52 CURRENT DIALOGUE
July 2012
Special Issue: Christian Self-Understanding in the Context of Islam
Editorial
Clare Amos 2 Introduction
Rima Barsoum 3 Report of the Intra-Christian Consultation on Christian Self-Understanding in the Context of Islam 5 Living as a Community with Islam: Concerns, Challenges and Promises
Aram I 20 The Holy Spirit in the World: The Tension of the Particular with the Universal
Emmanuel Clapsis 29 On Lutheran Theology and Practice in Relation to Islam
Simone Sinn 42 Some Aspects of Christian Theologizing in Relation to Islam
Daniel A. Madigan, S.J. 50 A Relational Theology in Dialogue with Islam
Oddbjørn Leirvik 55 A Theology of Christian-Muslim Relations: An Arab Christian Perspective Georges Massouh 60 Historical and Political Context of Christian-Muslim Relations in Pakistan:
Challenges to Missiological and Theological Vocation Charles Amjad-Ali 63 “Christ is Our Reconciliation” Icon: The Story of Jacob and Esau
Clare Amos 74
ISSN 1814-2230 Current Dialogue can be found on: www.oikoumene.org/en/programmes/interreligiousdialogue/current- dialogue/magazine.html
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Editorial
Editorial
As with the previous (December 2011) issue of Current Dialogue the present issue of the journal focuses on one of the intra-Christian consultations held over the last few years, exploring Christian self-understanding in relation to a particular faith – in this case Islam. The Islam consultation, held in October 2008 at Chavannes de Bogis, near Geneva, was, in fact, the first of the series of meetings to explore Christian self-understanding in the context of a specific faith (to be followed by consultations relating to Buddhism in December 2009; Judaism in June 2010; Hinduism in October 2011; Indigenous religions in February 2012). Partly because it was the first in this series a number of the papers at this consultation in relation to Islam also explore wider aspects of Christian interreligious engagement.
October 2008 was exactly a year after the publication by a group of 138 Muslim scholars of the historic document A Common Word, which invited Christians to engage with Muslims on the basis of their sacred commitment to ‘Love of God and Love of Neighbour’. This document, and potential Christian response to it, was therefore a theme that surfaced in a number of the papers and discussions which took place at the consultation. The consultation itself was jointly sponsored both by the World Council of Churches and the group which brings together the Christian World Communions (CWC). It was a mark of the importance of the topic, and the widespread interest in it, that had led these two bodies working together – leading both to an extensive group of people present at the consultation, and the potential for the impact of it to be widely disseminated.
It is interesting therefore to now look back at A Common Word from the perspective of almost five years on. As well as the intellectual engagement with the document which is still continuing, though perhaps at a lower intensity than in the immediate aftermath of its publication, the premise of the document, that love of God cannot be separated from love of neighbour has undergirded a number of more practical initiatives which have taken place since then. One of these has been the recent high-level Christian-Muslim delegation to Nigeria, jointly organised by the World Council of Churches and the Royal Jordanian Aal al- Bayt Institute, which visited that country in May 2012, seeking to engage with its very difficult realities. We were attempting to model through our visit the importance of Christians and Muslims working together to overcome religious conflict. We are still working through the findings and results of that visit – but we intend that it will result in some practical suggestions to take forward.
In putting together these papers for publication in Current Dialogue I want to express my deep gratitude to Rima Barsoum, first for the tremendous amount of work she put in to ensuring the happening of the consultation which generated them, and for her cooperation in enabling these papers to come to press.
Finally, I am grateful to those of you who have made clear their appreciation of the fact that Current Dialogue has now resumed publication after an unintended gap. Our plan is to ensure that for the foreseeable future the journal will appear twice a year, in June/July and December/January.
Clare Amos
Programme Coordinator, Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation
2
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Introduction
Introduction to the Special Edition of Current Dialogue: Christian Self-Understanding in Relation to Islam Rima Barsoum
One common definition of theology is “faith seeking understanding.” This phrase is especially associated with the writings of St Anselm of Canterbury and St Augustine of Hippo, implying that the knowledge of God presupposes faith, and faith restlessly seeks deeper understanding of God and God’s relation to the world. It was in this spirit of seeking deeper understanding that the ecumenical family has engaged in a series of ecumenical theological consultations over the past few years re-exploring the question of Christian self- understanding, and therefore Christian ministry, in a world of many religions.
Recognizing earlier signposts in exploring this particular question throughout the history of the modern ecumenical movement, the Porto Alegre Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 2006 stressed the importance of the issue. Member churches agreed to strengthen their common efforts in the area of interreligious dialogue and cooperation, encouraging theological reflection and practical commitment to dialogue.
Between 2007 and 2008, three key elements converged that helped in putting this process on track – and led to the major milestone of the 2008 WCC consultation on Christian self- understanding in relation to Islam:
1. The unprecedented opportunity and momentum for Christian-Muslim dialogue represented in the invitation of A Common Word, addressed to the ecumenical family by a group of 138 Muslim scholars, to engage in joint ethical and theological dialogue for the common good; 2. The enabling ecumenical platform established by the joint initiative of the Christian World Communions (CWC), the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) and the WCC to carry forward the journey of ecumenical theological reflection and interreligious dialogue; and 3. Taking into consideration that the letter of A Common Word did not address concrete challenges arising from various contexts, the WCC involvement in accompanying churches in situations of conflict (particularly in Pakistan, Iraq and Sri Lanka) provided an appropriate framework for focusing the ecumenical discussion on specific contextual realities of Christian communities living in multi-religious societies, yet experiencing challenges related to their minority status, freedom religion, or being caught up in the middle of conflict.
These three dimensions gave an impetus to taking the process of theological reflection further, at the same time keeping it grounded in the contextual experience of churches living in multi-religious community. Hence, the presentations and discussions during the consultation corresponded to deepening theological conversations in relation to:
• understanding God’s invitation to us to be good neighbours, especially in dialogue with Muslims; • the importance of doing this ecumenically; • “living-in-community with Muslims” as the real objective of a frank and serious Christian-Muslim dialogue.
The present issue of Current Dialogue contains some of the papers presented at the consultation, a summary report of all other presentations and the Listeners’ Report that sums
3
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Introduction
up the discussion, offers recommendations and communicates the points of consensus that were achieved during the Consultation on Christian Self-Understanding in Relation to Islam, held in Geneva, 18-20 October 2008.
The process did not end there; it continued with a number of smaller consultations and informal discussions with Christian theologians and experts on dialogue with Islam, which will later on contribute to a wider, and renewed, WCC statement on the Christian Self- Understanding and Religious Plurality, to be presented to the next WCC Assembly in Busan, South Korea, in 2013.
Interreligious relations and theological articulations of faith have often been shaped in response to the context in which communities live and interact; the richness of theological approaches and statements of faith derived from a variety of ecumenical and interreligious contexts has nurtured and sustained the ecumenical family in its continuous theological endeavour as “faith seeking understanding.”
It has been my privilege to contribute to this process until 2010, bringing in my own contextual experience of living with Muslims in the Arab world, at the same time learning from the diversity of experiences within the ecumenical family. I would like to conclude by thanking the WCC team on Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation and Clare Amos for taking the process of theological reflection further to new levels of elaboration and new areas of exploration, particularly in relation to indigenous religious traditions, and for enabling the publication of this special issue of Current Dialogue.
Geneva, May 2012
Rima Barsoum was an organizer of the 2008 consultation and facilitator of the WCC process on Christian self-understanding in relation to Islam between 2007 and 2010.
She holds an M.Phil. in Interreligious Relations from the University of Birmingham, UK. Specialized in Christian-Muslim relations, her research focused on issues of religion and politics, the role of religion in development, and Christian presence in the Middle East.
Between 2007 and 2011 she served as a Programme Executive for Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation, with responsibility for Christian-Muslim relations, in the World Council of Churches (WCC), Geneva. Earlier, between 2000 and 2004, she served as a programme coordinator for Youth & Globalization and for Christian-Muslim Dialogue in the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC).
Rima is currently engaged in a research and study programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, focusing on international relations and negotiations. (For contact: [email protected])
4
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
A Report of the Intra-Christian Consultation
on Christian Self-Understanding in Relation to Islam
Geneva, 18-20 October 2008
Introduction the two faiths, and theological challenges, In October 2008, an intra-Christian including both questions of Christian self- consultation co-sponsored by the Joint identity and self-expression in relation to Consultative Commission (JCC) of the Islam as well as questions relating to World Council of Churches (WCC) and understanding the significance of Islam, Christian World Communions (CWC) have engaged Christians through the explored questions related to Christian centuries. It is clear that the nature of the self-understanding in relation to religious relationships between the two plurality, with special focus on Christian communities has been reflected also in self-understanding in relation to Islam and their mutual theological thinking. Christian-Muslim dialogue. From the beginning of the WCC there has The two-day consultation, held at the been an awareness of people of other Hotel Chavannes de Bogis near Geneva, faiths and a continuous ecumenical was attended by fifty people, including process of reflection on interreligious both experts in Christian-Muslim dialogue relations and their meaning for Christian and Christian leaders who represented the identity and self-understanding. In 1966 a fellowship of WCC member churches, the group of Christian theologians met for the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) and a first time in Broumana, Lebanon, to variety of CWCs, including the Roman discuss and reflect on relationships with Catholic Church. Muslims. A series of Christian-Muslim dialogue encounters began officially in This consultation was facilitated jointly by 1969 in Cartigny, Switzerland – two years the WCC Programme on Interreligious before a WCC sub-unit for Dialogue with Dialogue and Cooperation and the People of Living Faiths and Ideologies Programme on Church and Ecumenical (DFI) was established in 1971. Since then, Relations. The Joint Consultative ecumenical reflection among Christians on Commission of the WCC and CWCs dialogue with Islam has continued to raise appointed a steering group to prepare the many theological and pastoral questions consultation. The group included for WCC member churches. Various representatives from the Anglican member churches and ecumenical Communion, the Lutheran World partners have set up syllabi/curricula, Federation, the WEA and the WCC. study centres and commissions for Christian-Muslim relationships to Ecumenical reflection on dialogue with encourage theological and practical Islam commitment to dialogue on the basis of Christian-Muslim relations have been an sound knowledge and sensitive issue since the historical rise of Islam, understanding of Islam. more than fourteen centuries ago. The complex history has been characterized in Reflection on Christian self-understanding many cases by constructive living and the theological approach to religious together, but sometimes also marked by plurality has been on the agenda of the rivalry or war. Both the practical living WCC many times, reaching a level of together of individuals and communities of consensus in 1989 and 1990, but in recent
5
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
years it has been felt that this difficult and whose aim was to assist churches in their controversial issue needed to be revisited. reflection on the letter and in sharing their The Porto Alegre Assembly of the WCC in experience of the love of God and love of 2006 brought this issue into focus again neighbour in their respective contexts. when member churches agreed to Several responses to the open letter from strengthen their common efforts in the churches, councils of churches, CWCs area of interreligious dialogue and and the WEA have identified some of the cooperation, and engage seriously with theological issues of common concern that ecumenical theological reflection exploring Christians and Muslims need to reflect what it means to be a Christian in a world upon together during the years ahead. of many religions. The ecumenical process of response was The context of the WCC-CWCs reinforced by the joint initiative of CWCs consultation and the WCC to continue the journey of This renewed focus coincided with new reflection and dialogue together. The JCC, initiatives for dialogue from the Muslim during its meeting in May 2008, proposed world which have offered significant to co-sponsor a consultation that would opportunities for the WCC member further explore questions related to churches to deepen their ecumenical Christian self-understanding and self- Christian theological understanding of expression in relation to Islam within the dialogue with Islam and to work together ecumenical family. The consultation would in promoting dialogue and cooperation also look at implications for Christian- between Christians and Muslims. One Muslim dialogue today, underlining the such initiative is known as A Common importance for people in both faith Word; in October 2007 over 138 Muslim communities to learn more about each scholars and leaders authored an open other and from each other. Rather than letter entitled A Common Word on the producing a written response to the letter need for interfaith understanding and by the Muslim scholars, the goal of the respect between Christians and Muslims, consultation was to provide a space for calling for renewed theological exploration churches and communions of churches to in Christian-Muslim relations. The letter share their initiatives and theological was addressed to a wide variety of resources for engaging with Muslims, and churches and Christian leaders and to identify substantial issues for Christian generated lively and deep discussions theology in relation to Christian-Muslim between Christians and Muslims around dialogue. the world about the “Love of God” and “Love of Neighbour”. This was followed in The main goals of the consultation 2008 and 2009 by the Global Initiative for 1. To seek mutual enrichment and Dialogue, initiated by the Custodian of the commitment by providing space for two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah bin churches and communions to share their Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia in Madrid, New initiatives, perspectives and specific York and Geneva, which also introduced theological resources for engaging with new opportunities for deepening and Muslims. strengthening dialogue and cooperation 2. To identify and discuss substantial between Christians and Muslims. issues concerning Christian self- understanding in relation to Islam. In response to the invitation of A Common 3. To discern how best to respond to a Word, the World Council of Churches, new era in Christian-Muslim dialogue and delegated by its Central Committee in opportunities for cooperation. February 2008, initiated an ecumenical The goals were reflected practically in a process of response which began by number of expected outcomes to be producing a commentary entitled achieved by the end of the consultation: “Learning to Explore Love Together”, 6
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
1. List theological issues that are pertinent two welcoming speeches by Rev. Dr to Christian self-understanding in relation Robert Welsh on behalf of CWCs, and to Islam and that are best approached Rev. Dr Shanta Premawardhana on behalf ecumenically by Christians. of the WCC, and introductory remarks by 2. Consider ways for articulating a the facilitators of the consultation: Mr Christian theological understanding of Doug Chial and Ms Rima Barsoum. dialogue with Islam and relationship with Muslims. An ecumenical prayer service on Sunday 3. Propose ways and means to work 19 October, provided a space for a deep cooperatively as churches, councils and spiritual sharing, reflecting on the icon of communions in responding to the new “Christ is Our Reconciliation” and on the opportunities for Christian-Muslim biblical story of Jacob and Esau. The dialogue. ecumenical service was prepared and led 4. Popularize resources that help by Mrs Clare Amos and Rev. Simone churches to deepen their self- Sinn. understanding and their self-expression in relation to Islam. Four panel presentations, on 19-20 October, dealt with the theme of the The methodology of the consultation consultation from two different The methodology used in the consultation perspectives: the confessional and the included panel presentations and group contextual, though in many cases these discussion in order to encourage dialogue two approaches were found to be among church representatives and interwoven. The first two panels explored experts. The panel presentations offered “Various Christian approaches to Islam” the possibility of considering and learning including Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, from a variety of Christian theological Reformed, Lutheran and Evangelical approaches to Islam, as developed by approaches. A third panel on “Contextual various Christian traditions, while also approaches to Islam” offered inputs by taking into account different contextual Christian theologians living in Islamic perspectives for Christian Muslim contexts. A fourth panel presented engagement. contextual approaches by theologians living in pluralistic contexts. The panels A group of listeners accompanied the were followed by group discussion and presentations and the discussions. Their accompanied by a group of listeners, who listening is summed up in a reflective presented their reflective report in a report that can serve as a springboard for plenary session on Monday afternoon, ongoing ecumenical cooperation. Although focusing the discussion on substantial the Listeners’ Report was not adopted by issues for Christian theology in relation to the participants as a final statement of the Islam and their implications for Christian- consultation, since it needed further Muslim dialogue in the 21st century as development, it is indicative of where the they were identified during the ecumenical family stands today in relation consultation. to this subject. The programme concluded with a The Programme and Presentations discussion of and comments on the of the Consultation Listeners’ Report, an evaluation session, The two-day programme began on and closing prayer. The participants Saturday 18 October 2008, with a keynote agreed on the need for further ecumenical address by His Holiness Catholicos Aram I exploration of theological issues pertaining of Cilicia, on “Living as a Community with to Muslim-Christian dialogue and invited Muslims: Concerns, Challenges and the organizers to facilitate such a process. Promises”. The keynote lecture followed
7
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
Presentations and theological inputs decision-making, listing a number of For a variety of reasons, it has been decisive issues and crucial questions that impossible to include the full text of all the require frank discussion and a presentations offered at the consultation in comprehensive analysis by Christians and this issue of Current Dialogue. For those Muslims. Among the most divisive issues presentations and inputs which are not to be addressed Catholicos Aram I included in full elsewhere in the issue we elaborated on the relationship between therefore give a summary below; in the faith and reason as a critical area that case of presentations where the full text is needs deeper investigation; the response included we simply list the presenter, title to secularism and how both religions and reference to the page where the articulate their reactions in different ways; complete presentation can be found. the tension between human rights and Islamic law; and ways in which both Keynote lecture religions practice mission, witness and His Holiness Catholicos Aram I, head of conversion. His Holiness encouraged his the Armenian Apostolic Church (See of audience to think and to “develop a Logos- Cilicia): “Living as a Community with centred, not church-centred, theology of Muslims: Concerns Challenges and mission that embraces the Other without Promises” jeopardizing the ‘otherness’ of the Other.”
