The author admits to taking a risk when, in STEWARDS OF THE LIGHT, he creates faith-based stories with religiously diverse casts. In every one of them the differences led to conflict with the champions of each system seeking to portray their beliefs in the best possible light and suggest that others believed was misguided or evil.
Like me, Hank in “My Teacher, the Devil” could have played it safe. He could have avoided the Holy Land until the European Crusaders showed up around 1100 C.E. His job would have been secure, and no one would have noticed the omission … except those students who do not trace their family roots to what is called the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Hindus and Buddhists, for example, would be forced to wait for events that would include South Asia. So would Sikhs. Muslims would hear their religion referred to only in generally negative contexts, as the invaders who held Jerusalem against Richard the Lion-Hearted and drove out the noble Templars decades later. They might also wonder why their faith did not rate equal footing with Jews and Christians; after all, so much of all three seemed to overlap.
Hank’s opponents came not from an outnumbered minority that felt abused. Instead, they came from the majority. They were pleased with things as they were and did not want alternatives provided. That’s the same attitude Zack faced in “The Least of These” and Rev. Jay faced in “A Way through the Darkness”.
One might wonder how the same group might have responded centuries earlier when an inspired carpenter from Nazareth introduced new ways to look at old things.
The new and the different tend to be identified with the evil and the anti-social. In the 1500’s, Martin Luther was portrayed in etchings as an ally of Satan. The Puritans, once themselves considered persecuted radicals, hanged pacifist Quakers in colonial America.
The histories of sacrifice and faith define our global cultures. Literature is filled with inspirational fiction hoping to bridge the cultural gaps.
The lesson here is that doctrinal differences come and go, but a Gospel of Love bridges all such differences… when you let it.