We’re used to thinking of the real differences in the world as among religions: you are Buddhist, I’m a Christian, she is Jewish, he is an atheist. But I wonder if that way of thinking is becoming irrelevant and perhaps even counter-productive. What if the deeper question is not whether you are Christian, Buddhist or atheist but rather what kind of Christian, Buddhist or atheist are you? Are you a believer who puts your distinct beliefs first, or are you a person of faith who puts love first? Are you a believer whose beliefs put you in competition and conflict with people of differing beliefs or are you a person of faith whose faith moves you towards the other with love?
That phrase I just used, person of faith, in one sense makes a simple generalization. It serves as a description that makes room for Christians, Muslims, Jews and so on. But I’m coming to see that person of faith is not just a generalization. It is also a differentiation in contrast to a person of beliefs. It reflects a shared desire among people in all these diverse traditions to be identified not by a list of beliefs that exclude one another but by something deeper, by faith in a universal non discriminatory love that calls us all together.
From Brian McLaren’s “ Faith After Doubt”