In his opening address, Catholicos Aram I Catholicos Aram continued by re-affirming identified four interrelated trends that “living together in community must associated with the present predicament take the centre stage of Christian–Muslim of Christian - Muslim relations: the dialogue” and that the solid foundation of ambiguous perception of religion; such a community is laid in a local context misconceptions about Islam and where Christians and Muslims can build a Christianity; the collision of values that shared life that encompasses and govern human life and provide the basis transcends differences at the local level, for self-understanding; and the narrow and this can be achieved by: (a) moving self-contained perception of identity that from isolation to integration, since contradicts the proactive self- unconditional love of neighbour and understanding which is marked by creative hospitality towards the stranger are openness and dynamic interaction with the essential features of the two faiths; (b) Other. His Holiness argued that the moving from exclusion to participation, prevailing misperceptions, ambiguities, where values interact and identities are polarizations, tensions and collision, integrated to build a community of hijacked and sharpened by politico- reconciled diversities; (c) moving from ideological agendas and geo-political reaction to interaction, when the self- strategies, can be transformed only understanding of identity is marked by through a shared life in community. creative openness and dynamic Therefore, “living-in-community must interaction with the Other: creative become the real objective of a frank and interaction of perspectives, concerns, serious Christian - Muslim dialogue”, values and expectations that enables us to which deals not with symptoms but with move towards building a common life. deeply rooted wounds through a careful diagnosis and in the spirit of mutual Catholicos Aram I concluded his lecture by respect and trust. making a few suggestions for the future work of the WCC, and affirmed that He then explained the urgent necessity for religious plurality and Christian self- community building with Islam, on the understanding must remain a major item basis of equal rights and obligations, as on the agenda of the ecumenical well as full and active participation in all movement, which needs to be tackled with aspects of the life of society, including an interdisciplinary approach and a holistic 8
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
perspective. He also emphasized the A Catholic view urgent need for a critical evaluation of The second panellist, Fr Prof. Maurice Christian-Muslim dialogue today, and Borrmans, representing the Pontifical called for a more focused agenda of Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Christian-Muslim dialogue touching upon presented a detailed reflection on the issues that pertain to the life of people. Roman Catholic Church’s response to the The full text of the lecture appears in this Letter of the 138, A Common Word. In his issue of Current Dialogue. See p.20. elaboration on the Catholic approach to Islam as it was expressed in a number of Panels One and Two: Various Christian founding texts of the Second Vatican approaches to Islam Council and Papal encyclicals as well as it Panel One included presentations from was practiced by the Church, Fr. Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran Borrmans referred particularly to founding approaches to Islam, and was moderated texts such as Lumen Gentium, the by Rev. Dr Setri Nyomi, General Secretary Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, in of the World Alliance of Reformed para 16 “... the plan of salvation also Churches. includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these Panel Two included presentations from there are the Mohamedans, who, Reformed, Anglican and Evangelical professing to hold the faith of Abraham, approaches to Islam, and was moderated along with us adore the one and merciful by OKR. Dr Martin Affolderbach, Secretary God, and to Nostra Aetate, the Declaration for Interfaith Relations of the Lutheran on the Relation of the Church to non- Evangelical Church in Germany EKD. Christian Religions, that summaries the Catholic church’s approach to Islam and The panels sought to respond to the Muslims, in para 3: “The Church regards following questions: with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in • What is the theological approach of Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the your church/communion toward Islam? Creator of heaven and earth, who has • What are the resources your spoken to men; they take pains to submit church/communion has developed wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable about the issue? decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the • How was this theological approach faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking expressed in the church/ communion’s itself, submitted to God. Though they do response to A Common Word? not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor An Orthodox view Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they The first panellist, Fr Dr Emanuel Clapsis even call on her with devotion. In addition, from the Holy Cross Orthodox School of they await the Day of Judgment when God Theology, representing the Ecumenical will render their deserts to all those who Patriarchate, presented a paper on have been raised up from the dead. Orthodox theology in relation to Islam. See Finally, they value the moral life and p. 29. worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.” The same text urges Christians and Muslims to “forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.” He also quoted other documents, produced by the Pontifical Council for 9
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
Interreligious Dialogue (PCID), on “The A Reformed view Church and other Religions: Dialogue and The Reformed approach to Islam was Mission”, 1984, and “Dialogue and presented by Rev. Dr Johnson Mbillah, Proclamation”, 1991. He elaborated on the General Adviser of the Program on Catholic churches understanding of the Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa Theology of Religions as it was presented (PROCMURA), representing the World and adopted in the report of the Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC). International Theological Commission In his presentation, Rev. Mbillah observed (1996) and in the document Dominus that Reformed theology, to which WARC Jesus by the Congregation for the adheres, with its roots in the 16th-century Doctrine of the Faith (2000) on the church Reformation, has developed from and other religions in relation to salvation. generation to generation in such a way Giving special attention to the Letter of the that no one theologian can claim to 138, Fr. Borrmans highlighted the possess all that it takes to form the totality importance and the significance of the of reformed thought. There are, however, letter, particularly in terms of the guiding and non-negotiable principles that consensus that the letter generated form the basis upon which most of among scholars and leaders from different Reformed theology draws its mandate, Muslim traditions, and its structure and the these are: the authority of scripture (the way it articulated the two commandments Bible), the lordship of Jesus Christ, and of the love of God and love of neighbour. the necessity of mission, witnessing to all He found the content of the letter peoples. Reformed theology in its variety combined innovation with traditional has been described as a “river into which Islamic thinking. He also offered a critical many sources flow and from which many analysis of the letter, and discussed the streams originate”. There are, however, Catholic responses to it, particularly the common characteristics of Reformed response of His Holiness Pope Benedict theology which one may find in all the XVI, and of the Pontifical Institute of branches that exist in the reformed family Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) as well – that is made up of congregational, as the correspondence and projects that Presbyterian, Reformed, United and followed, between the Vatican and Aal al- Uniting Churches. Bayt Institute with the signatories of A Common Word. In relation to Islam, Rev. Mbillah explained He concluded with few remarks on the that Reformed theology, through its theological, ethical and mystical guiding principles, has laid the foundation implications of the love of God and Love of for contextual theology; it can transform neighbour, and on the importance of itself into living theology in a given context interreligious dialogue in advancing the – in this case the context of Christianity work for peace and justice for all and Islam. Furthermore, he noted that in humanity. the ecumenical age it is difficult to describe any Christian theological A Lutheran view approach to Islam as purely Reformed, The third input to the panel offered some purely Anglican, Evangelical or even Lutheran perspectives on relations to Roman Catholic. There is usually an Islam, presented by Rev. Simone Sinn, overlap, and there is no absolute representing the Lutheran World theological position that remains the Federation.See p.42. preserve of one and only tradition.
A clear statement of a Reformed theology is the statement Ecclesia Reformata, semper reformanda: “the Reformed Church always to be reformed”, this means that the essence and the 10
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
foundation of reform is constantly to turn intermeshed well with taking Trinitarian back to the early church and its belief in thinking as a fundamental resource. In Jesus Christ. This must be revisited from Generous Love the Holy Trinity is the very time to time to ascertain that theologies basis of the understanding of how are in consonance with that principle. Christians relate to the Other; their God is Reformed theology in the context of characterised as the One who provides relationship with Islam and Muslims and gives new life and as the One who should uphold the value of human sustains, and that understanding of God relations as a family, and at the same time as being the One who is and yet the One recognize that such relationship involves who sends is the very basis of the sharing: a give and take. Such give and document. take involves a presentation of the gospel in word and in everyday living. Mrs Amos added that the key sentence, towards the end of the document, on the An Anglican view “pressing need to renew our relationships The Anglican approach to Islam was with people of different faiths must be presented through a dialogue between grounded deeply and theologically in our Mrs Clare Amos and Professor David understanding of the reality of God who is Thomas, representing the Anglican Trinity” emphasizes the importance of Communion Office and the Anglican holding together the theological and Communion’s Network for Interfaith practical dimensions of the question, to Concerns. think theologically as well as thinking In the beginning of their presentation the socially and practically: “we cannot think presenters identified three basic sources about Christian-Muslim engagement that Anglicans normally resort to and draw without thinking theologically about what is upon while defining self-understanding there within our tradition that requires us and their relationship with the Other (in to have that engagement.” Thus, the particular Muslims). Those are: scripture Anglican understanding of what it means (the Bible) taken in its entirety, tradition as to be a Christian in relation to the Other, represented in the ecumenical councils of which may seem to be an abstract the church and reason or the conscience intellectual exploration, is challenged of the faithful. These three sources of constantly by the engagement with the authority in terms of Anglican engagement Other in a very real way. At the same time with people of other faiths are expressed the engagement with the Other is always in a foundational theological document on challenged by theological thinking on the the Anglican theology of inter faith basis of the three sources of Anglican relations, Generous Love, which was theology (referred to above). Some people presented at, and commended by, the would prefer to place doctrine at the Lambeth Conference in 2008. Generous forefront of the attitude toward other faiths, Love begins with a theological statement, others would prefer to place experience about God as both Trinity and Unity, and it before anything else, and then be also ends with a theological statement, challenged by that experience to reflect about the dynamic of “sending and theologically. abiding” which is both God’s and ours. The purpose of Generous Love is to Professor Thomas explained that ground the experience of inter faith theological thinking within the Anglican encounter firmly in the heartlands of Communion, especially the Church of Christian believing. Its approach rests on England, has been very much influenced the conviction that religious diversity by the experience of relating to people of poses challenges to the Church not only at other faiths in a variety of contexts, and the political and social level, but in the taking seriously the reality of the Other in area of theology. The document argues the reflection of the church. This has that although these challenges have been 11
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
with the people of God from the beginning statements about Christianity and and throughout history; what is needed for therefore Muslims knowledge about today is to recover readings of the core Christianity derives from what they read in texts of our faith which speak into our the Qur’an, which is not exactly how diverse contexts. For many Anglicans a Christians understand their faith; (5) Islam deep engagement with the biblical text is differs from Christianity when dealing with the way through which they like to engage issues concerned with the relationship with people of other faiths. For example between religion, society and state; (6) there is the Scriptural Reasoning method and last but not least, is the question of as practiced in the Building Bridges Islam-West relations which is on the daily process initiated by the Archbishop of agenda of Christian-Muslim dialogue Canterbury. This method is based on a today. More than 80 percent of WEA patient listening and conversation with the members live in the South and do not see person of another faith, taking seriously Christianity as a Western religion, yet from both our and their scriptures, in order to an Islamic point of view Christianity is understand and to witness; a combination seen as a Western religion, and therefore of deep understanding and dedication in Christianity is sometimes seen as trying to see the Other as s/he is, at the responsible for military or political actions same time an awareness of what it is to be taken by secular western governments. a Christian. As a sociologist of religion, Professor At the end of their enriching dialogue the Schirrmacher observed that as a result of two presenters highlighted “Hospitality” as globalization the number of people one of the characteristics of the Anglican changing their religion is increasing engagement with people of other faiths. rapidly. In comparison to 30 years ago, They also noted that they believed that the when the vast majority of the world dialogical method in which they had population never had a real relationship chosen to make their presentation with another religion, today the situation is expressed something that was significant totally different. This brings a lot of tension about Anglican theological methodology. to the world and a lot of tension within each community, therefore it is very An Evangelical view important not only to observe what is An Evangelical approach to Islam was happening, but also to discuss it and try to presented by Professor Thomas understand it. Schirrmacher, representing the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA). In response to the questions posed to this Professor Schirrmacher began his panel, he presented the WEA approach to presentation by highlighting the Islam as expressed in its letter of importance of the issue of Christian- response to A Common Word, starting the Muslim relations for the World Evangelical letter with the emphasis on peacemaking Alliance (WEA) today, particularly because based on theological grounds, then of the following reasons: (1) these two moving to the second part “Your call, our religions comprise more than half of the call” which represents a typical world population; (2) almost 89 percent of Evangelical call to seek forgiveness that is what is said about religion in media today only found in Jesus Christ; this call in is related to either Christianity or Islam; (3) particular comes in response to the there is some violent history behind the invitation expressed in the Muslim letter two religions which is still remembered, which was perceived by WEA as a call to although it is important to say that Christians to follow God according to Christians and Muslims today are not Islam. The third section is on the topic of responsible for what happened 500 or “love” which emphasizes that 1000 years ago; (4) unlike other religions, “Evangelicals think that theology comes Islam’s holy book includes many before ethics.” Here the WEA’s response 12
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
aims to put love into practice and therefore Freedom, where they began extensive presents the personal relationship with research and developed contacts to Muslims as the key to solving many understand the experience of the problems that cannot be solved in Orthodox and Oriental churches who have conferences and meetings, but by how lived together with Islam for centuries. millions of Christians and Muslims live together. Nevertheless, “this love must be He then highlighted four key points that deeply grounded in good theology and in should be considered when summarizing Trinitarian theology,” which is a unique the general approach of the WEA to Islam: feature of a Christian theology of love, that “Christian love is not a command given by 1. Mission and peace can go together, as God but the very essence of God.” it is expressed in 1 Peter 3: 15-17, which has become the rationale for WEA to Another point emphasized in the WEA witness and answer every question, response is the issue of religious freedom, including those asked by Muslims, but in about which it argues that “religious gentleness and respect, without violating freedom always in history has preceded the human rights of other peoples, and religions coming closer to each other” - with respect to this their beliefs. giving the example of Catholics and 2. Witness is always related to the biblical Protestants in Europe, when political notion of martyrdom and persecution, freedom came first and both sides stopped especially that, according to Professor using state violence, then afterwards they Schirrmacher, almost 50 percent of WEA started to talk with each other. Therefore members live in areas where they are in the issue of religious freedom cannot wait danger of persecution. This reality until interfaith relations improve rather it prompts Evangelicals to develop a should be addressed first. The last part of “theology of persecution” to show that the WEA response concerns standing in martyrdom and persecution are integral solidarity with the persecuted church, parts of their faith; nevertheless this does which is another aspect of the Evangelical not give Evangelicals the right to react tradition. For the WEA, in the light of the using violence against their persecutors, discussion on religious freedom and on but to trust that they are in God’s hand. accepting and loving Muslims, it was 3. Personal relationship and hospitality to important to have a clear statement on people of other faiths have been the what they see as persecution of Christians source of strength of the WEA movement, in some Islamic countries. which, according to Schirrmacher, have led to the conversion of almost of 90 Regarding theological resources and tools percent of Evangelicals. developed by the WEA on dialogue with 4. In the relationship with Muslims it is Islam, there have been increasing efforts very important for the WEA to distinguish to collect more information and to try to between the question of witness to the learn more about Islam in different gospel, and the political issues that are countries, in order also to understand the handled by governments, especially diversity within Islam. In this area the WEA issues of human rights and religious have also tried to involve more specialists freedom. For WEA, these are two with Arabic language skills, since this is separate matters. As an example, the language of the Qur’an. Professor Professor Schirrmacher stated that Schirrmacher highlighted in particular the persecuted evangelicals should not react WEA initiative to establish a series of to persecution in any violent way; at the institutes for Islamic studies that are same time they are encouraged to use producing study materials for the churches their legal rights as given in the legal trying to answer all kinds of related system of their countries to stop this questions. One such institute is the persecution. International Institute for Religious 13
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
He concluded his presentation by offering made no attempt at encouraging unity a clarification on behalf of the WEA between these tribal groups by putting in regarding attempts by some evangelical place an arrangement that would allow for missionaries to convert members of other the freedom of religion. As a result, at churches and expressed readiness to independence Nigeria began with two discuss this issue honestly with all systems of governance: one for the South churches. and another for the North (where Shari’a was practiced) with a modified version for Panel Three: Contextual approaches to the middle part of the country. Islam: Christians in Islamic context Panel three focused on the role of context Islam first came to in Nigeria in the 10th in articulating theological thinking. century, and from there it spread Speaking from the experience of westward culminating in the emergence of Christians living in Muslim majority the Sokoto Caliphate. Christianity became contexts, it included presentations by known in Nigeria during the 15th and 16th Christian theologians from Lebanon, centuries, then formally in the 19th century Nigeria and Pakistan, and was moderated with the British merchants, through the by Rev. Dr Herman Shastri, General western part of Nigeria, and from there it Secretary of the National Council of advanced northward across the country. Churches in Malaysia. The first contact between the two religions within the country was in the 19th century, An approach from the Middle East and then in 1914 they became the two The first input was given by Fr. Dr George official religions in Nigeria. Massouh, representing the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, and the Bishop Josiah then analyzed the Balamand University in Lebanon. See relationship between the two religions in p.60. three different contexts within Nigeria: (1) where Islam is the dominant religion as in An approach from Africa Sokoto state in the North; (2) where The second input was given by Bishop Dr Christianity is a dominant religion as in the Josiah Atkins Idowu Fearon, representing South, and (3) in the Middle belt states the Anglican Church in Nigeria and which used to be a battleground between PROCMURA. the two. Reflecting on these three At the beginning of his presentation, contexts, he argued that in many ways the Bishop Josiah drew the attention of his current tensions within Nigeria are more audience to the fact that Nigeria is one of complex than we are often made to few countries in the world where both believe. Religion is often given as the Christianity and Islam have an almost reason for the crises, though most are equal number of adherents. “This context often caused by economic and political is often described by ‘Islamicists’ and reasons. “A difference in religion, by itself ‘missiologists’ as a ‘flash point’”. He did not usually cause any tensions but therefore tried to give a brief historical when religious differences were combined background about Nigeria, to describe the with ethnic or geographical differences context in which Christians and Muslims that difficulties arose.” Dividing Nigeria into interact. states in 1967 changed the balance of power between the north and the south. In Linking the creation of the modern state of order to retain the dominance by the Nigeria to the British trade and colonial northern politicians, religion was brought presence in the nineteenth century, he to the fore, and it began to play a major described the formation of a country of role in the political and social lives of different tribal groups in response to the Nigeria. From then on Muslims began to colonial control imposed by the British. He complain about the dominance of the commented in particular that the British Christians and demand Islamic law 14
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
leading to the implementation of hudud1 Interreligious Council at the national as aspects which had been expunged by the well as state and local government levels. British. Bishop Josiah wanted to make it An approach from Asia clear to his audience that Christians in The third input was given by Prof. Charles Nigeria are not against the aspect of Amjad-Ali from Luther Seminary, shari‘a that is permitted within the representing the Church of Pakistan. He is constitution; it is the hudud aspect that has a founder of the Christian Study Centre in created the opposition by the Christians. Rawalpindi. See p.63.
