of the strength of one's convictions. The self-contradictory behavior of both spiritual and political leaders is being exposed with alarming frequency, revealing a serious rift between ideological certainties and personal, all too humanly flawed practice and the bias of personal interests. Even where no immorality or malfeasance is involved, this rift can create deep emotional conflict and alienation. The inability to reconcile belief with experience can become both personally and systemically crippling. We often loose sight of the fact that the orthodoxy of today may be the heresy of tomorrow- or yesterday! When we place adherence to that orthodoxy above receptivity to truth, we undermine the vitality and adaptability of living social organisms. They are then apt to atrophy, ossify, or die.

Sadly, religion has a long history of promoting notions of absolute certainty instead of truth. Historically, institutional religion has, until very recently, either controlled or at least worked in concert with political institutions to create closed systems in the name of orthodoxy. Like exclusive clubs, membership in such societies has its privileges- and violations of its norms have punitive consequences. Human beings, to be sure, require a certain amount of agreement to be able to function in any social grouping- from the nuclear family on up to urban and national levels. Mistaking uniformity of practice for unity of purpose, however, puts all individual adaptation or variation at risk. Yet diversity, in life as in genetics, is what keeps us strong and growing. This is the endemic danger of absolutism. This is a fact applicable to all dimensions of our life- political, religious, economic, or personal.

Some cultures have done better than others in recognizing a distinction between absolute Truth and the relative truths of our constantly fluctuating life experience. Unfortunately, that distinction is a matter of highly developed skills of personal discernment that do not lend themselves to institutionalization. Barring total enlightenment, where there is no longer any experiential differentiation between the relative and the absolute, we are stuck, therefore, with the creative tension between the two, and the inevitable need of our institutions- whether religious, political, or educational- not to confuse one with the other, if its constituency is to survive and thrive. This is one of the greatest social and spiritual challenges facing the ever-shrinking, more globalized world of today. Systems, like people, that are willing to receive feedback from those whose views differ, are more likely to adapt to new demands than those who are intransigent or resistant. Leaders who are prone to defensiveness would do well to remember the words of the 16th century Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross: "Just because someone seems to lack the virtues you think he should have, do not imagine that he is not loved by God for reasons that have not occurred to you!"

Robert H. Stucky is the Executive Director of Faith In Diversity Institute.

Copyright © 2006 by Faith In Diversity Institute