I had a troubling chat at church last week. A good guy I’d never met before, who’s recovering from a stroke, told me some of his story, including a move the day before. He shared with gratitude and delight how the local Mormon church had rallied to help him and his wife, “They brought trucks, a bunch of people. It was great. Within a few hours everything was out of the old place and into the new one.”
Well, yay for this guy. But this kind of bugged me and I’m not sure why. I don’t think it’s because our church should have done the helping and we dropped the ball. We didn’t know they were moving.
I’m concerned that I just don’t want Mormons doing good things because I have them in a category of “people who don’t believe correctly.” So what happens when people who don’t believe correctly actually act correctly? Should we celebrate it? Or is it maybe a risky thing because others might be drawn into their incorrect beliefs?
I think maybe we do this with Muslims too. You probably saw on the news last week that a young Muslim man near Paris stabbed his mom and a sister to death. This is evil. It also fits in with a general narrative that Muslims do that kind of thing. What didn’t make headlines here was the Eid Al Adha related contributions of maybe thousands of Muslims to flood victims in Kerala. There are other reasons, to be sure, but I wonder if we don’t see what doesn’t fit our narrative.
Do I feel the same dissonance when a Muslim does something good. If they’re wrong, can they do something right?
You may have some helpful thoughts on this. If you can spare a minute to comment below, the rest of us would like to hear them.