In such a multireligious context there is no Panel Four: Contextual approaches to one single approach to Christian-Muslim Islam: Christians in pluralistic context relations in Nigeria: however, there are Panel Four focused on the role of context two types of ongoing dialogue methods: in articulating theological thinking, (1) the dialogue of life, which takes place speaking from the experience of through different forms within the country: Christians living in pluralistic contexts – through daily encounters and organized principally Western. It included meetings between the state government presentations by Christian theologians and stake holders, as well as through from Sweden/Kenya, United awareness building seminars and States/Australia and Norway, and was workshops about the need for peaceful co- moderated by Rev Dr Jørgen S. existence and respect for the neighbour. Sørensen, General Secretary of the These seminars focus on conflict Council on International Relations of the prevention and resolution, and address Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark. religious leaders, students, youth and women; (2) the theological dialogue, which The first panelist, Dr Anne Kubai, from is mainly among Christians and it aims at Uppsala University – originally from educating Christians about Islam, the Kenya – has worked for many years with Islamic legal system, the history of Islam PROCMURA on the issue of Christian- and of Christian-Muslim relations in Muslim relations in Africa. Nigeria with particular focus on the In her presentation Dr. Kubai argued that contemporary situation. Sometimes, with the end of the Cold War, there was an Muslims also participate in this exercise, urgent need to find a new strategic enemy. which motivates them to educate other Though there were no real rivals or Muslims about Christianity and the enemies, there was a threat that was Christian community of Nigeria. perceived to be more dangerous: terrorism, which became synonymous with Bishop Josiah then concluded by listing a Islamic fundamentalism. The resources for number of challenges and prospects for this war were the well-known mental Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria, blocks of prejudices and projections primarily the problem of ignorance within erected in the contemporary “western” both communities, and even among imagination over Islam and in Muslim religious leaders, about their own religion imagination over the “west”. The events of and that of their neighbour. Ignorance 9/11 not only confirmed these mutual causes suspicion and easily leads to mental images, but also legitimzsed and religious crises, especially when energized “the fight against terrorism”. associated with ethnicity and tribalism. In She explained how in the context of the addition, there is a need to give a new “war on terror”, representations and orientation to the members of both perceptions of events and situations communities regarding the importance of become crucial; the historical myths are equal citizenship and equal opportunities. revived and the perception of Islam as In this respect it is worth mentioning the violent is globalized. In Africa, she argued, support by the government of the Nigerian the war on terrorism has adversely impacted on the perception of the Other,
15
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
and thus on the already fragile Christian- Plenary Discussion: Substantial Issues Muslim relations. Christian-Muslim for Christian Theology in Relation to relations have become of much wider Islam – Implications for Christian- interest; they have been taken beyond the Muslim Dialogue in the 21st Century narrow religious factor. Divisions which Moderated by H.E. Bishop Nareg had been hitherto blurred become more Alemezian, from the Armenian Apostolic defined, as there is a mutual perception of Church (Holy See of Cilicia, and a co- otherness which is evidently shaped by moderator of JCC). current global trends. Hence the values of The plenary session included a the Other are regarded as threatening or presentation of the draft of a reflective problematic and the end result is mutual report that was produced by a group of distrust, as the communities move on in a listeners who accompanied the meeting. troubled relationship. Professor David Thomas, the convener of the Listeners Group, presented the report. She commented that in Africa, “Christian This was followed by a rich discussion, scholars have formulated theologies of comments and suggestions from the liberation in response to the struggle of the participants. However, the session could poor and economically downtrodden; not reach an agreement for adopting the Black theology in response to the Listeners Report. It was agreed to receive experiences of racially oppressed Africans it as a reflective report of the discussion in this continent and the Diaspora; and and to add it to the summary report of the feminist theology as a resource of the consultation. emerging consciousness of women”. Similarly, there are resources that can Although the listeners’ report was not motivate a theology which can sustain an adopted by the participants as a final integrated approach to the issue of statement of the consultation, since it interreligious relations. However, in needed further development, it provided Kubai’s view, this is not without certain an indication of where the ecumenical challenges: the gamut of emerging trends family stands today in the process of and discourses in the Christian churches, asking questions and finding answers in not only in Africa, but also in the African relation to the subject matter. It included Diaspora in Europe. The emphasis on several recommendations and proposals individualism and the appropriation of to be followed up by the organizers. modernity in Europe by immigrant African Christians introduces a new dynamic in The Listeners Report the conundrum. 1. A sense of who we (Christians) are in relation to Muslims The second input was given by Fr. Prof • Our self-understanding as Daniel Madigan SJ, from Georgetown Christians is defined by our University. relationship with God as Trinity as Fr. Madigan is a Consultant for the revealed in the life, death and Vatican’s Commission for Religious resurrection of Jesus Christ Relations with Muslims. See p.50. • Our traditions help us to perceive the loving God in creating, The third input was given by Prof. incarnational, salvific and Oddbjørn Leirvik from the University of pneumatological terms Oslo – also representing the Church of • We are each drawn closer to God Norway. See p.55 through our own communal life and tradition • Our traditions inspire us to show love for our neighbour as a representative of the presence of
16
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
Jesus Christ, regardless of race, learnt the need for sensitivity in religion or gender dialogue with Muslims especially in • Our Christian self-understandings areas of vocabulary, and when are challenged and deepened by referring to key terms such as our relations with Muslims mission, witness and conversion. • As Christians we often find • We recognize the diversity and ourselves in a critical relationship richness of attitudes among with our own traditions, and can Christians and know the also find ourselves growing in importance of heeding questions commitment to our own traditions raised by people from different • At various times, Christians have places, circumstances and looked on Muslims as Other in generations, especially the young. different ways: partner, friend, • We recognize the value of neighbour, stranger, rival, even resources from outside our own ”enemy”, some of these helping faith (including Islam) in dialogue, others hindering it Our constructing welcoming and relationships with Muslims have diverse communities. been mixed, and have been qualified by mutual respect and 3. Steps for further reflection cooperation, but also mutual Through this consultation we have oppression and persecution discerned the need to: • Christians are constantly renewed (1) Encourage our communities to: by the process of dialogue; which • know Islam better by listening helps explain why we welcome the carefully to how Muslims express invitation of A Common Word themselves • Christians thrive upon the fertile • understand better God's invitation tension between theological to us to be good neighbours to one reflection and living in diverse another, and to extend this contexts with Muslims neighbourliness to Muslims. • equip ourselves to bear 2. When Christians interact with appropriate witness to “the hope Muslims, they have drawn upon that is in us” a variety of resources. In our (2) Work together ecumenically to: time, when relations between • continue our exploration of such Christians and Muslims are important questions as Trinity and particularly urgent, these Salvation in relation to Islam, and resources require intentional re- the relationship between witness, formulation mission, dialogue and living • We have long recognized the together in right relationship importance of specialists in the • continue network-building within study of Islam as Muslims live and the resources of this consultation present it, and the need to educate body, and we invite our WCC and leaders and communities in the CWC colleagues actively to knowledge of Islam. Learning from explore ways of facilitating this the lessons of the past is important (3) Work with Muslims on issues such as: for future relations. • Religion and State, human rights • We acknowledge the need for • Relationship of religious identity to different theological approaches in land or territory different contexts • Concepts of secularism, pluralism, • We recognize the virtue of patient citizenship listening, and look on dialogue as Further collaboration on such an aspect of spirituality. We have issues as social and economic
17
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
justice, climate change, peace, • The common challenge to hand on healing of memories the legacy of faith to coming • Conversion generations • Use of religious symbols for political ideologies, religiously motivated violence, gender justice Respectfully submitted by Rima Barsoum and human sexuality (Programme Executive, Interreligious • What it means to encounter one Dialogue and Cooperation) another • How interreligious dialogue 1 Hudud means the class of punishments that are contributes to deepening fixed for certain crimes which are considered to be contextual theology “claims of God.”
List of Participants of the Consultation
H.H. Aram I of Cilicia, Catholicos of Cilicia, Armenian Apostolic Church (Holy See of Cilicia) H.E. Metropolitan Joseph Absi, Middle East Council of Churches, Greek Catholic (Melkite) Patriarchate of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem Rev. Dr Martin Affolderbach, Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland H.G. Bishop Nareg Alemezian, Armenian Apostolic Church (Holy See of Cilicia) Rev. James Lagos Alexander, African Inland Church Sudan Prof. Charles Amjad-Ali, Church of Pakistan, Luther Seminary, St. Paul Mrs Clare Amos, The Anglican Communion Ms A. Brenda Anderson, United Church of Canada Fr Prof. Maurice Borrmans, Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue Fr Dr Gosbert Byamungu, Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity Rev. Dr Emmanuel Clapsis, Ecumenical Patriarchate, Holy Cross Orthodox School of Theology Rev. Peter Colwell, Churches Together in Britain and Ireland Dr George H. Freeman, General Secretary World Methodist Council Mr Mark Anthony Gomez, United Church of Christ in the Philippines Bishop Emeritus Hilario Gomez, Jr, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, United Church of Christ in the Philippines Archpriest Mikhail Gundyaev, Moscow Patriarchate Most Rev. Dr Josiah Atkins Idowu-Fearon, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) Fr Dr Viorel Ionita, Conference of European Churches Mrs Nancy Irving, General Secretary Friends World Committee for Consultation Rev. Willem Jansen, Protestant Church in the Netherlands Dr Kathryn L. Johnson, Lutheran World Federation Mr Sven Thore Kloster, Church of Norway Fr George Kourie, Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East Dr Anne Kubai, Uppsala University Mr Ron Kubsch, World Evangelical Alliance Prof. Oddbjørn Leirvik, Lutheran World Federation, Church of Norway Fr Prof. Daniel A. Madigan, Roman Catholic Church, Georgetown University Very Rev. Fr Hovakim Manukyan, Armenian Apostolic Church (Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin)
18
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam
Report of the Consultation
Fr Dr Georges Massouh, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, Balamand University Rev. Dr Johnson Apenad Mbillah, World Alliance of Reformed Churches, Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa (PROCMURA) Rev. Bchara Moussa Oghli, Union of the Armenian Evangelical Churches Fr Moussa Wahib Naguib, Coptic Orthodox Church Rev. Dr Zakaria Jusuf Ngelow, Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI) Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko, General Secretary Lutheran World Federation Rev. Dr Setri Nyomi, General Secretary World Alliance of Reformed Churches Rev. Victor V. Pillay, Reformed Ecumenical Council Rev. Dr Cecil M. Robeck, Pentecostal Churches, Fuller Seminary Prof. Dr Thomas Schirrmacher, World Evangelical Alliance Mr Richard Seebohm, Friends World Committee for Consultation Rev. Dr Hermen Shastri, General Secretary, National Council of Churches in Malaysia Rev. Simone Sinn, Lutheran World Federation Rev. Dr Jørgen Skov Sørensen, General Secretary Council on International Relations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark Rev. Prof. David Thomas, The Anglican Communion, University of Birmingham Prof. Dr Hans-Jürgen Van Der Minde, International Old Catholic Bishops Conference Dr Richard L. van Houten, General Secretary, Reformed Ecumenical Council Rev. Dr Douwe Visser, World Alliance of Reformed Churches Rev. Dr Robert K. Welsh, General Secretary, Disciples Ecumenical Consultative Council (Christian Churches) Rev. Dr Andrea Zaki Stephanous, Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Egypt, Synod of the Nile Dr Angeliki Gr. Ziaka, Church of Greece, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
World Council of Churches Staff Ms Rima Barsoum Mr Douglas L. Chial Mrs Beth Godfrey Prof. Dagmar Heller Mr Georges Lemopoulos Rev. Jacques Matthey Mr Michel Nseir Rev. Dr Shanta Premawardhana Rev. Dr Martin Robra
19
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Living as a Community with Islam – Aram I
Living as a Community with Islam: Concerns, Challenges and Promises Aram I
Christians and Muslims have co-existed my view, religion is not the problem. It was for centuries in different geopolitical made part of the problem. The very contexts and under changing vocation of religion as a moral authority is circumstances. This co-existence has to seek solutions to problems that we face taken multiple shapes, generating in the world today. In order to fulfill its coherence and tension, harmony and vocation, the two dimensions of religion, conflict. A realistic assessment of the namely, as a God-given truth and as a present predicament of these relations is human response, need to be imperative. We must go beyond cosmetic distinguished. Tension between the “other- approaches and clichés to discern the worldly” and “this-worldly” manifestations core issues and emerging challenges. of religion, and the incompatibility between the teachings and practice of religion need Salient Features of Christian- to be reconciled. Both absolutizing and Muslim Relations relativizing religion may have negative consequences. Can we break these Looking at the present landscape of misperceptions and ambiguities and Christian-Muslim relations, it is important articulate the true image of religion? to identify four inter-related trends. Christianity and Islam have rich resources to engage in such a process. Ambiguous perception of religion In the course of history, religion has Misconceptions about Islam and frequently been misused, creating division Christianity and conflict. Christianity and Islam have In spite of the significant growth of Muslim- not been exempt from this tendency. Christian dialogue and relations, Muslims Some believe that religion has a public and Christians continue to misconstrue role to play, while others feel that it should each other’s religion. Generally speaking, be a private affair. For some, religion Islam is portrayed by the West as a source provides the basis for political governance of hatred, fundamentalism and violence. and ideological orientation, while others Deep in the consciousness of many believe that it has been hijacked by a Muslims, Western Christianity is the cause political agenda; hence, while some of moral decay, and it is identified with the people believe that “de-politicization” of Crusades, colonialism, and secularism. religion and “de-religionization” of politics These memories and images pertaining to are imperative, others believe that there Islam and Christianity have generated a should be no demarcation line between crisis of confidence. Furthermore, religion, nation and state. Because of manipulation of religious symbols, slogans these opposing perceptions, religion has and banners to promote nonreligious become a source of conflict in societies. agendas has deepened the intolerance. The concrete implications of these Therefore allegations, stereotypes and contradictory images of religion are prejudices must be seriously addressed, identifiable in many areas of society life. and collective memories must be purified. Referring to this present predicament of This is an extremely urgent task facing religion, Charles Kimball reminds us that Christian-Muslim dialogue. “several best-selling books have agreed forcefully that religion is the problem”1. In
20
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Living as a Community with Islam – Aram I
Collision of values religious beliefs. Faithfulness to identity Religion is not only faith in a transcendent implies strong attachment to values and reality; it is also a value system that religious beliefs. Globalization has governs human life and provides the basis destroyed the fences that used to protect for self-understanding. Rooted in belief this specific identity and, in its place, has systems, values are perceived as forces of produced its own identity. As a result, we cohesion and integration in societies. They see two contradictory reactions: one is may also become forces of destabilization characterized by the defining of one’s self- and tension when used for ideological, understanding in opposition to the other; nationalistic and political ends. Values the other, which is proactive, is marked by carry with them memories and thus creative openness and dynamic condition attitudes and determine interaction with the other. The first way of relations. Exclusive religious claims lead being is labelled today as radicalism or to exclusive expressions of values, which fundamentalism; it rejects the other. The in turn lead to intolerance. second way of being is labelled as moderate and tolerant; it accepts the A number of incidents that have occurred other. in the last decade in different parts of the world, along with their ensuing reactions These two ways of self-understanding are and counter reactions, point to a in collision in many societies. This collision deepening malaise in Christian - Muslim is identifiable both in intrareligious and relations: exclusive and reductionist interreligious contexts. Dogmatic attitudes towards each other provoke approaches, ossified thinking and frozen tension; values conditioned by extremist attitudes will only enhance alienation. religious claims and ideologies expose Islam and Christianity are called to societies to confrontation; even indirect redefine their self-understanding, as well remarks “in the name of freedom of as the way they understand each other in speech” spark outright rage; and the fear a new world context. of an “evil other,” whether identified by a name, country or religion, creates distrust A serious and frank Christian–Muslim and divides people. dialogue cannot ignore these trends and tendencies outlined above. The prevailing What is happening is not in actuality a misperceptions, ambiguities, polarizations, “clash of civilizations”2 or “clash of tensions and collision, hijacked and fundamentalisms”3. It is a clash of values4, sharpened by politico-ideological agendas deeply rooted in our belief systems and and geopolitical strategies, can be stirred by bitter memories. Differences transformed only through a shared life in imprison us in mutual fear unless we community (ayysh-el-moushtarak). I transcend them to discover our common believe that for both Christians and eco-center. Bitter memories deepen the Muslims, living-in-community must divide unless they are healed through a become the real objective of their transformative process. Rather than opting dialogue. On the way toward this common to confront each other, we must strive goal, there are problems and challenges. together to pull down the wall of Neither the “war on terror” nor self- ignorance, arrogance and suspicion. alienation is the right path to follow. We Dialogue should challenge us to accept must not deal with symptoms but with each other the way we are. deeply rooted wounds, through a careful diagnosis and in the spirit of mutual Self-contained or interactive self- respect and trust. understanding? Identity is sustained by values and
