c. 2003 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.)

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas _ My corner of the world is sleeping when I drive to the airport for my flight to Texas.

The airport, by contrast, is bustling at 5:30 a.m. Every ticket counter has a crowd. Restaurants are serving. Security checkpoints are jammed. Even clothier Brooks Brothers is open.

Are things better here or just different? Are these the winners of life or just folks with planes to catch?

In Corpus Christi, a longtime friend greets me warmly. We head outside into heat and humidity. It is cool and crisp back home. Is it better there or just different?

We dive into chatter, as if yesterday’s conversation got interrupted by calls to supper. Shall I make comparisons, look for little edges in competition? No, this isn’t a contest. It is friendship.

After lunch, we turn to serious business. Our foursome tees off at 2 p.m. We don’t keep score. We are just happy to be playing golf.

Later, in a reprise of where we met 10 years ago at a clergy leadership seminar, Slim and I wade into a lively pool hall, find a table, ignore two girls who try to hit on us _ now that is a strange experience _ and set about a game of straight pool. He wins by two, for he is the better player. Am I diminished by losing? Nah. I am just happy to be shooting pool with a bud.

Most of life isn’t like this, of course. Some of the meanest competitions occur at home and in the neighborhood, as siblings squabble and kids fight over sandboxes and balls. Woe to the child who is “different.”

Children carry their battles into school, where the quest for identity is channeled into comparing reading scores, friendship rosters, athletic feats, wardrobes, college admissions _ as if being better than, or not like, someone else is a definition of self.

In workplaces people compete fiercely for preference, pay, promotions and perks. The small seek career boosts by pouncing on colleagues. True collaboration is for suckers, as if life were a “zero sum” game in which one must lose in order for another to gain.

The religious world has been undermined by competition ever since Cain and Abel squared off. Even though Jesus consistently steered his followers in another direction, the first disciples set a sorry course: compete for preference, compete for power, compete for supremacy of ideas. Everything became a contest. Soon, the contest became their reason for being. Men shoved women aside. Hellenistic Christians dominated Jewish Christians. The bishop in Rome declared himself supreme. Their unrelenting drive for orthodoxy wasn’t a quest for truth, but for victory.

We have never recovered. To this day, religious rulers lord it over others, and “true believers” scorn the unwashed. Many behave like tyrants. Whether the battle is over ideas, hymnody or who gets elected bishop, fighting among believers is fierce. When Episcopalians in New Hampshire ordain their new bishop next month, I suspect armed guards will be required. Do you doubt that? Look at Sept. 11 and the destruction wrought by religious intolerance.

We are wrong to be fighting like this. The stakes are so small, the damage so great. Even if one side won, what would they have won? Momentary bragging rights? A place on the cheerleading squad? A better place on the ballot, a bigger office, permission to scorn or to exclude?

I cannot believe that God cares about our contests. Not the God who became so weary of humanity’s hubris that he drowned nearly all of them. Not the God who watched in dismay as hair-splitters bickered over festivals and then announced he loathed their solemn assemblies. Not the God who wept over Jerusalem, opened his arms to all, commanded his followers to give wealth and power away, and to be friends, lovers and servants. Not the God who had the power to triumph over Rome but held out his hands for nails.

We are different, you and I. That’s all. We believe in different ways, serve in different ways. We have different skills and interests, different capabilities and mind-sets. We hear differently, see differently, love differently. We must not turn our differences into warfare.

DEA END EHRICH