Zeal

Religious zeal can lead people to do all kinds of crazy things. I cannot bear right now to write, nor can you bear to read, a summary of the history of religious zeal or a survey of religious zeal in the world today. I just want to give a personal example of how I was blinded by zeal back in my creationist days (and it is not the only example).

When I was an undergraduate, I was a fundamentalist, and creationism was my gospel. I had, a couple of years earlier, been to Japan as an exchange student. I had friends in Japan, with whom I have unfortunately lost contact. One of them was a young woman named Sumiyo. I did not notice her very much when I was in Japan, but in the weeks after my return to America I developed a close relationship with her through letters. We meant a lot to one another, a love constructed of words. I thought she was nearly a perfect human being, except for one thing. She was Buddhist and as such headed to Hell. I wanted to somehow convince her to be a Christian. We actually wrote to one another about it, in her imperfect English, my beautiful English, and an occasional clumsy Japanese sentence that I wrote.

I wanted to send her some evidence that would convince any intelligent person—and she certainly was one—of the truth of creationism. I do not remember if I actually sent her any of my creationist books. But I do remember one that I almost sent her. It was a little cheap paperback by a creationist who was saying that if it were not for God, atoms could not exist. The book, “The Atom Speaks,” had a photo of a nuclear explosion on the cover. I was about ready to send it when I suddenly realized what impression it would have on her. This was about 1976, scarcely thirty years since the bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That is almost the same amount of time since I have last corresponded with her. Not that long. The atomic bombs were within living memory—not of her, born in 1957, but of her parents. I might have deeply offended her by sending her that book.

My zeal had corrupted my empathy. Only at the last minute did I think to put myself in her position and look back at myself. That is what empathy is. I believe that there are many larger and smaller examples happening all the time in which religious zeal makes us forget our good and loving behavior. Zeal blocked my ability to think about what someone really needed to hear, rather than just what I wanted to say.