21
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Living as a Community with Islam – Aram I
Living Together as Community: A Therefore, generalizations must be Critical Urgency avoided; contextualization is the right way “Dialogue stems from a profound of assessing and organizing Christian- recognition of the mutuality of our common Muslim dialogue and relations. In my view, life”5. Mutuality builds community and these are the most divisive issues to be community presupposes and imposes treated in Christian-Muslim dialogue. mutuality. Indeed, living together as community is a human necessity. Growing Inter-complementarity of faith and awareness of common interests, concerns reason and destiny in a globalized world has Christianity and Islam recognize the given an acute urgency to living together. specific place and role of revelation and Because of their common roots and a long reason in their belief systems. They have, history of cohabitation, Christians and however, different perspectives as to the Muslims have further reasons to share a inter-connectedness of the cognitive and common life together. transcendental dimensions of faith. God’s revelation is perceived by Islam as For centuries, Christians and Muslims in absolute. Muslims believe that the Qur’an the Middle East have lived as co-citizens is literally the word of God and as such is sharing a common history. Together they immutable. This is not the way many have developed Arab nationalism and Christians consider the Bible, which have fought against Ottoman-Turkish contains the revelation of God. Being hegemony, Western colonialism and written by divinely inspired people, the Zionism. Yet they have not been able to Bible needs interpretation. These quite transform cohabitation into a wider different perceptions as to the nature and community. Nation-building has acquired the scope of the infallibility of these two predominance over community building. sacred books have concrete implications on almost all aspects of the life and In Western societies, Muslim migrants practice of these faiths. have established their own communities, preserving their own values, religious The ethos of Islamic thought, action and beliefs, traditions and language. These life is theological. Islam has even, in a communities have remained self- sense, “theologized” reason and has not 6 contained on the fringes of society life and developed a rationalistic tradition . have not been integrated into the total Rationality is at the heart of the ethos of fabric of society. Integration remains an Christianity. Even spirituality and acute problem in Europe. mysticism have given way to rationality, especially in Western Christianity. Community building with Islam is a great challenge and an urgent necessity. Both rationalization and derationalization Community building must take place on of faith are full of dangers. Calling into the basis of equal rights and obligations, question the certitude of truth may as well as full and active participation in all threaten the foundation of religion. aspects of society life, including decision- Governing human life by transcendental making. In this context there are conflictive truth claims may question the credibility issues and crucial questions which require and relevance of religion. Reason has a frank discussion and a comprehensive role in the human search for truth. But scrutiny. Our divergences must be neither when reason overwhelms the faith, then concealed nor absolutized, neither ignored reason becomes an instrument of evil. nor dramatized. We must spell out When the imperatives of faith are converging as well as diverging points and considered beyond the purview of rational identify concrete areas of tension. These discourse, then faith becomes exposed to two monotheistic faiths are not monolithic.
22
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Living as a Community with Islam – Aram I
the ambiguities and polarizations of the between people belonging to the same world. country. The discriminatory policies at home of some countries, such as Turkey, Christianity and Islam hold that their contradict their teachings of tolerance 8 beliefs are not simply human constructs, abroad . Some Muslim countries are but that they have a transcendent source. democratic in form but dictatorial in They believe that reason and faith are essence and Muslims and Christians are partners rather than rivals. Criticizing both equally affected by it. “exaggerated rationalism” and “extreme fideism,” the papal encyclical Fides et According to many Christian scholars, Ratio (2001) has emphasized the contradiction between Shari‘a and basic necessity of reconciliation between faith human rights is evident9: hence, this and reason. In a recent open letter to the matter needs in-depth discussion. There Pope, a group of Muslim scholars stated are voices in Islam that emphasize the that “there are two extremes which the necessity of accommodating the basic Islamic intellectual tradition has generally principles of human rights to the Muslim managed to avoid: one is to make the context. For example, the recent open analytical mind the ultimate arbiter of truth letter of Muslim scholars stressed the and the other is to deny the power of importance of “freedom of religion”. This human understanding to address ultimate ambiguity and fear need to be addressed questions”7. The relation of faith and by Muslim leaders10. reason is a critical area of deeper investigation. In the West, because they believe that many public laws are incompatible with Islamic law (Shari‘a) and human rights Shari‘a law, Muslim communities feel Majority-minority relations either in a isolated. For Muslims the culture of being predominantly Muslim or Christian country a minority is a new reality. Because raise basic concerns and questions. Shari‘a is a law to rule Muslims wherever Islamic society is governed by Islamic law they are a majority, in lands where they (Shari‘a), which through rules, laws, are a minority a new understanding of values, criteria, ethics, worship and Shari‘a is necessary. Recently some practices outlines the way of life that voices have also raised the question of Muslims are supposed to follow establishing a special jurisprudence for individually and collectively. Shari‘a also Muslim communities in order to seek that includes a system of jurisprudence (fiqh). new understanding. In order to ensure a Shari‘a is considered by Christians to be a just basis for a pluralist society as well as system of governance which creates to enhance integration and encourage sociopolitical marginalization and participation in Europe, some believe that threatens religious freedom. Originally plurality of legal systems may be applied meant to safeguard the rights of Christians within one society having at the same time in a country of Muslim majority, dhimmi one basic law for all. too is perceived by Christians as denoting a category of second-class citizenship. These are complex issues that require Perception and implementation of Islamic ongoing discussion. Reciprocity will law have different connotations and significantly help Christians and Muslims implications in Muslim countries. When to seek consensus on conflictive issues, to dhimmi was introduced, the concept of reconcile dilemmas and to build citizenship did not exist. Today, there is a community. Our common humanity, new system of governance based on common history and destiny will remain citizenship. For some Muslims the mere concepts if they are not supported problem is that citizenship is not applied by the crucial urgency of living together as and respected as ensuring equality community. Often religion fails to provide
23
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Living as a Community with Islam – Aram I
shared human rights values and hampers moral and spiritual values12. There are participation and integration. Therefore, significant differences among Muslims in without jeopardizing the specificity and respect to perception, methodology and integrity of religious belief systems, implementation of these objectives. For promoting a culture of human rights is a some, progress and modernity are vital necessity and a common considered to be criteria for being a responsibility, and must be considered moderate Muslim. However, openness, one of foci of Christian-Muslim dialogue11. shown particularly by some oil-rich Muslim countries, is not appreciated in Responding to secularism conservative circles. There is also a Christianity and Islam affirm that human growing trend in Islam to be receptive to life cannot be understood without modernity, but with an Islamic core. reference to the Transcendent, but they respond to this common challenge In the West, the aggressive growth of differently. Secularism is generally secularism and uncritical openness to understood by many Muslims as anti- secular values have generated among religious, a source of evil and a rejection Christians a forceful “return” of religion to of God. Generally Christians avoid making public life as well as the emergence of a sharp dichotomy between secularization spiritual-charismatic movements, some of and Christianity and opt for a critical them with syncretistic tendencies. dialogue. Muslims resist secularism, while Christians resist political Islam as an The clash between the sacred and ideology and a system of governance. secular, the spiritual and material, and Both faiths affirm that governance must be theocentric and anthropocentric sustained by ethical values. approaches is identifiable in many aspects and spheres of society life. This concern is Islam does not separate temporal power commonly shared by Christianity and and religious power. According to Islam, Islam. Therefore, responding to temporal authority needs religious secularism in a more effective way must legitimacy. For Christians a religious state occupy a prominent place on the agenda cannot function democratically in a plural of Christian–Muslim dialogue. society, and separation of religion from state does not mean separation of religion Mission: conversion, witness or co- from society. In the West religion is habitation? perceived as a private affair; while in Islam Christianity and Islam are both missionary all aspects of human life are conditioned religions; they have an eschatological by religion. Western secularism stresses vision and claims for absolute truth and the individualistic understanding of a universality. Although missionary outreach human being, a view that is challenged by is an essential dimension of Islam, it Islam. leaves the space to coexist with others within the framework of dhimmi. The reaction of the Muslim world to Christianity considers mission as Missio secularism has been articulated in Dei; hence, it cannot surrender its different ways: self-isolation to protect missionary vocation and compromise on religious identity; going-back to the original this fundamental affirmation of Christian roots of Islam (radicalism); and the Islamic faith. These competitive claims may lead revival movement. Expressed in different to confrontation if they are not discussed forms, this movement aims to apply seriously and seen in the right Shari‘a law, develop a socioeconomic and perspective. political system based on Shari‘a law, defend Muslim identity according to We have always affirmed that plurality of Islamic principles and promote Islamic religious traditions is “both the result of the
24
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Living as a Community with Islam – Aram I
manifold ways in which God has related to By moving from isolation to integration peoples and nations, as well as a A community defines its self- manifestation of the richness and diversity understanding either in relation or in of human response to God’s gracious opposition to the other. Religion is gift”13. Respecting others’ identity, claims regarded as an enemy of integration since and conviction does not mean its value system is uncompromising. Often compromising our own. Exclusive claims religious identity generates isolation and and uncompromising attitudes must not be threatens national unity. In the globalized opposed with confrontational spirit. We world the other15 is no more a distant or should approach this extremely sensitive undisclosed reality; he or she is our issue proactively. neighbour. Unconditional love of neighbour and hospitality towards the Both religions have painful memories in stranger are essential features of the two this respect. Christianity has always made faiths (Mark 12:29-31; Qur’an 3rd Sura)16. clear the distinction between witness and We must therefore build a quality of proselytism. Witness to the Christ-event is relationship with our neighbour that the essential vocation of a Christian under enhances a deeper and holistic self- all circumstances. We have also stated on understanding and a greater many occasions that Christ may encounter understanding of the other, and which us in the faith of our neighbour and that leads us from estrangement to a common the Holy Spirit may lead us to discern the life together. A society is composed of divine presence in the faith of others. We multiple identities. Co-existence of these have recognized that Christ may use us to identities remains a potential source of transform the other. He may also use the conflict when they are not integrated into a other to teach and transform coherent whole. Community building us14.Therefore, how can we develop a presupposes a quality of integration that Logos-centered, not church-centered, provides equal opportunity, ensures theology of mission that embraces the diversity and enhances mutual “other” without jeopardizing the acceptance. Ethnic, political and cultural “otherness” of the other? I believe that factors and considerations establish both faiths can engage in a creative demarcation lines; religions with their interaction on the basis of their common common values must become bridges of affirmation that mission belongs to God, interaction. A harmonious interaction and that their intention is neither between religious identity and national Christianization nor Islamization but loyalty is crucial. This is the most effective transformation of the world and way of arriving at integration. humanisation of humanity. By moving from exclusion to From Co-Existing to Living participation Together When minorities are considered as In my judgment, living together in outsiders, there is no community. When in community must take the centre stage of a society there is a centre and a periphery, Christian-Muslim dialogue. Both faiths there is no community. When there is lack have common values and resources that of mutual trust, there is no community. promote life-in-community. The solid Rejection leads to isolation and isolation foundation of such a community is laid in a breeds hate and violence. Alienation or local context. Indeed, Christians and marginalization leads to radicalization. Muslims can build a shared life that Community means full participation; it encompasses and transcends differences means inter-connectedness and inter- at the local level: dependence, underpinned by mutual understanding and trust.
25
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Living as a Community with Islam – Aram I
Religion protects identity and promotes a new quality and form of dialogue: security. In situations where identity is dialogue of life. We are all engaged, in threatened and participation denied, one way or another, in the dialogue of life. religious loyalties are enforced. Such The ecumenical movement has also situations develop insecurity, isolation and emphasized the “uniqueness” of Christian- hate. Hence, full and active participation of Muslim dialogue. This is true for historical, all members of a society, irrespective of theological and geo-political reasons. their colour or religion, in all aspects of Wrestling with ontological and society life, including decision-making, metaphysical questions is not a priority for must be ensured. Where there is Christian-Muslim dialogue. In a world participation, values interact and identities marked by confrontation and polarization, are integrated to build a community of the top and urgent priority is how we reconciled diversities. should live together as a community. We should not impose our values on each By moving from reaction to interaction other; we must strengthen our common Religions used to define and protect values, respect our differences and themselves by reacting to the other. The together strive for a common life in interdependent world imposes new community. Unrealistic expectations and paradigms, new criteria of self- aggressive reactions, unrespectful understanding. Indeed, a genuine self- attitudes and arrogant behaviour will only understanding implies engaging in produce alienation and distrust. Learning creative dialogue with the other, and from each other and sharing our concerns moving from a self-centered to an will help us to grow together towards a 18 interactive self-understanding. Identity harmonious life together . based on exclusive claims threatens the other and generates alienation. Identity In my response to the Islamic letter of “A defined exclusively in religious terms Common Word Between Us and You”, I becomes a source of tension. Openness, said: “Relationship, reciprocity and dialogue and interaction do not create accountability build community. Sharing vulnerability; rather, they test the credibility life together implies building community. and relevance of identity, and help Human beings cannot live without community building. community. As an expression of love towards God and towards neighbour, We must create open spaces where community building has been central to dynamic interaction may take place. both Muslim and Christian teachings and Creative interaction of perspectives, ways of life. We firmly believe, as we have concerns and expectations will stated on different occasions in undoubtedly challenge and help us to ecumenical meetings, that a strong move towards building a common life commitment to living together would help together on solid ground. We must us to destroy the walls of prejudice, endeavour together with our Muslim reassert that each religion has integrity, neighbours to consolidate our and generate mutual accountability and commonalties, which ensure wholeness common responsibility”. I believe that “we and integrity, and we must preserve our must accept and respect the way we are, diversities, which enrich community. by suspending our desire to emphasize differences and committing ourselves to becoming communities of living together Concluding Remarks with the fear of God and not with the fear The ecumenical movement has always 19 of one another” . emphasized the “urgency” of dialogue17. The present world, in which walls are destroyed, distances are reduced and the In conclusion, I want to make a few other has become neighbour, has created suggestions for the future work of WCC.
