Nicaea

In 325 AD, the Roman Emperor was becoming concerned. Arguments between Christian sects had become violent and were threatening to disrupt the Empire. The Emperor Constantine intervened, and ordered the 300 Christian Bishops to meet and resolve their doctrinal differences. The First Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical council of the Church, and resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine, called the Nicene Creed. More importantly, it quelled the disputes and restored peace to the Christian world, a peace that would last for twelve-hundred years, and continues today.

If God exists, couldn’t he reveal himself to whomever he wanted in whatever manner he wanted? And maybe that’s what he’s done over the centuries to Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, Muhammad, and countless others? And if God is universal, unchanging and fixed, wouldn’t his truths be universal, unchanging and fixed?

The great religions of the world all claim to teach God’s truths. So, if God exists, and his truths are unchanging and fixed, any fundamental disagreement regarding these truths must be the result of a faulty interpretation of those truths. For any religion to be truly great, it must have some element of the divine truth within it. At some level then, there must be some common truth that exists within the great faiths of the world, and of course there is. It is the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Eighty-one percent of the world’s population subscribes to a religious belief that promotes the Golden Rule. So, if eighty-one percent of the world’s population subscribes to a religion that promotes the Golden Rule, why is there so much animus and conflict between the faiths, and within certain religions? It is because people neither understand nor practice what they claim to believe.

In 1979, Radical Islam seized the US Embassy in Tehran taking fifty-two Americans hostage. It was their first salvo in their war with the West. San Bernardino and Paris are the inevitable next phase of that conflict. However, Radical Islam’s war with Western Civilization is in reality an expansion of a Muslim sectarian conflict that has been raging for centuries. The on-going war between Sunnis and Shiites has created an extremist ideology of intolerance and hate. It has pitted Muslim against Muslim, and the extremist against anyone who opposes their brand of fascism. Ninety percent of the people killed by Radical Islam are Muslim.

The time has come for another Council of Nicaea. The major religions of the world should convene their own ecumenical council and issue a uniformed doctrine of belief that reasserts the Golden Rule, and reaffirms the self-evident truths put forth in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The right to life, liberty and security of person, the right to live free from slavery, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, the right to work, the right to marry and raise a family, and equal protection under civil law. Any religion or interpretation of a faith that is unable, or unwilling to issue such a doctrine, is an illegitimate interpretation of the divine truth.

Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is the King of Saudi Arabia, the head of the House of Saud, and the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. They are the two holiest places within Islam and the center of the Muslim world. King Salman needs to be a modern-day Constantine. He needs to convene an ecumenical council of the five major Islamic sects, and issue a unified doctrine of belief that will end the sectarian conflict. If he doesn’t, the war will continue to expand until the Western powers are no longer willing to distinguish between the radical and peaceful Muslims. The clash of civilizations will continue to expand until one, or both civilizations are destroyed.