I disagree on a core level that submission is the primary path to holiness. I disagree on a core level that Prophet Mohammed is the final teacher from God. I disagree on a core level that their religion is the only true faith. I disagree on a core level that a theocracy is the ideal government.

I disagree on a core level that only men can be Imam’s. I disagree on a core level that men are front and center during the community prayers and the women must pray behind a partition out of sight. I disagree on a core level that women must have their heads covered at all times in public.

Why then did I encourage my church, Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church to make a special offering to help NAMCC build their Mosque? Why am I pictured in this video proudly presenting a check to them?

Simply and clearly stated, there is a greater principle at stake.

In the "Preacher’s line" after the church service where we gathered the contribution for the Mosque one of my members vigorously opposed our course of action. The parishioner asked, "Would you help build a Catholic or Mormon church? We should be tolerant of other religions but we should not be building their churches!"

My answer to my church member and you is this.

Normally I wouldn’t be in favor of helping another religious group build a house of worship, especially one that I have such core differences with. But the Muslim religion is under siege in America. The overwhelming multitudes of their adherents are here seeking a life of opportunity and liberty in the "land of the free and the home of the brave."

They strive to be good citizens and make a positive contribution to their cities. They are seeking a place to peacefully practice their faith. The least we can do is live up to who we say we are. The fact that we have substantial core religious differences makes our reaching out in support even more profoundly principled.

I can easily cite the first amendment to our Constitution as the bedrock greater principle I am seeking fidelity to. But, I want to go back a few thousand years to a teaching of Rabbi Jesus who surely inspired Jefferson in crafting the cornerstone of our Bill of Rights.

Jefferson wrote that in the person of Jesus

"a system of morals is presented to us which is…the most perfect and sublime that has ever been taught my man."

This teaching of Jesus undergirds our inheritance of religious freedom.

"If you love only those who love you what reward can you expect? Surely the tax gatherers do as much as that. (They were vilified as traitors working for the Roman empire.) And if you greet only your brothers, what is there extraordinary about that? Even the heathen do as much. There must be no limit to your goodness, as your heavenly Father’s goodness knows no bounds." *

* Matthew 5:46-48, The New English Bible

Islam,

“I am sickened by the BS going on by the religious & political right with the center in NYC & Mosques across the country. I wonder if we can get some Austin religious leaders together and make a statement, do a service project together etc. to counter this. This is beginning to pick up national steam and is in need of being addressed here. I plan to do a portion of my sermon on this Sunday. My topic is courage.”

Islam is the Imam of the North Austin Muslim Community Center in Austin, Texas. I consider him a friend and brother. We have shared lunch and coffee together numerous times. I have had him on my radio show “Soul Talk” on several occasions.

I have prayed with and spoken to his religious community. Islam and I had a frank conversation during a worship service at my church entitled, “A Window Into the World’s Most Controversial Religion.” Afterwards we had a congregational Q&A and then a dozen of us treated Islam to lunch for more dialogue.

Islam invited myself, a Rabbi, and a Comparative Religion professor to his Muslim Community Center Tuesday, August 18th for a strategy session around the national mosque controversies. According to Time magazine there are at least six Mosques being vigoursly opposed across America.

I have been marinating my conscience in Jefferson’s bedrock American principle upon hearing so many disgusting, hyperbolic, voices whipping up peoples bigotry and fear.

“Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion…

Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”

This magnificent revelation became the cornerstone of our Bill of Rights, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

As I walked into the Mosque I couldn’t help but notice there were two trucks parked near the entrance owned by a local company doing work in the building. The logos read, “Liberty Mechanical.”

The Spirit moves in mysterious ways! America’s cardinal canon was confirmed.

I spoke these words to my congregation two days earlier.

“Courage calls us to the maturity, wisdom, and discretion to find a balance between protection and principles. How can we protect ourselves and those we love without renouncing our principles? How would you like your religion to be judged by the worst of its adherents?

Our world is in a major transition. It is changing with 4 G network speed. Change produces fear in us. As humans we often act out of this fear choosing to create the “Other.” We demonize and target them. Courage charts another course.

Gandhi said, “The practice of nonviolence calls forth the greatest courage.” I’m asking you. I’m asking this church to live our faith, our principles. I’m asking your courage to be more embracing than the fear.”

I’m asking the same of you.

This is an excerpt from President Bush’s remarks yesterday, where he personally handed the Dalai Lama the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal, our highest civilian honor.

After meeting privately Tuesday with President Bush, The Dalai Lama, brushed off China‘s furious reaction to the U.S. celebrations, “That always happens,” he mused, with his liberating laugh.

The president’s attendance at the ceremony marked the most public embrace ever of the Tibetan leader by an American leader. “I will continue to urge the leaders of China to welcome the Dalai Lama to China. They will find this good man to be a man of peace and reconciliation.” Bush pointedly chastised nations where there has been a “stubborn endurance of religious repression” and urged China to relax its policy on Tibet.

President Bush then waxed sappy and self congratulatory. “As a nation, we are humbled to know that a young boy in Tibet –, His Holiness kept a model of the Statue of Liberty at his bedside. Years later, on his first visit to America, he went to Battery Park in New York City so he could see the real thing up close. On his first trip to Washington, he walked through the Jefferson Memorial — a monument to the man whose words launched a revolution that still inspires men and women across the world. Jefferson counted as one of America‘s greatest blessings the freedom of worship. It was, he said, “a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government, and yet proved by our experience to be its best support.”

Today, I want to praise President Bush for a historic, weighty and risky use of his office. Other Presidents have played parlor games in offering the Dalai Lama the clout of our superpower.

At the same time I challenge Mr. Bush on his shallow caricature of the Dalai Lama as a quaint spiritual teacher seeking “freedom of worship.”

He is a religious leader in the most noble and integrated lineage of Moses, Gandhi, King, and Mandela; carrying himself with deep dignity, meekly yet firmly insisting, “Let my people go!”

In many ways the Dalai Lama has become to American’s and our government like the plastic Jesus on our collective car dashboard, a figure who is ultimately discounted into oblivion via excessive honor.

Rev. Clinton Lee Scott preached, “It is easier blindly to venerate the saints than to learn the human quality of their sainthood. To worship the wise is much easier than to profit by their wisdom. Grandchildren of those who stoned the prophet sometimes gather up the stones to build the prophet’s monument….It is easier to pay homage to prophets than to heed the direction of their vision.”

As His Holiness remarked, “that always happens.”

Scott offered this altar call. “Great leaders are honored, not by adulation, but by sharing their insights and values.

America, and President Bush, I’ll see you at the altar.