Christians who remain ignorant of other faiths are missing out on important spiritual insights. Interfaith studies also help to keep us from making mistakes – as Dutch Bishop Martinus “Tiny” Muskens did recently, when he proposed that Christians call God “Allah” out of some politically correct gesture to Muslim sensitivities. If Bishop Muskens had read the Koran, he would have learned that “anyone who says Christ is the Son of God is condemned.” So Christians using the name Allah as part of the Trinity could have truly infuriated Muslims already annoyed with us “crusaders.”

But it is not just to avoid error that we should study other faiths. Even understanding the interplay of Christian, Buddhist and Hindu references and symbols in the “Matrix” movies, for example, can make your own faith not only smarter but deeper, as well. The Catholic writer and Trappist monk Thomas Merton realized the value of interfaith studies more than half a century ago.

But there is a more compelling reason these days to become aware of the interplay of faiths. Think of it as a picture puzzle of spiritual understanding, with each faith an interlocking piece necessary to complete mankind’s portrait of the mystery of God. Or think of it through the old Indian story of the blind men who wanted to know what an elephant looked like. One grabbed its leg, and said, “Elephant is like a tree;” another felt its trunk and said, “Elephant is like a snake;” another sat on the elephant’s back and said, “Elephant is like a big rock.” Each of them was both right and wrong, but together they had a bigger picture of reality than by judging on their own.

I was reminded of this again the other day when it was reported that the Yazidi, a small Kurdish sect, had suffered a devastating car bomb attack in their home territory near Mosul, Iraq. The coordinated explosions killed some 250 people, representing the greatest terrorist slaughter to date in the growing Iraqi civil war.

Why was this group targeted? In part, it is said, because the Yazidi are known to mainstream Muslim sects as “Satan worshipers.” For that reason, they have long been persecuted by Turks, Arabs, Persians and Kurds. The Yazidi faith comes from ancient Persian beliefs (Zoroastrianism), and draws on Manichean, Jewish, Nestorian Christian and Islamic beliefs as well. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica: “The chief divine figure of the Yazidi is Malak Ta’us (‘Peacock Angel’), who is worshiped in the form of a peacock. He rules the universe with six other angels, but all seven are subordinate to the supreme God.”

The Yazidi believe that after the Creation, God lost interest in the universe – and that’s when the Peacock Angel and his six subordinates stepped in. The Yazidi believe that the Peacock Angel repented of his sin of pride, filling seven jars of tears over 7,000 years. His tears were used to extinguish the fires of hell. God not only pardoned him, he also gave back his old job as chief of the angels. The Yazidi, therefore, deny the existence of evil, except in the mind and spirit of human beings, and reject the notion of hell.

The Yazidi claim they are the direct descendants of Adam – in a way different from all the rest of humanity. According to Wikipedia, “Before the role of the sexes were determined, Adam and Eve quarreled about which of them provided the creative element in the begetting of children. Each stored their seed in a jar, which was then sealed. When Eve’s was opened, it was full of insects and other unpleasant creatures, but inside Adam’s jar was a beautiful boy-child. This lovely child known as son of Jar grew up to marry a houri and became the ancestor of the Yazidis.”

By now you may be thinking this is more than you ever wanted to know about this sect, but hold on and notice how close their views are to our own. Their story is our story, with one big difference. It is the story as told from the point of view of Satan.

Traditional Christians believe that Lucifer, the chief and most beautiful of the angels, fell because of pride (a sin traditionally symbolized by the peacock). Lucifer is equated with Satan, the creature that seduced Eve into breaking God’s law. (By the way, another Yazidi name for the Peacock Angel is “Shaytan,” the Koranic name for Satan.) Traditional Christians also believe the world was given over to Satan when Adam and Eve decided to eat the forbidden fruit (hence the argument that the Creator God has washed his hands of the Creation). And wouldn’t Satan persuade his followers that he had been forgiven by God and restored to full power? He might even claim that his tears had snuffed out the fires of hell, so judgment was no longer something to be feared.

There is much more to reflect on in this small sect’s vision of reality, but I hope by now you can understand why I am encouraging you to examine the premises of other faiths large and small. The Yazidi faith holds a backward mirror image of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs, as seen from the Peacock Angel’s point of view – even to an insight into today’s scientific (satanic?) obsession with cloning our own “sons of Jar.”

The Yazidi are but one small piece in the picture told by the world’s faith-puzzle, but the more we look, the more we’ll understand how the pieces fit together. I hope you’ll look further into the Yazidi, and let me know your thoughts.

Lee Witting is a chaplain at Eastern Maine Medical Center, pastor of the Union Street Brick Church in Bangor, and a doctoral candidate at Bangor Theological Seminary. He may be reached at leewitting@midmaine.com.