26
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Living as a Community with Islam – Aram I
1. Religious plurality and Christian self- 6. H. Bashiriyeh, “A Critical Examination of Reason understanding must remain a major item in Western and Islamic Philosophies: The Limits of on the agenda of the ecumenical Dialogue between Islam and the West,” Dialogue, movement. Issues related to this area Spring 2001 N. 3, pp. 89-90. need to be tackled with an interdisciplinary 7. http://www.ammanmessage.com. approach and in a way that is holistic in 8. In 1993 the UN declared the “International perspective. Insights and experiences Declaration of Minority Rights” emphasizing that gained through the studies of “Gospel and the protection of minority rights in a country is no Culture” and “Christian Anthropology” longer an internal affair but a matter of must be taken into consideration in this international concern. In the Muslim world this process. was considered a sort of pretext for the Western powers to interfere in the internal affairs of a Muslim country. 2. The ecumenical movement has a rich 9. In 1948, when the UN proclaimed the history of Christian-Muslim dialogue. A International Declaration of Human Rights, and in critical evaluation of the Christian-Muslim 1989 the International Declaration of Children’s common journey is imperative at this time, Rights, several Muslims countries expressed their as we seek new ways of living and reservation in respect to some articles considering working together in a new world context. them conflicting with Islamic Sharia. 10. M.M. Ayoub, “Islam and Pluralism,” Dialogue, 3. The agenda of Christian-Muslim Spring 2001, N.3, p. 107. These issues have been dialogue must be more focused, touching treated by Muslim and Christian scholars within issues that pertain to the life of people. the framework of a consultation organized by The concepts of “broader community” and WCC’s office on Interreligious Relations in 1995. “holistic mission”, as well as “global ethics” See T. Mitri (ed.), Religion, Law and Society, based on shared values are critical areas Geneva, 1995. which require deeper scrutiny and further 11. Dr Muhammad Sammak, a prominent Muslim discussion. In this context we must make scholar with rich experience in Christian-Muslim dialogue, in a recent lecture on “Human Dignity: us of the rich debate that Faith and Order An Islamic Perspective”, says: “Human rights and and CWME had in the last two decades. minority rights pose fundamental challenges that face the normalization of relations between Islam 4. Finally, the process that the WCC and the West during the post-Cold War period.” started with the Critical Moment 12. W. Saif, “Human Rights and Islamic Revivalism” Conference (2005) and the Christian- in Religion, Law and Society, pp. 121-122. Muslim Conference (2002) must continue 13. “Religious Plurality and Christian Self- with renewed pace. As a global understanding” (a study document of WCC) p. 4. ecumenical fellowship, the World Council 14. See “Religious Plurality”; Aram I, For a Church, of Churches is called to play a leading role pp. 95-121. Cf. also the conferences of the in Christian-Muslim dialogue, engaging in Commission of World Mission and Evangelism working relationship with Muslim Centres (CWME). and Institutions, which enjoy a high degree 15. The concept of “other” is crucial in of representation. interreligious dialogue. The otherness of the other is a source of enrichment. The more we take a distance from ourselves and discover the other, 1. C. Kimball, When Religion Becomes Evil, New the more we discover ourselves. To identify York, 2008 p. VIII. commonalties in respect to the concept of “other”, 2. S. Huntington,The Clash of Civilizations and the it is worth reading the following Jewish, Christian Remaking of World Order, New York, 1996. and Muslim perspectives: J. Sacks, The Dignity of 3. T. Ali, The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, Jihads and Modernity, London, 2002. London, 2002; Aram I, For a Church, pp. 108-112, 4. Aram I, For a Church Beyond Its Walls, Antelias, 253-285; M. Sammak, “Human Dignity.” 2007, p. 272. 16. The recent letter of Muslim scholars, “A 5. S.J. Samartha (ed.), Dialogue between Men of Common Word between Us and You” has Living Faiths, Geneva, 1971, p. 20.
27
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Living as a Community with Islam – Aram I
emphasized the crucial importance of clear focus and objective. (3) Particular attention neighbourhood as a basic value. The idea of needs to be given to the churches in the Middle hospitality has been spelled out as a common East because of their centuries of co-existence value in “Religious Plurality.” with Islam. 17. Striving Together in Dialogue: A Muslim- Christian Call to Reflection and Action, Geneva, 2001, pp. 2, 13. His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the 18. The growing openness of the Muslim world Holy See of Cilicia, is an internationally toward the West is, indeed, a positive step known spiritual leader and ecumenical forward. figure. He served for two terms (1991- In this context the initiatives taken by the Muslim 2005) as the Moderator of the World countries of the Middle East and Asia must be warmly welcomed. In this regard I want to make Council of Churches. Since 2006 he has three observations: (1) These initiatives need to be been a honorary president of the World more organized in terms of agenda, methodology Religions for Peace and president of the and representation. (2) They must not become Middle East Council of Churches. one-time events but a continuous process with a
28
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The Holy Spirit in the World – Emmanuel Clapsis
The Holy Spirit in the World:
The Tension of the Particular with the Universal
Emmanuel Clapsis
The Challenge of Present Social accentuate particularities1 As Antony Realities Giddens states, globalization is a Orthodox theology cannot ignore the dialectical process because it does not current social realities of late modernity bring about a generalized set of changes that decisively shape the personal and acting in a uniform direction but consists in collective identities of all human beings by mutually opposed tendencies.2 resorting to a historicism that imprisons its Globalization simultaneously universalizes thoughts in things of the past without any while it particularizes. It intensifies connection to or sensitivity for the rapidly homogenization as well as differentiation changing realities of the present world. and it integrates as well as it fragments. In Neither is it acceptable to escape through the context of this paradoxical plurality the eschatology into the heavenly and need arises to refigure how the particular ethereal matters by disconnecting history is universal and how the universal is from eschatology. The world is not simply particular in an inclusive manner that the realm of darkness where the avoids, at the same time, exclusivism that principalities, the powers and the spirits of breeds intolerance of difference and a the world reign without the active pluralistic pluralism that leads to presence of God’s Spirit in it. God has fragmentation. never abandoned his creation to the destructive and death dealing forces but The economic and technological through his providential love continues to advances of the modern world have sustain the world, and through the forced different cultural, social, racial, energies of God’s Spirit to lead the whole national, and/or religious communities to creation towards its ultimate fulfillment. live together and mingle indistinctly in the Every new development in history is the compressed space and time of the global unfolding of the future that God has world. They are affected by a “rapidly prepared in his love for the world, and at developing and ever-densening network of 3 the same time contains elements of evil interconnections and interdependences.” that leads the world to new forms of This erodes the distinctive communal oppression, injustice, corruptibility and boundaries and unsettles personal and alienation. The intrinsically ambivalent communal identities. In this highly nature of history does not allow either an contested situation, where everything that outright endorsement or a rejection of the was solid and relatively transparent has emerging historical and cultural realities. become “fluid” and ambivalent, there is a Rather, it is a challenge that invites danger to attribute all the personal and Christian theology to refigure how faith in social ills that the new global world brings the triune God provides a transformative to the “unwelcoming” others. The others basis for life in its wholeness. are all those who have intruded in the living space that a particular religious, The compressed space of the global cultural, racial, national consider to be world, while it generates irresistible and exclusively theirs. The anxiety and the irreversible forces of homogenization, fear of those assaulted by the new global simultaneously unleashes dynamics that realities leads, in most instances, to
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The Holy Spirit in the World – Emmanuel Clapsis issues such as sectarianism, tribalism and claiming any kind of superiority over fundamentalism with potential violent others. explosions against the imaginary and real threats against their allegedly fixed The explicit affirmation of the dignity of all personal or collective identity. In this human beings because of the presence of volatile situation, the configuration of the the Holy Spirit in them theologically tensive relationship between the particular grounds the deeper unity of humanity in a and the universal, as well as of the way that allows them to be in communion universal with the particular in light of the with and to be committed to to the well irreversible pluralism of the global world, is being of others despite religious, cultural, an urgent task for the advancement of racial, economic and social differences. peace in the world. In light of this This theological assumption can only be assumption, Christian theology must sustained if we acknowledge that God’s revisit its understanding how the Spirit has been active together with the particularity of the Christian faith relates to Logos in the creating, redeeming and God’s providence for all his creation once sanctifying work of God. In God’s we have accepted the irreversibility of the economy, the Holy Spirit either precedes pluralistic global world. or follows the presence and the work of Christ but it never acts independently of its Religious communities, by virtue of their relationship with God the Father and the particularity and their universal claims, Son. The recognition of the work of the have contributed to and have caused Spirit in nature as well as in moral, social unrest and violence by limiting the cultural, and political life is derived from presence of God and the dignity of human this affirmation of its mission. “If the Spirit beings only to those who have embraced did not participate in the creative acts of their religious beliefs and by demonizing God by which the universe came into those who are irreducibly different and dis- being, then the Spirit becomes too allowing the recognition and respect of sacralized, too tied to holy objects and their difference in the common public life. events, and thus the life of the world apart It is also equally true that religious faith or independent of the Church appears as and communities have empowered people void of God’s presence.”4 The recognition to recognize the deeper unity of all human of the operation of God’s Spirit in the beings based on their belief in a world beyond the boundaries of the benevolent God and to work together with Church is foundational in establishing and them for the advancement of peace and of developing a relationship of respect and greater justice in the world. The continuous conversation of the Church commitment of the Christian Churches to, with the world. This dialogue provides and their cooperation with, people of other opportunities for the Church to enrich itself faiths and ideologies for the advancement by deepening its understanding of the of a just, peaceful and participatory Christian truth through the insights, society must not have its origins simply in observations, critiques, and life stories of ideological, political, or pragmatic factors. others. In this dialogical context the It must be an expression of the public Church evangelizes by offering its gifts to implication of the Christian faith or else it others without the zeal of proselytism. loses its theological claims and uniqueness. The plurality of the modern Once the Christian churches have democratic world demands from all those recognized the presence of God’s Spirit in who desire to contribute the gifts of their the life of the whole universe (in ways that particularity towards the crafting of the cannot, a priori, be specified), a presence common good that they develop sufficient which precedes the personal or particular conversational skills and humility to allow operation of the Spirit through the prayer them to contribute towards the of the Church they need to reflect on how advancement of the common good without the universal presence of God’s Spirit
30
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The Holy Spirit in the World – Emmanuel Clapsis
relates to the uniqueness of its claims to a greater and deeper recognition of its about Jesus Christ. An obstacle that still unity and openness to God’s future. This exists in appreciating the universal aspect belief requires the churches to be of God’s Spirit in the world is the filioque attentive in the context of its dialogue with that subsumes the work of God’s Spirit others in the public space of life to the under Jesus Christ and thus implies that insights, critique, and contributions of the Spirit is present only where there is an others because the Spirit of God may tell explicit confession of Jesus Christ.5 The us through them how to live in a more Spirit of God acting in the world beyond authentic and loving manner the gospel of the distinctive boundaries of the Church Jesus and deepen our unity with God and may work prior to an explicit affirmation of the created world. Thus, while the Holy Jesus as Lord and Saviour, preparing and Spirit may act in the world through the moving the world in unity with the risen prayers and the living witness of the Christ in ways and a manner that is Church, it may also guide the churches, comprehensible or transparent to those through its presence in communities of who have not yet been touched by the living faiths and ideologies, to understand boundless love of God. The Spirit of God better how to live more authentically the either precedes Christ or follows Christ but gospel and deepen participation in God’s always acts in relation with Christ carrying mission for the salvation of the world. out the will of God the Father. Thus, while This latter possibility is accepted with we affirm that in Christ’s ministry the Holy difficulty by those who believe that the Spirit is actively present, it is important to plenitude of God is actively present only recognize that in the mission of God’s within the distinctive boundaries of the Spirit in the world, the risen Christ is Church, while the world as the realm of mysteriously present since God in his darkness and sin has nothing to offer to economy is always acting as Trinity. the Church, which by virtue of its divine origins is the living presence of God in the The Holy Spirit in ecumenical theology world. With few exceptions Christian theologians have not yet sufficiently reflected on the The operation and presence of the Holy work of the Holy Spirit in the world. They Spirit in the world, outside of the have focused their reflection on its boundaries of the Christian Church operation in the spiritual life of the became the focus of the Seventh believers, the life of the Church, the Assembly of the World Council of sacraments, and on how it relates to God Churches.7 The assembly, as well as its the Father and the Son. The presence of proceedings, was controversial because God in the secular order, programs of for the first time the assembly of the social transformation, public service, World Council of Churches focused its politics and other religious or humanistic attention on the economy of the Holy systems of belief and communities Spirit.8 The theme of the assembly remains, in the word of Kilian McDonnel, “Come, Holy Spirit – Renew the Whole an undeveloped aspect of the Christian Creation” and the subthemes, “Giver of 6 theology of the Holy Spirit. This Life – Sustain your Creation”; “Spirit of pneumatological deficiency must be Truth – Set us Free”; “Spirit of Unity – corrected in light of the urgent need to Reconcile your People”; and “Holy Spirit – cooperate with and be in dialogue with Transform and Sanctify Us”, aimed to people and communities of other living recognize the presence and the work of faiths and ideologies. The openness of the Holy Spirit in the world. The theme of the Church to such cooperation and the assembly captured the imagination of dialogue is expressive of its belief in the those who advocate that the universal active presence of the energies of God’s presence and salvific work of God’s Spirit Spirit in us and in them and in the whole in the world makes the Christian claims of humanity. These energies lead the world 31
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The Holy Spirit in the World – Emmanuel Clapsis
