Our Attitude Towards the Religious Other: Keith Lane

I recently came across a devotional address given November 17, 2009 by Keith H Lane, Associate Professor of Religious Education at BYU-Hawaii.  Professor Lane holds a Ph.D. in the Philosophy and Theology of Religion from Claremont Graduate University.  He recently published “Kierkegaard & the Concept of Religious Authorship” in the German series Religion in Philosophy & Theology 45 (Mohr Siebeck, 2010), and presented this topic at the SMPT Conference in March 2010.

I listened to his address while doing the final edits of my response to the recent article by Richard J. Mouw, where in he called for Christian hospitality.  As I listened to Prof. Lane I began to be surprised at his message, for two reasons.  First, he drew upon many of the same quotations from Joseph Smith and other LDS leaders that represent a tolerant tradition that is often not discussed.  Secondly because of two paragraphs that spoke openly and bluntly about our discourse about those not of our faith.

Let us as Latter-day Saints reach out to others not of our faith. Let us never act in a spirit of arrogance or with a holier-than-thou attitude. Rather, may we show love and respect and helpfulness toward them. We are greatly misunderstood, and I fear that much of it is of our own making. We can be more tolerant, more neighborly, more friendly, more of an example than we have been in the past. Let us teach our children to treat others with friendship, respect, love, and admiration. That will yield a far better result than will an attitude of egotism and arrogance. (Gordon B. Hinckley, “A Time of New Beginnings,” Ensign, May 2000, 87)