Chane shared with the national television audience that Christians, Jews, and Muslims all have "holy books and texts" that "are very similar," and "they all focus on the issues of peace and tranquility and brotherhood." He also waxed eloquent: "We share far more in common than we do that divides us. And that which divides us, we can disagree with."

None of the bishop's public comments inspire great hope that Bishop Chane was willing, during his trip to Iran, to critique the Islamic theocracy's ongoing brutal suppression of all who oppose its peculiar brand of Shi'ite theocracy. But Iran's nasty police state. Chane seems to prefer to condemn, or at least warn, against his own country's ostensible immoderation.

When the former Iranian president spoke at Washington National Cathedral in September, Chane strongly inveighed against intemperate rhetoric. But his concern seemed to be aimed exclusively at the U.S. and the Bush administration's criticism of Iran's regime of the mullahs.

"It is critical that politicians and religious leaders tone down their rhetoric now in speaking about those who are deemed adversaries, enemies, threats to a nation's security or religious infidels," Chane sternly intoned. "Too often religion and politics have been guilty of using language as a weapon where individuals, cultures and nations are demonized by denigrating phrases and half truths and outright falsehoods." The bishop continued:

"Demonizing one another either in the name of God or through the process of political statesmanship must be ended if real dialogue and engagement is to occur. Too often religious and political leaders leveled racist and theocratic broadsides against their neighbors as a rationale for covering up their own insecurities and deficiencies. Too often religion is used as the weapon of choice against individuals, cultures and nations that we disagree with or who we judge not to be in a 'right' relationship with God."

Perhaps Chane thought his words were actually an even-handed slap at both the U.S. and the Iranian regime. But it's doubtful that a listening former President Khatami was anything less than pleased and charmed by the bishop's warm-up remarks.

Providing a report on his own Washington Diocese website last week about his Iran trip, Chane wrote that had "engaged in intense mutual scrutiny" with Iran's "top religious and political leaders," with whom he discussed "the war in Iraq, the unhelpful rhetoric of both of our presidents, the controversy surrounding Iran's nuclear program and our mutual fears over the volatility of the Middle East." Once again, Chane was wonderfully equitable in lamenting the "unhelpful" comments of both President Bush and the genocidal rantings of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who once led a group of stick-wielding toughs on a kidnapping spree at the U.S. embassy).

"We did not leave these meetings having come to agreement on all of the political issues that divide our two countries, but with the sense that our conversations had been fruitful and friendly, and that we should explore moving beyond dialog and into true partnership," the bishop promised.

With sadness, Chane was forced to admit that the harmony of his Iranian conversations had been sullied by Iran's nearly simultaneous hosting of a big jamboree to deny the Holocaust:

"The day after I returned from Tehran, news broke about the conference of Holocaust deniers. Much as I value the relationships I had begun to cultivate, I was compelled to condemn this conference in the strongest terms. To deny the Holocaust is to demean the memory of the 6 million who perished, and to belittle the suffering of those who were forever scarred by these deaths. It is to perpetuate the very sort of prejudice that we are attempting to combat in our ongoing interfaith dialog with former President Khatami and others in Tehran."

Of course, the Iranian regime's preoccupation with denying the Holocaust dates back many years, accelerating under Ahmadinejad's presidency. But the bishop was still non-plussed about how the latest Iranian Holocaust flare-up had so rudely muddied the aftermath of his warm journey into interfaith dialogue. Chane admitted that he risks "appearing naïve" and "being maneuvered like pawns by masters of realpolitik." But he insisted that he must be like Jesus, who also ministered to His own "people's enemies."

Chane sees himself as an honest interlocutor between two misbehaving states, the U.S. and Iran. He seems unable to understand that the Iranian theocracy is not simply an "enemy" to the United States; it is also an enemy to its own people, whom it has brutalized, murdered, tortured, censored, imprisoned, and enchained for three decades. The Iranian mullahs' obsession with Israel and the Holocaust are but small symptoms of a much larger psychosis that views everyone other than fellow Shi'ite theocrats as something less than fully human and therefore deserving annihilation. Destroying the Jews is, for the Iranian Islamic Republic, only a first step in a global apocalypse from which only the truly faithful will emerge, among whom Bishop Chane is not, in their eyes, likely to emerge.

The Episcopal Bishop of Washington is not always as restrained in his rhetoric as he is with the Iranian dictatorship. Chane has tartly chastised conservative Episcopalians in the U.S, and conservative Anglicans in Africa for their supposed theological intolerance and bigotry. Meanwhile, he is largely silent about the Iranian theocratic police state, where "religious" gendarmerie are empowered to imprison, beat and sometimes kill all those who do not fully submit to Islamic law.

Talking about such unpleasantness in Iran might disrupt his interfaith dialogue, Bishop Chane worries. Do not expect these distractions to sidetrack the growing special relationship between the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

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