the uniqueness of Jesus Christ terms either solely of Jesus or of the Spirit unnecessary for the salvation of the world turns to a binitarianism or unitarianism, although Christ’s uniqueness does not which fails to account for the fullness of cease to be normative for the faith of the God’s being, presence and operation in the Christian Church. This view disassociates life of the world. Orthodox theology in light the salvific work of the Spirit from that of of its trinitarian faith simultaneously rejects Christ. It abandons the Christocentricity of exclusivism (christomonism) and pluralism the Christian faith in favor a theo- (pneumatomonism or theo-centrism) by centricity. On the other hand, those who dialectically relating the universal – through adhere to the belief that only those who the omnipresence of God’s spirit to the believe in Jesus Christ are saved entire history of humankind – with the perceived the pneumatological focus of particular of God’s self-disclosure in Jesus the assembly as a trend relativizing the Christ.11 Thus, the Christian understanding faith of the Church. The real flaw with of God cannot be divorced from the story of both of these positions is their deficient Jesus Christ and/or the universal operation trinitarian faith. Those who advocate that of the mission of God’s Spirit in the world, there are multiple ways to salvation tend and it cannot rend asunder the particular to be pneumatomonists in their theology. and the universal. Trinitarian faith anchors Their focus on the Holy Spirit provides God’s revelation in the particularities of them with a universal framework to history reaching its climax in Jesus Christ understand the operation of God in history without limiting God to any particularity, without attributing any decisive salvific because of the universal active presence of significance to what God has granted to his Spirit in the world. Thus, the the world through Jesus Christ for those particularity of God’s revelation in Jesus of who live outside of the Christian Church. Nazareth understood from a trinitarian On the other hand, those who believe that perspective cannot be disassociated from salvation is granted only to those who the universal presence and operation of believe in Jesus Christ and have been God in the world through his Spirit. baptized in his name tend to be christomonists in their theology. They limit The ambiguity of Christian tradition the salvific work of Jesus Christ only The irreversible religious plurality of the within the distinctive boundaries of the world, the conflicting claims of universality Christian Church or of their particular that different religions claim, as well as the confession without any acknowledgment potential conflicts that they generate of the universal aspect of the Christian because of exclusivity of their truth claims, faith by the omnipresence of God’s give a sense of urgency to the need to Spirit.9 Adherence to the christocentricity reflect on whether Christianity is inherently of the Christian faith must be exclusive of other religions as it has been distinguished from a Christomonism that generally proclaimed up to now. Here, I fails to recognize the trinitarian economy must pay tribute to the contribution of of God and the active participation and Metropolitan George Khodr who, almost cooperation of the Holy Spirit with Christ thirty five years ago, called the churches to in God’s salvific work. On the other hand, assess the theological significance of the recognition of the presence of God’s religious plurality. He opted for a dialogue Spirit in the world, outside of the of thought, life patterns and action on the distinctive boundaries of the Church, must part of the Christian churches with different not be disassociated from Christ. religious communities for the sake of Pneumatomonism is not a substitute for advancing peace, giving positive Christomonism. 10 appreciation to a sense of goodness and spiritual life that exists beyond the God reveals Godself and acts in the world distinctive boundaries of the Church.12 through his Spirit and his Word. Hence, any The early formative years of the Christian attempt to limit and monopolize God in community that shaped and differentiated 32
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The Holy Spirit in the World – Emmanuel Clapsis
Christianity from Judaism and Hellenistic attitudes of intolerance and even of hatred. religious thought and practices provide On the other hand, the more positive evidence of the ambivalent attitude of approach to other religions inspired by Christianity towards other religious Paul’s address to the Athenians continued communities.13 The early Christian Church to evolve in the life of the Church. in expressing what it has received from According to the notion of spermatikos God through Christ and the Holy Spirit logos, as it was understood by Justin the acknowledges that God has acted in the Martyr, all who have lived according to the life of the world through other religious Logos are Christians, since there is no truth communities. In the Acts of the Apostles it apart from God and his action in the world. is stated that “In every nation the man who Clement of Alexandria, the leading is god-fearing and does what is right is representative of this line of thought, sees acceptable” to God (10:35). “In the past the whole mankind as a unity and beloved ages God allowed all nations to go their of God. On the basis of Hebrews (1:1) he way” (14:16) “yet he has not left you asserts that it was to the whole humankind without some clue to his nature” (14:17). and not only to Israel that “God spoke in There is among the Gentiles a yearning for former times in fragmentary and varied the “unknown God” (17:23), a search for fashion.” Origen expresses a similar view the God who “is not far from each one of when he discerns “elements of the divine in us, for in him we live and move, in him we the pagan religions and in Greek exist” (17.28). But this recognition that philosophy”14 The fathers of the Church God is actively present in other religious continued to respect the wisdom of faith and in the nations is held antiquity, although with a clearly apparent simultaneously with the belief that “gods reserve. Gregory of Nazianzus declared made by human hands are not gods at all” that a number of philosophers, like Plato (19:26). For Saint Paul “a false god has no and Aristotle “caught a glimpse of the Holy existence in the real world” (1 Corinthians Spirit”15 Despite his strong criticism of 8:4). In Revelation, paganism is identified idolatry, he does not shrink from declaring as a lie (21:8) and as deceit (22:15). Yet, that he sees in the religious life of St Paul in his Areopagus speech expresses humankind “ the hand of God guiding the view that the Athenians worshipped the people to the true God.” This entire trend true God without recognizing him as the of patristic thought can be summed up in Creator. His face had not been unveiled to the following sentence of Irenaeus: “There them. Paul gave their god a name. The is only one God who from the beginning to Name, together with its attributes, is the end, through various economies, comes to revelation of God. Here we find the germ of the help of humankind.” 16 a positive attitude to other living faiths, which goes hand in hand with the complete In short, the early Christian Church, while it negation of their value. This explains why, unequivocally affirmed that in Jesus Christ from the beginning, Christian apologetics God has fully and definitively revealed would have two different attitudes. On the himself and has decisively acted for the one hand, the gods are identified with salvation of the world, acknowledges that images of wood or stone fashioned by God’s grace operated and continues to human hands and are regarded as demons operate independently or apart from the fighting against the Lord; on the other Church because of God’s providential love hand, a more positive and inclusive attitude for the world. It also implies that while it is found acknowledging the presence and affirmed Christ to be the definitive and full the operation of God’s grace in them. revelation of God, it did not exclude the possibility that God in his unconditional The hostile attitude of Christianity towards freedom and love has revealed himself to other religions became a fixed position and others, albeit not as fully and definitively as further accentuated by the battles of the in Jesus Christ. Such imperfect or partial Church against heresies which generated revelations of God in other cultures and 33
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The Holy Spirit in the World – Emmanuel Clapsis
religions can only be discerned and dead, come, O mighty One, who dost appreciated by what we know about God accomplish, transform and change through our faith in Jesus Christ. The everything through thy will alone… Come, denunciation and rejection of other thou whom my miserable soul has loved religious systems, beliefs, and practices, and loves!”18 while they reveal the strong conviction of the early Church about the fullness of the The pervasive presence of the energies of truth that it can be found in its life, beliefs God’s Spirit in the whole universe and in and practices as it struggles against the Church is incompatible with any heresies, schisms and other religious personal and/or collective self-sufficiency practices and belief, constitutes a warning and isolationism. The Church, constituted that not everything found in other religions simultaneously by Christ and the Holy or in the life of the world can be attributed Spirit, discloses the future of humanity and to the presence and operation of God’s of creation as community that transcends grace in them. all its divisions and fragmentation by the power of God’s Spirit and lives forever in The Spirit of God in the world unity in God’s love: As we have noted, Orthodox theologians, with few exceptions, have not reflected on Men, women, children, deeply divided as the presence and operation of the Holy to race, nation, tongue, way of life, work, Spirit in the life of the world beyond the knowledge, dignity, fortune…the Church distinct boundaries of the Church, recreates them all in the Spirit and stamps although they acknowledge in prayer that on all in like manner a diving form. All the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth, is receive from it a single nature, which everywhere present and fills all things. cannot be fragmented and no longer These theologians, following the Greek allows them to pay heed to the many deep Patristic tradition, strongly emphasize the differences affecting them. Hence all are infusion of the energies of the Holy Spirit raised and united in truly catholic fashion. into all creation. In Orthodox theological In it, no one is in the slightest separated tradition, the energies of God’s Spirit are from the community; all are so to speak active in all creation and history and merged in each other through the single indeed in all things. Despite the indivisible power of faith.19 pervasiveness of evil in the created world, there is always a progressive force in it for While Orthodox theology has a profound the sanctification of everything and of understanding of the active presence of everyone. “The Spirit of God, direct, God’s Spirit in creation and in history, authoritative, and fount of wisdom, and Orthodox theologians seem to limit the life, and holiness…full…all ruling, all- operation of God’s Spirit within the sacred effecting, all-powerful, of infinite power, space of the Church and the inner life of Lord of creation, and not under any its members. lord…sanctifying, not sanctified…and participated in by all creation They are reluctant to acknowledge the (μεταλαμβανόμενον υπό πάσης της universal salvific presence of God in the κτίσεως)” 17 This conviction about the world because they are particularly fearful universal presence of God’s Spirit which of the potential relativization of the sanctifies everything including human Christian gospel. Yet, I wonder whether it existence is also expressed in the hymns is desirable that, for the sake of actual or of St Symeon the New Theologian who imaginative fears and risks, essential prayerfully asks for the coming of the Holy aspects that shape the understanding of Spirit: “Come true light; come eternal life; God’s involvement in history should be come that which is ineffable; come thou silenced or insufficiently emphasized. who canst not be known; come joy Orthodox theology, based on the unceasing! Come resurrection of the indivisibility of the humanity and the 34
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The Holy Spirit in the World – Emmanuel Clapsis
recognition of the active presence of transcend its creaturely limitations and God’s energies in fullness of the world, enter into the glory and life of God must be able to discern and appreciate (Romans 8:20-21). The transcending and whatever rays or glimpses of God’s’ Spirit liberating aspect of the work of the Holy discerns in life in the world outside of its Spirit shows God to be the Spirit of distinctive boundaries. This requires the communion (2 Corinthians 13:13). This is rejection of filioquism which subsumes the not only true with reference to the relation Spirit’s work under Christ’s, a position that between God and the world, but also with Orthodox theology, at least in theory, does regard to inter-human relations and not accept.20 The Spirit of God while it is indeed to the relations of humanity with actively present in the interior life of the the whole creation. Wherever the Holy baptized faithful and constitutes the Spirit blows, the boundaries of Church as the body of Christ, is also individualism are transcended and love active in the fullness of God’s creation and and communion emerge. Thus the Church in history. This affirmation held together as the “temple of God’s Spirit” participates with recognition of the omnipresence of to and brings to the world the spirit of evil provides a safeguard against the communion that leads all into unity and adoption of any kind of Manichaeism and moves the whole created world and enables the Church to cooperate with humanity towards the reign of God. From other communities in the civic space by the perspective of the understanding of recognizing in them the energies of God’s the mission of the Holy Spirit in the world, Spirit. all human ideologies, religious beliefs that lead to a life pattern of self-sufficiency, The Orthodox contribution to the Seventh self-enclosure, exclusivism and Assembly of the World Council of triumphalism are incompatible with the Churches in 1991 expressed this positive Spirit of God that generates communion and yet critical recognition of the energies and relationality. Being as communion of God’s Spirit in the world. The 1990 through the work of the Holy Spirit reflects report of the Eastern Orthodox and for the Christians the pattern of sacrificial Oriental Orthodox Consultation on the love that Christ has disclosed to the world theme of the Seventh Assembly of the through his life pattern. World Council of Churches held in 199121 entitled Come, Holy Spirit – Renew the The trinitarian understanding of the Whole Creation: An Orthodox Approach22 presence and operation of God’s Spirit in articulates the premises for understanding the world means that the economy of the operation of the Holy Spirit in the God’s Spirit cannot be perceived apart history of the world. It states that Orthodox from the redemptive and deifying work of theology understands the presence and the Incarnate Logos of God. Christ’s operation of the Holy Spirit in the world mission is the mission of the Triune God from the perspective of God’s economy, and that means that the Holy Spirit cannot which is intrinsically Trinitarian. It cannot be disassociated either from the entirety of be independent or separate from the work life or from his salvific work. In the same of Jesus Christ and the loving will of God manner, the mission of the Spirit is the the Father. The aim of God’s Spirit in mission of the Triune God and this means creation and redemption is to liberate that Christ is actively present in its humanity and creation in general from all mission. This trinitarian perception of forms of self-sufficiency and “autonomy” God’s mission for the salvation of the vis-à-vis God. The Spirit opens up the world is transparent and fully disclosed in boundaries of whatever he touches and the Church. For those who live in the brings it into relation with the transcendent world, this active and salvific presence of God. It serves the will of God, who God’s Spirit in the life of the world cannot desires and actively works so that be fully understood and be transparent to humanity and creation in general will them but even Christians are cautious
35
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The Holy Spirit in the World – Emmanuel Clapsis
about trying to explain the mysterious the power of healing and liberation for presence of God’s Spirit in the world. God’s creation. 25
The trinitarian understanding of God’s The participation of the Church in economy does not allow the movements of social transformation is disassociation of the work of Holy Spirit in guided by its vision of what it is and is history from Christ and his Church. But, becoming because of its identification with the mission of the Holy Spirit cannot be Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit. If its limited to the distinctive boundaries of the life is “being as communion” then it is its Church: essential mission to be in the world the “extension (and prolongation) of the Although the Spirit constitutes the Church communion of the Spirit.” 26 and acts in her life, the Spirit of God is not limited or contained exclusively by it. The The identification of God’s presence in Holy Spirit is everywhere present since it movements of social transformation is not “blows where it wills, and you have the uncritical since all efforts for human sound of it, but you do not know whence it liberation are subject to corruptibility by comes or whither it goes” (Jn 3:8). The the sin that pervades in the world: mysterious character of the Holy Spirit constantly help us to transcend all narrow Given the intrinsic ambiguity of history and perspectives with regard the work of the the awareness that spirits other than the Spirit. The Spirit is at work in the whole of Holy Spirit may act in the world, we must God’s creation though not all are aware of be very careful not to identify in an it.23 absolute manner the Holy Spirit with human progress, actions, social What does this recognition of the active movements, and ideologies. Sometimes presence of God’s Spirit in the life of the what we call human progress or liberation world mean for the witness of the may be a passing from one slavery to Christian churches to the world? The another, more subtle and oppressive. report, expanding the presence and the Since the reign of God is an unconditional operation of the Holy Spirit beyond the gift of God, we must concur that all human interior life of the believers and the actions in themselves are essentially sacramental life of the Church recognizes imperfect and thus contain hidden its presence in all human efforts and elements of evil. This awareness shapes movements for the removal of all causes the critical task of the Church in the life of of injustice and oppression.24 It advocates the world as the power that unmasks and that those who have been anointed by the resists all new and old forms of idolatry Holy Spirit and through its guidance united and false messianic expectations.27 with God in Jesus Christ have the responsibility to participate in God’s In conclusion, the Orthodox churches in salvific and liberating ministry: their contribution to the pneumatological theme of the Seventh Assembly of the Christians must actively care for the World Council of Churches recognized the healing of those who suffer as a result of active presence of God’s Spirit in the human brokenness. This healing world acting beyond the boundaries of the involvement in the suffering of the world Church, but not independently or must not be one dimensional. The people separately from Christ, since both in their of God through the divine gifts of the Spirit distinctive but interdependent missions are actively, and in diverse manners, disclosed that active love of God the involved in history to reduce the suffering Father. The report while it recognized that of the poor, the weak, and the voiceless. the fullness of God’s love for the world is The Church, by being faithful to its inner revealed and experienced in the Church, life of the Spirit and the Gospel becomes also acknowledged that the Holy Spirit is
