what coexist doesn't mean, and does

Some time ago, I asked my friends what they thought about this viral image.    Some thought it expressed sadness (because you have to say it in the first place);   some thought it was saying all religions are the same;   some thought it was saying truth is relative.    Only a few expressed something like my response.

I see this image as a prophetic statement.    It is undeniably an instruction, a call to shape up.    It is thoroughly, and resoundingly, consistent with the gospel message and with the Christian worldview.    I'll discuss all those things in a moment.

First, some clarifying thoughts.

The word "coexist" has a meaning.    It doesn't mean "abide in worldwide love and brotherhood."    It doesn't mean "there is no universal truth."    It's an instruction, and a specific, limited one.

For instance, it contains no message that we should love.    We have a perfectly good word for love:   "love."    And a good word for agree:   "agree."    This word does not mean either of those things.

In its social sense, it doesn't merely mean "to exist at the same time and place," as in its scientific meaning ("a triliocyte and its invotule cannot coexist").    Certainly, we (all 10-to-the-80 of us) coexist in that sense.    Many have pointed out that, if that's what this image means, it's meaningless.    It isn't meaningless, though, because "coexist" means something more:   in its social sense, it's closer to "live and let live," to have mutual minimal acceptance (and allowance) of each other's existence, despite differences.

Differences in what?    In over fifty responses to my question, not a single friend referred, in any depth, to differences other than religion.    Tony Schwartz would tell us that says more about ourselves than about what's pictured, which is an array of symbols that include religion — 3 major and 2 minor — plus symbols of male and female gender, and a symbol of the belief in nonviolence.    That's what's there.

What's not there:   a claim that all religions are equal, or that all beliefs are equally true.    Several have mentioned that they hate or are saddened by the sight of it, because they perceive it to claim that it denies the truth of one religion and puts them on the same level, buffet-style.

All I can say to that is that I read it very differently.    First, in it I see the cross as standing out — it's more solid and serene and (if I were with you and speaking to you I'd say) it goes "Pschhhh."    I now realize that although it may be the graphic designer's effort, it's probably just my view of the cross of Christ, which calls up a lifetime of emotions and study and worship and thought and time in me.

Second, and more importantly, the image doesn't grate against my view that those other religions are wrong.    I believe they are, plain as that.    Many adherents of those other religions believe that I'm wrong — an infidel, unenlightened, what-have-you — and I feel not the least offended by that.    So the image doesn't seem to be saying to me that "none of these things is wrong".    After all, it's not saying that maleness and femaleness are right or wrong.    It's saying that, whichever of these symbols you identify with, and you think is true, you mustn't deny others' right to live thinking their thing is true.

I believe that God fitted us with free will and freedom of conscience.    Thus, to follow this exhortation ("coexist!") is a way of respecting God's order.

I believe that God's truth is truth, and will stand scrutiny.    Thus, to follow this exhortation is to face the world with Christ-centered confidence.

I believe that all the people represented by these symbols (and the millions not represented) are beloved of God.    He desires them to be with Him, and one reason I'm on earth is to show His love and truth to them.    I can't do that if I've killed them;   more crucially, I can't do that if I've oppressed them either.    By the same token, I can't do that if they've killed me.

I see no relativism here, because there is no relativism here.    Any relativism you see in this image is what you're bringing to it.    I see no denial of the history that these symbols represent.    (In fact, quite the opposite, as I'll discuss below.) Any such denial you see is what you're bringing to it.

OK — I've been upfront about what I myself am bringing to this image.    I hope I've been clear about what it doesn't say.    Now to really delve into what it does say, at least to me.

(Note:   I used the word "prophetic" earlier.    I'm using the term "prophecy" in a way that may be unfamiliar to people outside my religious tradition.    A prophet doesn't just engage in crystal-ball predictions of the future, but rather takes up most of his time charging his audience to repentance.    An old Baptist phrase says "Prophets may foretell, but mainly forth-tell.")


There's a difference between an observation and a prophecy.    There's a difference between an order to be followed and an order given prophetically.    If God told the Pope to get the entire world in line and bring about peace on earth before He returns in glory, then we must conclude that the Pope is a laughable failure for his near-annual call for world peace at Christmas.    If, on the other hand, the Pope is convicted that he is to stand witness, then his call makes sense.

The fact is that people could stop killing each other;   the other fact is that they won't.

Time and again, though, God calls people to proclaim to the world:   You Must Change.    You must do justice.    You must love mercy.    You must walk humbly with God.    You must leave aside your rituals and candles and songs — they disgust Me — and instead treat each other humanely. If we are to evaluate those proclamations by their proximate effect, then we'd be snickering at the prophets, one and all.    This is why the Babylon Bee, usually so devastatingly funny in its satire when it's directed at its fellow Christians rather than away from them, lands off-target in its articles on the subject ( 1 2 3 4 ).    They'd never have a hilarious article about how the prophets' calls to righteousness are recalled as defective, but they have this.    The fact that so many find these articles spot-on shows how widespread that misapprehension is.    They're only funny if you don't quite get the message.

Instead of snickering, we could heed.    Heeding doesn't mean naively believing that everyone else will heed.    It doesn't mean offering the "they did it first" excuse, nor does it mean neglecting to defend a country from attack.    It doesn't mean thinking that complete peace will come before the Prince of Peace comes.

It is, in fact, a bare minimum.

This is the crux of it.    What I see in this image is glowing, righteous anger.    This message isn't "I'm OK, you're OK," as its many deriders like to cast it.    It's almost diametrically the opposite.    It is a stinging testimony that we are not OK.

Wouldn't it be nice if we all loved each other?    Well, yes it would, but.    Wouldn't it be nice if we gave each other mutual respect and understanding, finding agreement whenever we can, concord whenever we can, and love in all other places?    Sure! But.

This message is not saying we should do those things.    It's an exasperated call to, at last, coexist.    Simply let the other person live and breathe and move, please.    That is not too much to ask.    It has been done before, in various times and places, to various degrees, never perfectly, but it's been done.    It can be done here and now.    Not perfectly, but after all the call isn't to universal love, or peace, or understanding, or agreement, or anything other than simply Letting The Other Person Live And Breathe.    I hear in this message a discontent that I can't unhear.

Surely, on this count, America (at times and in limited ways) has been a beacon to the nations.    Nowhere greater, in my opinion, than in my spiritual forefather Roger Williams and his cohorts, who, you might be tired of hearing from me, instituted the very first place in the entire history of Earth where you could practice your religion, with no beheading, no persecution, no limitation on gathering, no special part of town you had to be in, no tax or fee, no thing you had to wear or couldn't wear, nothing.    Complete religious freedom.

In fact, the founding documents of Rhode Island contain something like a coexist bumper-sticker of their own:   an explicit mention, by name, of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists, as people who are welcome to worship in whatever way they choose, or not at all.

That welcome was as unwelcome then as it, apparently, is now.

This image ultimately does not let us paper over our endless inventiveness in oppressing, bullying, endangering, attacking, and killing each other.    It lets no one off the hook.    It is directed at no one, and yet always at the one who is oppressing, bullying, endangering, attacking, and killing.

I see it as not some namby-pamby geniality but rather a stern order, a fire that refines our gold and lays waste to all the hay and stubble we so mistake for gold.

I take heart that someone conceived this image.    I take heart that so many display it (while I recognize many of them don't see it the way I do).    I vow to find the ways in which I'm not living up to even this bare minimum that is, ultimately, asked of us all.