A few ways to reduce religious hatred, fear and misunderstanding appear below:
Learn more about different religions and faith traditions. Read a book about another religion or faith tradition.
Try to avoid from us versus them thinking, actions and words. View all people as equally worthy of God's love.
Understand the strength of your own faith or philosophical position. You are not alone with your beliefs. You may be part of a faith tradition or a philosophy that counts its numbers in the millions. The fact that other people might not believe exactly as you do does not reduce the strength or validity of your faith.
Christians can help reduce their personal feelings of frustration with Jewish people by understanding that Jesus chose to give up His life. Neither the Romans, nor the Jews killed Jesus. He gave up His life. See John 10:17-18.
Remember that news about extremist elements in religions and congregations, and extremist clerics get more headlines than good news. The headlines might not give an accurate or a balanced representation of the faith.
Read news articles intelligently. Understand every author has a bias. Check to see what the bias is and how the bias might have impacted on the content of the article. Try to confirm all news articles with other sources, to ensure you do not draw conclusions based on biased news stories.
Build on common values and beliefs with people of different religions and faith traditions.
Visit a church, synagogue, mosk or house of faith for a different faith tradition than your faith tradition.
Talk to a pastor, priest, rabbi or spiritual leader in another faith tradition or religion. Ask the spiritual leader to describe his or her spiritual journey and to describe the fundamental values of the faith tradition.
Forgive those who have hurt you or your faith tradition. In many cases, those who have hurt people in other traditions and religions have done so in an effort to serve God.
Speak out when religiously motivated hate crimes take place. Write letters to the editors of newspapers expressing your disapproval of religious hate crimes.
Set an example in your congregation. Do not use pressure, verbal assaults or threats of damnation to force people to agree with how you express the faith. Try not to link people or groups of people with the devil.
Withhold offerings when spiritual leaders make public comments that demonstrate a spirit of hatred against other faith traditions or religions, that label certain people as evil or openly damn people.
Learn more about different religions and faith traditions. Read a book about another religion or faith tradition.