36
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The Holy Spirit in the World – Emmanuel Clapsis
working in the world towards the unity of understanding of the Eucharist and the all and the participation of all in God’s active operation of the Holy Spirit in the kingdom. From a trinitarian perspective, world. In the Eucharist, the whole created we assume that wherever and whenever world becomes the body of Christ and we discern the operating presence of receives sanctification. The Church in the God’s Spirit in aspects of the world’s life, Eucharist is disclosed as the visible and Christ is also active present in these effective sign of the coming reign of God. situations in a hidden form and manner. In The Church constituted by Christ and the the words of Metropolitan George Khodr: Holy Spirit is the ark of salvation. The salvific grace of God expands even Christ is hidden everywhere in the mystery beyond its distinct boundaries (Titus 2:11) of his lowliness… Every martyr for the offering salvation to all people of all ages truth, every man persecuted for what he throughout the world.29 None is excluded, believes to be right, dies in communion in Professor Karmires’ view, from the gift with Christ. The mystics of Islamic of salvation that God grants to humanity countries with their witness to suffering regardless of race, language, colour, love lived the authentic Johannine agape. class, age and even of belief. Through For if the tree is known by its fruits, there Christ’s redemptive sacrifice, the whole is no shadow of doubt that the poor and creation and humanity has been humble folk who live for and yearn for God reconciled to God (I John 2:2, 4:10).30 in all nations already receive the peace which the Lord gives to all whom He loves Humanity finds its wholeness and unity in (Luke 2:14).28 the Church through the reconciling ministry of Christ that becomes accessible Those who live the Christian pattern of to all by the Holy Spirit. The sacramental life, openness to God and embracing in an life of the Church as it is lived and active love all human beings even though actualized, especially in the Eucharist, they may not explicitly confess Jesus brings the whole humanity and creation Christ as their Lord and Saviour are not into unity with God through Christ and the far from God. Holy Spirit. Humanity and creation constitute the body of Christ in its wider The Church and the salvation of the sense as the unity of creation with the world uncreated God through the recapitulation If salvation is understood as participation of all in Christ and the indivisibility of in God’s trinitarian life through the mission humanity. In this wider sense of the of the Holy Spirit that leads and makes Church’s being, the Church is not just the possible the unity of the world with Christ, Orthodox Christians but all other how it is possible for those who do not Christians, heterodox and people of other believe in Jesus Christ to be saved? In living faiths. What brings them into unity other words, is the presence and the with God is their openness in desire and operation of God’s spirit in creation salvific intention to God and their active love for in nature? If the answer is affirmative, all humanity and creation. Orthodox then how is the salvific presence of God’s theologians while they acknowledge the spirit in history related to the salvific work presence of God in the entirety of creation of the incarnate Word of God and by and in the wholeness of humanity are extension to the, which is the body of reluctant to identify how and in what Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit? specific ways the Holy Spirit is mystically Orthodox theologians, although they are present to those who live outside of the reluctant to affirm in concrete terms the distinctive boundaries of the Church. 31 presence of the risen Christ in the world, affirm the unity of creation and of The incomprehensibility of God’s active humanity with the risen and exalted Christ presence in the world beyond the through the cosmic and eschatological boundaries of the Church is a sign of
37
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The Holy Spirit in the World – Emmanuel Clapsis
God’s unconditional freedom and value and importance despite their providential love for all his creation. The difference. Here we have a disclosure of unconditional freedom of God’s operation God’s providence for all humanity and his in the life of the world implies that while freedom to act differently in different the plenitude of Christ through the active contexts for the purpose to communicate presence of the Holy Spirit is present in his love for the world. God in his grace the Church, the cosmic dimension of the and philanthropy has never ceased to do new creation that his resurrection brings everything for the salvation of the human embraces the whole humanity and the race from the beginning of time until its whole created world at large. Thus, while end.33 Chrysostom named the righteous God is actively present in the Church people of the old times as “Christians in granting salvation to all who confess practice if not in name since we cannot Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, place them outside of the truth.” Gregory God does not limit His presence and of Nazianzus states that “just as many of operation only within the distinctive our own are not with us because their boundaries of the Church: lives alienate them from the common body of the faithful, in like manner many of The work of salvation outside of Israel those outside are with us, in so far as by “according to the flesh” and outside the the way of life they anticipate the faith and historical church, is the result of the only lack in name what they possess in resurrection which fills everything with the attitude.” 34 fullness of Christ. The coming of Christ, in whom “all things are held together” (Col. The belief that there is salvation outside of 1:17) has led the whole of mankind to its the Church seems to contradict the axiom true existence and brings about spiritual that extra ecclesiam nula salus. The renewals, economies which can take axiom affirms negatively that there is no charge of human souls until He comes. salvation outside of the Church and in a The Church’s mediatorial roles remain positive manner that salvation and unity unimpaired. But the freedom of God is with God can only be realized only such that He can raise up prophets through and in the Church. Professor outside the sociological confines of the Karmires recognizes that many of the New Israel just as He raised them up church fathers have adopted this position outside the confines of the Old Israel. But but it does not have a doctrinal status these callings to prophecy and wisdom because it does not have biblical origins outside the sanctuary possess a secret and foundations.35 It was advanced in the bond with the power of the Risen One and history of the church by Cyprian, Origen, in no way conflict with the uniqueness of Augustine, Chrysostom and other church Christ’s economy.32 fathers as an exhortation to avoid heresies and schisms and safeguard the unity of God in his love for the created world and the Church. Karmires then suggests that humanity has acted before and continues the Fathers through the concept of extra to act even after the incarnation of his ecclesiam nulla salus expressed the belief Word in multiple and diverse ways for the that there is no salvation in heretical and purpose of saving the world. For instance, schismatic churches and communities but before the incarnation of his Word, not that people in such communities according to St John Chrystostom, God cannot be saved through their baptism gave to the gentiles the natural ethical law and/or their righteous life. Similarly non and to the Jews the Mosaic Law. Both the Christians can be saved as people of God natural ethical law and the written Mosaic for whom salvation is possible through Law, although they are different, prepared God’s salvific grace. Megas Pharantos the gentiles and Jews for salvation “κοινά concludes his study on the theology of τά τῆς πρόνοιας ἧ, εἰ καὶ διαφόρως.” What religions by stating that the Fathers of the God had granted to both was not of less of Church simultaneously affirm that there is
38
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The Holy Spirit in the World – Emmanuel Clapsis
divine grace before the incarnation of the to invoke the Holy Spirit to rejuvenate the Word and outside of the Church despite self-transcending impetus of this quest. the fact that it is at the same time emphasized that apart from Christ and the church there in no salvation.36 Professor Karmires states that we must have an 1 Emmanuel Clapsis, “The Challenge of the Global unshakeable hope and conviction, that World,” in The Orthodox Churches in Pluralistic God in his boundless mercy and wisdom World, ed. Emmanuel Clapsis (Geneva: WCC knows and possesses other ways, other Publications, 2004), 47-66. unknown to us “incomprehensible ways” 2 Antony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity by which he grants salvation to those that (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), 64. live beyond the distinctive boundaries of 3 John Tomlinson, Globalization and Culture the Church but possess the natural (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999), 2. knowledge of God and faith as well as 4Kilian McDonnell, “The Determinative 37 ethical consciousness. Their salvation Doctrine of the Holy Spirit,” Theology Today 39 originates in God’s providence and is (1982). achieved through the – incomprehensible 5 Harvey Cox, “Make Way for the Spirit,” in God’s to us – working of the Holy Spirit in the Life in Trinity, Miroslav Volf and Michael Welker, world that brings all into unity with the eds., (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 93-100. risen Christ and consequently in the In rejecting the Filioque, Cox states: “To say that Church in its wider sense.38 the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from both the Father “and” the Son, as the Western Churches (Roman The Church does not reject whatever is Catholic and most Protestant creedal churches) holy and true existing either in history or in do, is to imply that the presence of the Spirit of other religious communities because it God must in some way be subsumed under Jesus considers them as rays of the divine truth Christ. This view has usually meant that the Spirit that enlightens and leads their people to can be present only where there is an explicit God. The Church completes whatever is confession of Jesus Christ. In turn, this affirmation incomplete in others. It enhances those suggests that the Spirit of God, which according to elements of faith and life that reflect God’s John 3:8 “blows where it wills,” must now restrict love and will for his Creation. It completes itself, as it were, to ecclesiastically approved those elements of truth that have their channels, Its freedom is delimited, whereas in the origins in God since Christ’s mission is not Eastern and more mystical version of Christianity, to “abolish but to complete” (Matthew the experience of God the Spirit is at least 5:17). Thus, the Church cannot be theoretically available in a wider, less refined, and less controlled way.” 96. indifferent to those who are not Christians 6 because they are also guided by God’s Kilian McDonnell, The Other Hand of God: The Spirit. It is a fundamental belief of the Holy Spirit as the Universal Touch and Goal Christian Church that all creation is (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2003) 7 Signs of the Spirit: incessantly influenced by the dabar, or Michael Kinnamon, ed., Official Report Seventh Assembly, Canberra, Word of God, and by the ruah, or Spirit of Australia, 7-20 February 1991(Geneva: World God. The “two hands” of the Father, the Council of Churches, 1991). The Orthodox actively equally glorious Persons of the Son and contributed to the deliberations of the Assembly the Spirit, extend and bestow elements of by its contributions that can be found in divine truth to all human beings in ways Gennadios Limouris, ed., Come, Holy Spirit Renew conducive to their salvation. Even if the the Whole Creation: An Orthodox Approach for the Church insists that its own preaching Seventh Assembly of the World Council of Churches contains and promulgates divine truth Canberra, Australia 6-21 February 1991 (Brookline, most unambiguously and thus most MA.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1990). adequately, Christians should never cease 8 Kirsteen Kim, The Holy Spirit in the World: A either to marvel at the spiritual force Global Conversation (New York: Orbis Books, underlying the universal quest for truth or 2007).
39
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The Holy Spirit in the World – Emmanuel Clapsis
9 The relationship of Christianity to other religions 21 Michael Kinnamon, ed., Signs of the Spirit. currently is understood through the typology of 22 Gennadios Limouris ed., Come, Holy Spirit exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. Exclusivism Renew the Whole Creation , 36-55. refers to the view that there can be no salvation 23 Ibid., 43 other than through explicit faith in Jesus Christ. In 24 Ibid., 42. some moderate versions of the exclusivist type, 25 Ibid., 44. other religions may possess some knowledge of 26 Ibid. the truth of God; but they are not ways of 27 Ibid., 44. salvation. Inclusivism teaches that Jesus Christ is 28 Khodr, “Christianity in a Pluralistic World,304 the definitive revelation of God, that the salvation 29 Joh. Chrys. hom. Rom 8.4 (PG 32.1160). accomplished in him embraces all people, and that 30 Ioannis Karmires, Η Παγκοσμιότης τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ it is somehow made available to all. Pluralism Σωτηρίας, Θεολογία 51/4 (1980), 645-691; 52/1 holds that all religions mediate true, if partial, (1981), 14-45. knowledge of the mystery of God and that all are 31 Karmires, Η Παγκοσμιότης τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ equally valid ways of salvation. For a discussion of Σωτηρίας, , 657. Επομένως εἰς τόν ἄνθρωπον εἶναι the strengths and weakness of these different ἄγνωστος ὁ τρόπος, καθ` ὄν ἐνεργεῖ ἐν understandings of the salvific significance of προκειμένῳ ἡ χάρις ὡς σωτήριος ἐνέργεια τοῦ religions see: Gavin D’Costa, Theology and Θεοῦ καὶ λυτρωτική δύναμις τοῦ Παρακλήτου, Religious Pluralism. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986) καθ` ὃτι εἶναι «ἀνεξεύνητα τά κρίματα τοῦ Θεοῦ 10 For an Orthodox Trinitarian critique of both καὶ ἀνεξιαχνίαστοι αἱ ὀδοί αὐτοῦ» (Ῥωμ. 11.33, Christomonism and Pneumatomonism, see Nikos βλ. Γενικώτερον κεφάλαια Ῥωμ. 9-11). Ἀλλά A. Nissiotis, “ The Importance of the Doctrine of πάντως διά τῆς ἐπιθυμίας καὶ τῆς ἐπιδιώξεως τῆς the Trinity for Church Life and Theology,” in The σωτηρίας καὶ διὰ τῆς ἐν ἀγάπη ἐνεργουμένης Orthodox Ethos (Oxford: Holywell Press, 1964), 32- πίστεως καὶ τῆς ἐναρέτου ζωῆς, δύνανται καί μὴ 69. χριστιανοί νὰ συνάπτωσι πραγματικόν σύνδεσμον 11 Ioannis Karmires, Η Παγκοσμιότης τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ μετά τῆς Ἐκκλησίας, βαπτιζόμενοι οἱονεί ἐν τῇ Σωτηρίας, Θεολογία 51/4 (1980), 645-691; 52/1 πίστει αὐτῶν, καὶ οὕτως ἀνήκοντες ἀοράτως καὶ (1981), 14-45. πνευματικῶς εἰς αὐτήν, καίπερ μή 12 Metropolitan Georges Khodr, “Christianity in a συμπεριλαμβανομένοι σωματικὼς εἰς τὴν Pluralistic World: The Economy of the Holy Spirit,” ἐξωτερικήν κοινότητα αὐτης. in The Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical 32 Khodr, “Christianity in a Pluralistic World, 304. Movement, ed. Constantine G. Patelos, (Geneva: 33 Joh. Chys., Hom. Joh. 14.2, PG 59.94. World Council of Churches, 1978), 297-307. 34 Greg. Naz., Epitafios to his father 5, PG 35. 92. 13 Richard P. C. Hanson, “The Christian Attitude to 35 Karmires, Η Παγκοσμιότης τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Pagan Religions up to the Time of Constantine the Σωτηρίας, , 16. Great,” in his book Studies in Christian Antiquity 36 Megas Pharantos, Η Θρησκεία, Δογματική (Edinburgh: T& T. Clark, 1985),144-229. Θεώρησις ( Athens, 1978), 73-74. 14Metropolitan Georges Khodr, “Christianity in a 37 Karmires, Η Παγκοσμιότης τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Pluralistic World: The Economy of the Holy Spirit”, Σωτηρίας, , 21. 299. 38 Ibid. Εκ τῶν ἀνωτέρω δῆλον, ὅτι οἱ ἐκ τῶν καὶ 15 Orat. 31.5; PG 36, 137c. μετά Χριστόν ἑτεροθρήσκων καὶ ἑτεροδόξων 16 Adv. Haer. III, 12. 13. πιστοί καὶ δίκαιοι πάντων τῶν αἰώνων καὶ πασῶν 17 St John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, PG τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων φυλῶν δύνανται νὰ θεωρῶνται 94.821 Bc. ὡς ἀνήκοντες μυστικῶς καὶ ἀρρήτως καὶ ἀοράτως 18 PG 120. 507-509. εἰ τὴν ἐν εὐρυτέρα ἐννοία Ἐκκλησίαν ἥ 19 St. Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogia, PG 91, ὁπωσδήποτε ὡς διατελοῦντες πόθῳ εἰς ἀόρατον 665-668. μετ` αὐτῆς σχέσιν καὶ συνάφειαν, καθ` ὅσον καὶ 20 This is evident in the Orthodox critique of the ἐπ` αὐτῶν ἐπεξατάθη καὶ ἐπεκτείνεται ἡ filioque and its implications for the trinitarian faith παντουργός πρόνοια καὶ σωτήριος χάρις τοῦ and the understanding of the Church. The work of θέλοντος πάντας ἀνθρώπους σωθῆναι the Spirit is not limited just in communicating in a φιλανθρώπου Θεοῦ, τοῦ γινώσκοντος καὶ subjective manner what Christ has objectively δυναμένου βεβαίως καὶ δι` ἄλλων τρόπων νὰ granted to the world. χορηγῇ αὐτοῖς τὴν χάριν καὶ σωτηρίαν,
40
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The Holy Spirit in the World – Emmanuel Clapsis
οὐδαμόθεν δε περιοριζόμενων ἥ κωλυομένου He has represented the Ecumenical πρός τοῦτο, ὡς προείπομεν. Patriarchate in several ecumenical consultations and as a delegate to the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Assemblies of WCC. He has served as the vice- moderator of the Faith and Order Emmanuel Clapsis is a tenured professor Commission of the World Council of of systematic theology at the Holy Cross Churches (1991-1998). Currently, he is a Greek Orthodox School of Theology in member of the Reference Group that Brookline, Massachusetts. Since 1985, informed and accompanied the work of he has taught dogmatic theology and the World Council of Churches during the courses that relate Orthodox theology to Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV: modern and postmodern sensibilities. His 2001-2010). main academic interests include ecclesiology, ecumenism, the public presence and witness of Orthodoxy in pluralistic world, globalization and religion, pneumatology, anthropology, suffering and hope, spiritual life and prophetic witness.
