Editor’s note: This letter was sent to Andrew Benton, President of Pepperdine University.
I read with interest the article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on relighting the cross (at Pepperdine.) Since I don’t have the means to do it, please convey my thoughts to the students and others who support relighting the cross. Nothing divides people like religion. Just look around the world. Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Iraqis blowing up each other’s houses of worship. And we won’t even start with Judaism and Islam. Everyone always feels they are right.
I don’t care whether your cross is lit or not. But I do care about peace. Evidently, for the last 33 years there has been peace. Why do we need to upset the peace? Apparently some people want to push their religion just a tiny little bit. Lighting the cross isn’t a big push but it’s a push nonetheless. And so it becomes the same thing that’s going on in the Middle East just on a much smaller scale. Those who want to light the cross feel they are right. Those who don’t want the cross lit feel they are right. And whether it’s in newspaper articles or in the courts or in petitions or in speeches or demonstrations, each side will attempt to blow up the other’s position.
If Pepperdine has been successful as a university for the last 33 years, and students have been practicing their religions successfully for the last 33 years, why do we need to upset the peace and institute sectarian violence in Malibu? Oh, I know. Because those who support relighting the cross feel their religion is being short-changed. Yes, the same argument offered in every other religious conflict in the world!
Alan Bell