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CONTACT THE ENTERPRISE Jocelyn Robinson, News editor jrobinson@heraldnet.com

Golden Rule is a must for our communities

By Rev. M. Chrisopher Boyer

In nearly every culture on our planet, children are taught some version of what we often call the Golden Rule.

But sometimes it seems like the Golden Rule has been replaced by a more cynical code: "He who has the gold, makes the rules."

When I was a little boy, I learned the Golden Rule in its most common form here in America: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It was a restatement of the teaching of Jesus found in the Gospel According to Luke, chapter 6, verse 31. As I grew older, I was delighted to learn that this key ethical teaching was actually present in all of the world's great religions and philosophies. The Jewish Talmud teaches, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow." In the Holy Quran of Islam, the teaching is "Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you." For Buddhists, the idea is expressed as a question: "...a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?" The list goes on and on. One Web site (religioustolerance.org), lists versions of the Golden Rule for 21 of the world's religions. Philosophers call this "the ethic of reciprocity" and it has featured in the teachings of great thinkers since ancient Greece and Egypt in the West and Confucius in the East.

So with this near universal agreement that reciprocal kindness is the right guide to life, it seems hard to believe that our society so often seems governed by that "other" Golden Rule ("He who has the gold…") or perhaps by a version often quoted by my smart-aleck friends when we were in high school, "Do unto others before they do unto you."

As I read the news of the day, complete with wars, predatory economic practices, crime and disrespect, I wonder what would happen in our world if adherents of all the world's great religions and philosophies would actually practice the Golden Rule? How might our own community be made better if all of us made a commitment to live by the ethic of reciprocity? Since it is a value that the vast majority of us have in common, imagine how such a commitment could bring us together across all sorts of lines to strengthen Lynnwood, Edmonds, Mountlake Terrace, Shoreline and all the places we call home.


Rev. M. Christopher Boyer is pastor of Good Shepherd Baptist Church in Lynnwood.