Falling Short Of My Interfaith Ideals

The unity of God is abundantly clear to me, and what I want to believe should naturally follow is unity between the people who love and worship God. Interfaith efforts of all kind make my heart smile, and I blithely overlook differences in doctrine in order to find common ground and keep the peace.

Tonight I fell sadly short of my best intentions… Or perhaps it’s more that, in spite of my tendency to focus on unity, there are some real differences that just can’t be overlooked, which need to be navigated with great care.

My mom and her husband attend the First Baptist Church in their town, where they send my nine year old brother to Awanas Club on Wednesday nights. I was helping my brother learn his weekly two Bible verses before tonight’s Awanas, and was shocked by the content of the second verse he was asked to learn:

The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
~Jeremiah 17:9

Excuse me, the heart is “deceitful” and “beyond cure”?

This is in stark contrast to the teachings I cherish, which tell me that the that the heart is a holy temple of God:

“The heavens and the earth cannot contain Me,
but the heart of my faithful believer contains Me.”
~Hadith Qudsi

I was so triggered by the verse that I was unable to slow down my reaction time, and (astaghfirallah) I just shoved the Awanas book away from me and exclaimed in exasperation, “Really? The Bible says that? Allah!”… Then I promptly walked into the kitchen to keep my mouth from firing off any sharper words.

My brother’s response to my reaction was to say, “That’s not what the Bible really says, it’s just that they keep changing it.”

Cross my heart, hope to die, that’s really what he said. Out of the mouths of babes!

Then my mom came to the table and tried to “rescue” the situation, and she said to my brother, “Change the Bible? Of course not, don’t be silly!”. She proceeded to repeat the verse and direct my brother’s attention back to memorizing it. She repeated those horrible words, “The heart is deceitful above all things…” with complete reverence in her voice, like she was reciting a love poem, which made my stomach turn even further.

The thing that kills me is that my brother’s reaction was spot on, in general and with this verse in particular. The quote in the Awanas handbook was from the New International Version. I went to Bible Gateway and looked up the same verse in multiple other translations. Each one is more than slightly different, some could be unrecognizable as the same verse.

Compare:

The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
~Jeremiah 17:9 (New International Version)

You people of Judah are so deceitful
that you even fool yourselves,
and you can’t change.
~Jeremiah 17:9 (Contemporary English Version)

The most cunning heart—
it’s beyond help.
Who can figure it out?
~Jeremiah 17:9 (Common English Bible)

So, three different translations, three vastly different messages. Not to mention that all of them, when taught as a standalone verse, are taken completely out of context and therefore easily warped. To be honest, I am woefully ignorant of the New Testament, but the Jesus I believe in would never teach that any person’s heart was beyond help or cure.

I believe, on a fundamental level, that God chooses our parents for us with great care, and that each parent is entrusted to give their children the spiritual upbringing they see fit, and I don’t think it is my place to interfere with that. What I wanted to say tonight was, “Don’t believe it, that’s a lie! Your heart is a holy jewel!” But it’s not my place to contradict what my mom decides to teach as truth in front of my nine year old brother. When he’s older, maybe, but not at this age, not at the expense of causing a family uproar just days before Christmas.

Nonetheless, it’s a stinging pain to me that my brother was taught such an ugly lie about his own beautiful heart tonight, at such a formative age.

In closing, a little memo to Awanas: For teaching lies to my brother and to countless scores of other young hearts, you are totally on my $#^% list.

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