The religious
communities that Russell meets and shares through this book are
mostly known to us in “the West” only through reports of their
persecution – and there is a bitterness in knowing that even in the
few years since Russell wrote that persecution has become more
intense.
For many of these
communities their sense of identity and belonging is seated in a
completely different place from our own. Most of the religions do
not proselytise, do not even catechize their own believers – this
sets them apart from the “big” faiths (although maybe the
contrast to pre-reformation Christianity would not have been so
sharp?).
What we learn from
Russell is that the esoteric actually enriches us all. Of them all,
even though there are only 750 Samaritans (and that a rising total)
makes the collective identity of the 7 billion + people alive today
richer.
There would be an
argument that the lives of these minorities would be “easier” if
they dropped their particular identity and conformed to the majority
– but life is not meant to be easy it is meant to be authentic –
conformity might make me richer but it would make me less myself –
as someone once said “what will it profit a man if he gains the
whole world and forfeits his soul?”
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