41
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam On Lutheran Theology and Practice – Simone Sinn
On Lutheran Theology and Practice
in Relation to Islam
Simone Sinn
Lutheran Churches Engaging with encounter between Jews, Muslims and Muslim Communities: An Christians: Educational Opportunity I acknowledge this letter in gratitude and In recent years a considerable number of recognition of the need for its further Lutheran churches, especially in Europe study and consideration. I likewise accept and North America, have produced public it in the belief that Jews, Muslims, and statements on Islam and Christian–Muslim Christians are called to one another as to relations. There is an increased a holy site, where God’s living revelation awareness of the growing presence of in the world is received in reverence Muslims in these parts of the world, as well among the faithful and not in fear of our as of the opportunities for mutual neighbors.1 encounter. The public statements explore a number of practical issues and For Lutherans, faith formation has always theological questions that arise during been more than handing down faith such encounters. Most of them provide an traditions from one generation to the next. assessment of the current situation in It involves an existential process of Christian–Muslim relations, propose basic understanding God’s grace in relation to theological guidelines and put forward one’s own times and one’s own life. practical examples or recommendations. Maturity in matters of faith and responsible These statements show that churches are citizenship are vital Lutheran concerns in in the midst of an intensified hermeneutical that process. Today, this includes actively process in which they try to understand engaging with Muslim communities, Islam as well as themselves in relation to enabling direct interfaith encounter and Islam. For many Christians Islam seems to listening to the questions that young have become, again, the significant people ask in their faith formation. “Other” that plays an important role in shaping one’s identity. Consequently, The actual encounters between Lutherans Islam and other religions are no longer and Muslims, of course, differ widely simply part of the context in which they depending on the cultural, socioeconomic live, but are seen as (counter) parts in and political contexts in which they meet. their own faith formation. Lutheran Lutherans in Denmark have another story churches have realized that learning about with Muslims than Lutherans in Indonesia, Islam and encountering Muslims have and this again differs from Lutheran - become important educational Muslim interaction in Nigeria. opportunities for their members. Multidimensional studies of such Such processes enhance the mutual contextual experiences are extremely understanding between Christian and important in order to understand the Muslim communities, and at the same time complexity of these interactions. The LWF deepen their faith. In response to the letter and other institutions have in the past A Common Word, Bishop Mark Hanson, undertaken such studies and will need to then presiding bishop of the Evangelical continue to do so in the future.2 Lutheran Church in America and president of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), This contribution focuses on some basic highlighted the spiritual significance of theological ideas in relation to Islam and 42
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam On Lutheran Theology and Practice – Simone Sinn
Christian–Muslim relations from a For Luther, the foundational relationship Lutheran perspective. This will by no within these relations is God’s relationship means be exhaustive, but simply offer a to us in God’s unconditional love. God few thoughts for further discussion. It grants justification by faith through grace needs to be mentioned that during most of alone. Being justified, however, is not a the twentieth century, Lutheran theology property that we possess, but something mainly discussed the theology of religions from outside of ourselves.6 Thus, it is not in general,3 and also made important because we belong to the group of contributions to Christian - Jewish Christians that we are justified, but relations. Only in recent times, the number because God grants his unconditional love of Lutheran scholars working more to us in Jesus Christ. It is the living specifically on Islam has been increasing.4 relationship with God that shapes who we are, not our belonging to a specific group Five themes which are relevant for of people. Lutheran relations to Islam will be highlighted in the following. First, the In the midst of all kinds of identity politics meaning and impact of relational ontology and controversial identity markers in the as presented in Martin Luther’s theology religious field, Lutheran theology offers the will be introduced. Second, the issue of possibility to rethink the foundational adequate knowledge about one another meaning of “relationality” and the living will be explored by pointing to Luther’s relationship with God. From this own efforts. Third, interfaith cooperation is perspective, essentialist views of emphasised as a joint responsibility in the Christianity and Islam must be questioned. worldly realm, with reference to Luther’s In the midst of our struggle to deepen distinction between the spiritual and the Christian self-understanding and our worldly realms. Fourth, joint theological understanding of Islam, we are called to explorations into sacred scriptures and meditate on our understanding of God and into understandings of freedom and God’s relationship to us. responsibility are proposed. Fifth, the need for multidimensional engagement with What are the issues to be discussed when Muslim neighbours as experienced by we enter into dialogue about our many Lutheran churches is affirmed and understanding of God? Traditionally, interpreted in relation to the Pauline triad Lutheran theology focused on a “faith, hope and love”. Christocentric view of God, solus Christus (Christ alone) being one of the four solas Relational ontology as a key insight in that mark Lutheran identity.7 In the Lutheran theology twentieth century, then, theological Understanding who we are in relational reflections on the Trinity have gained terms is at the heart of Lutheran theology. momentum in ecumenical dialogue and Martin Luther emphasised that our identity have had a significant impact on Lutheran as Christians cannot be explained by theology. There have been important naming specific characteristics or studies on the inner-Trinitarian properties, but by exploring the relationality, exploring oneness and constitutive relationships in which we live. otherness in Godself. In his theological writings, the preposition coram (in face of/in relation to) is of key These perspectives, in turn, have also importance.5 Luther explores how we exist provoked conversation about the Trinity in relation to God (coram Deo), in relation and the oneness of God in Lutheran - to the world (coram mundo) and to Muslim encounter. In this dialogue, ourselves (coram meipso). Our being can similarities and distinctive differences in only be grasped as being in the presence our understanding of God come to the of God, world and ourselves. fore. In listening to Muslim perspectives we deepen our own faith understanding. In his scholarly elaboration on the Trinity in 43
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam On Lutheran Theology and Practice – Simone Sinn
Christian - Muslim conversation, Mark polemical way of talking about the Turks. Swanson concludes: A number of detailed studies on this matter caution against any easy reference Islam is allowed to become a teacher of to Luther’s statements today. On which the Church. Its central category for sources did Luther base his judgements? illegitimate God-talk, shirk, is accepted as a powerful contribution to Christians’ own Luther first used the Libellus de ritu et discussions. Once brought into the moribus Turcorum (On the Rites and discussion in this way, however, the notion Customs of the Turks). As he regarded of shirk functions as a warning to adequate knowledge as essential for any Christians to keep their trinitarian nerve: judgement, he published this document the way forward in inter-faith conversation with his own preface so that others could is, in this view, not through retreating on also form their judgement.11 He used Nicea, but rather by going deeper into the Nicolas of Cusa’s, Cribratio Alkorani peculiar understanding of divine unity that (Sifting the Qur’an), and translated the Nicene theologians laid out.8 Riccoldo of Monte di Croce’s Confutatio Alcorani (Confutation of the Qur’an) into There is rich spiritual and theological German. potential in reflecting on our relationship with God together with Muslims. We Furthermore, in 1543 Luther strongly thereby deepen our relations with God and supported the reprinting of Robert of with one another. The theological insight Ketton’s Latin translation of the Qur’an in into relational ontology is mirrored in lived Basel, adding a theological preface in experiences of dialogical relations. Olaf which he set forth his critical theological Schumann emphasises that we do not position towards Islam. Looking at Luther’s need to be in fear of losing our identity in activities and statements today, Johannes dialogue. He stresses that in active Ehmann points to their ambivalence: participation in dialogue “faith becomes relational, not relative: it opens relations Apologetic polemics played a role in with the other, but relations exist only as Luther’s decision to support the publication, long as those who are related are as did freedom and the courage to promote distinguishable from each other”9. an authentic view on Islam. Of course, Luther could not possibly form a truly Seeking adequate knowledge about authentic view on Islam. He depended too Islam and Christian–Muslim relations much on sources that he was not able to Today, most of the Lutheran churches are read critically. But he demonstrated a clear in direct contact with Muslims and Islam. will to avoid using false arguments in This has not always been the case. In interreligious dispute.12 recent centuries, a considerable part of Lutheran theology was developed without Luther’s writings on the Turks and immediate contact with Muslims. especially his polemical comments en Nonetheless, in Lutheran theology there passant need a critical reading today. His has been a strong sense of the need to efforts to obtain authentic information acquire adequate knowledge about Islam. remain an important reminder for Martin Luther himself tried to get Lutherans to move beyond stereotypes information about the belief of the Turks and preconceived ideas. Being aware of that was available at his time. Admittedly, this heritage, Lutheran churches have in he based his judgement on the limited recent decades developed information and 13 written sources in Latin available at the educational material about Islam. There time, and certainly had no direct relations have also been studies on how Islam is with Muslims.10 presented in school books in European countries, as well as how Christianity is Luther’s critical theological position presented in school books in Muslim towards Islam is widely known, as is his majority countries. 44
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam On Lutheran Theology and Practice – Simone Sinn
In times when caricatures easily become versus minority. Consequently, citizenship the focus of debate about Islam and has become a common concern for Christianity,14 sound knowledge is Lutherans and Muslims, as Lissi desperately needed. This knowledge Rasmussen highlights: includes familiarity with the other’s sacred scripture, doctrines and practices, and To have a sense of belonging, dignity and also knowledge and historical value as a citizen is important for everyone. consciousness about the entangled history Therefore, we are challenged to educate of Christian–Muslim relations. one another to be citizens so as to make room for one another and one another’s Joint humanity in a shared world: freedom and rights in our common political interfaith cooperation and social communities.15 As Lutheran theologians started to reflect on the plurality of religious beliefs in the As many societies today experience the twentieth century, Luther’s explanation of marginalisation and exclusion of certain the two kingdoms or reigns was regarded groups, Christians and Muslims need to be as an important contribution for dealing active partners in civil society and constructively with religious plurality. advocate together for citizenship rights. At According to that theological model, the the same time, they need to look self- distinction between the worldly and the critically at processes of marginalisation spiritual realms gives space to live within their own communities. Critical together with people who have different issues for faith communities include worldviews. As faithful individuals, we patriarchy and discrimination based on might not agree on theological issues, but gender. Christian and Muslim women as citizens we live together, work together together have formed interfaith groups that and jointly promote the common good of discuss oppressive practices and develop 16 society. In the LWF, the term “diapraxis” transformative perspectives together. has been used to describe that joint working together; the term was introduced Lutherans are involved in interfaith by Lissi Rasmussen in 1988. For several cooperation with Muslims in manifold decades, the LWF has been working with ways: highly organised cooperation in and for Muslim communities through its humanitarian relief work, strategic World Service programmes (humanitarian advocacy work for citizenship rights, and development work) in countries such spontaneous care for people in need, as Bangladesh and Mauretania. Most of groups from the margins that challenge the local staff in these countries are traditional structures and more. The Muslims. These rich experiences of question for us Lutherans is how these working together for people in need are to intense experiences in the worldly realm be highlighted. affect our images of the spiritual realm. If Poverty, illiteracy, illness, natural disasters we are serious about the idea that these and similar challenges need our joint two realms are distinct but not separated, responses. Moreover, what is needed is we need to reflect on their relationship with not only a “re-acting” to such urgent regard to interfaith matters. issues, but together to work on a vision of Joint theological explorations: sacred the common good. During the LWF study scriptures, freedom and responsibility process on conflict and peace in Denmark, Reading, interpreting and translating Nigeria and Indonesia, the Lutheran– Scripture was a key practice in Martin Muslim study team identified the lack of Luther’s theological work. For him it was a citizenship rights as a root cause of liberative experience to grasp the meaning conflict. In all these countries, the study of God’s justice when struggling with the team heard about events where an “us” biblical text. Until today, Lutherans versus “them” mentality had been created, continue to emphasise sound biblical e.g., indigenous versus settler, majority interpretation, and to have lively debates 45
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam On Lutheran Theology and Practice – Simone Sinn about how to discern God’s will in the faithful unconditionally to serve their hermeneutically responsible ways. At the neighbours. Since then, the closely related grassroots level, some dialogue initiatives themes of “freedom based on faith” and between Lutherans and Muslims have “responsibility for the neighbour” have started to read the Bible and the Qur’an been important notions in Lutheran together. They jointly explore how God theology and anthropology. and human beings are described in these scriptures, and discover together how the Taking this legacy seriously prompts us to texts speak about their forebears in the ask concrete questions: What are the faith. Also in academic settings, the joint situations of bondage and domination that exploration of each other’s scriptures has existentially enslave people today? How been promoted.17 do we speak about the freedom that God For both, Lutherans and Muslims, God’s gives in ways that are relevant to people’s Word is a key notion in their faith actual lives? Who are the neighbours understandings. It is, however, whom we need to serve? Liberation conceptualised differently. This affects theology has radically questioned how we read sacred scriptures and traditional concepts, as has feminist construe hermeneutics. But precisely theology. There is a critical impetus in because meticulous work with the text is theological discourse on freedom and dear to both, both sides are willing and responsibility that prompts Lutherans to eager together to explore scriptural engage self-critically with their own traditions. realities of domination and bondage.
Beyond hermeneutical questions, a In conversation with Muslims, Lutherans number of different theological topoi have have discovered engaging with questions been discussed in theological of freedom and responsibility to be a conversation between Lutherans and fruitful common issue. At the recent Muslims. Grace and good works are Christian–Muslim dialogue consultation, traditional themes of interest for the Indonesian Muslim scholar Siti Lutherans. Freedom and responsibility Syamsiyatun names concerns that were was explored at a June 2009 Christian– echoed by Christian participants. She Muslim Dialogue Consultation in pointed out: Yogyakarta, Indonesia, initiated by the LWF Department for Theology and While it is true that God’s gift of freedom to Studies. In his paper for the consultation, the rational human beings is liberating Oddbjørn Leirvik highlighted the need them to have choices, it also implies jointly to discuss issues of freedom and responsibility. Human beings must use responsibility: God’s gift of reason, and engage in rational discourse and be responsible to the In modern multi-religious societies Muslims consequences of their choices. […]Who and Christians increasingly face the has taken away these fundamental challenge of reflecting together on how to principles of humans’ and especially strike a balance between the freedom women’s sanctified freedom in our society, which any individual must have to protect and how are they taken away? Women’s one’s integrity, and the limits which any freedom has been taken out by several community must draw in order to protect agents which have manifested in different the vulnerable Other.18 forms and institutions: from the institutions of family to schools, and from religious In his famous writing “The Freedom of a organizations to the state. Violations to Christian,” Martin Luther highlighted how women’s freedom have been frequently faith frees from human-made bondage, committed by the name of preserving the liberates the faithful to have a trusting local culture, women’s dignity, and religious 19 relationship with God, without fear, and purity. how at the same time this freedom calls 46
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam On Lutheran Theology and Practice – Simone Sinn
This brief look at one of the topics that Faith points to the existential dimension at Lutherans and Muslims have explored stake in interreligious relationships. For together shows that joint theological people of faith, the relationship to God exploration today is not carried out by enables and sustains life; faith is not comparing doctrines in a traditional way. simply one aspect of their lives, but the For engaging in theological conversation very basis of their being. Hope is the together with Muslims, the reflection on eschatological dimension of religious actual realities and faith practices is belief. In the midst of the human struggle, indispensable. As Martin Luther said at the hope opens up a new horizon, with God at end of one of his table talks in 1531: “Sola the center. Love stands for the committed […] experientia facit theologum”20 relational dimension between human (experience alone makes a theologian). beings. It involves developing relationships that empower others and means acting in Deepening faith, hope and love in ways that are supportive of them. relations with Muslim neighbours When people of faith work together, their As stated above, for Lutherans the notion faith shines through their actions, and their of the neighbour is of key importance. hope radiates through their commitment. Luther was convinced that whenever Mark Swanson describes the dynamic of people are liberated from anxieties such processes as follows: pertaining to their own well-being, they can freely care for that of others. For As Muslim and Christian villagers gather Christians, the Good Samaritan is the together in Egypt, in Pakistan, in Tanzania, prime example as they cross ethnic, or wherever – to think about the health, cultural and religious boundaries and give education, and economic well-being of the assistance in concrete ways. people in their community – they will in Nevertheless, much more remains to be subtle ways, as they give sacrificially of done. The challenges posed by time and energy, exercise patience, and socioeconomic, political or other overcome difficulties, bear witness to the asymmetries in interreligious relations Lord whom they serve. And as Muslims must not be underestimated; working and Christians gather in our cities to think toward just and participatory structures is about the things that make for peace and a vital. civil society and the thriving of neighbourhoods, we will reveal to one Therefore, within their specific contexts, another our deepest sources of hope and Lutheran churches need to ask courage.21 themselves: What does the church do in order to actively provide conditions In Christian - Muslim encounters, faith, conducive for Christian - Muslim relations? hope and love are intertwined. These Do congregations give time and space for three dimensions interconnect the people of different faiths to meet and relationship to God, the relationship to the constructively to discuss issues of future and the relationship to fellow human common concern? Are pastors, social beings. Bringing together these three workers and youth leaders well prepared dimensions is an alternative to a popular to accompany such processes? position according to which we have to concentrate on joint social action and to Finally, Lutheran churches benefit from avoid theology and spirituality in interfaith conversations across different contexts relations. These are regarded as and regions. In times of globalization, contested and divisive areas. Instead of people of faith experience both a new this narrow view of interfaith encounters, interconnectedness as well as a new there needs to be an integrated polarization. This is especially true for perspective, where faith, hope and love Christian - Muslim relations. Charles mutually enhance the relationship. Amjad-Ali underlines the need for taking seriously the global horizon: 47
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam On Lutheran Theology and Practice – Simone Sinn
It is obvious that we Christians need a new theological discourse for a new relationship Theological and Practical Issues, (Geneva: LWF, with Islam. This relationship must no longer 1998); and Sigvard von Sicard and Ingo Wulfhorst be based on an internal discussion within (ed.), Dialogue and Beyond: Christians and Muslims the West itself, but rather based on a Together on the Way (Geneva: LWF, 2003). 5 relationship between our idea of what it See “Die coram-Relation als ontologischer means to be a Christian with its exclusive Schlüssel zur Anthropologie” in Gerhard Ebeling, claims and a phenomenological existence Dogmatik des christlichen Glaubens, vol. 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 31987), pp. 346-355. which has a fundamental plurality of values 6 which find their location in multiple religious In his enarratio of Psalm 51 Luther says: “Ergo systems.22 Christianus non est formaliter iustus, non est iustus secundum substantium aut qualitatem[…], sed est The ecumenical movement has been an iustus secundum praedicamentum ad aliquid” WA important forum where Christians share 40 II, 354,36ff: This “something else” is God’s grace with one another how they live out the that we receive in Christ. 7 Christian faith in different contexts. In this J. Paul Rajashekar has pointed to the challenge process, the conversation about “context” that this poses: “The traditional Lutheran solas has become much more specific and is have made Christian engagement with others spelled out by naming important relations problematic because of their claim to exclusivism that form Christians and churches in their and exclusion.” J. Paul Rajashekar, “Rethinking respective places. For centuries, “How do Lutheran Engagement with Religious Plurality”, in Transformative Theological we understand ourselves in relation to Karen Bloomquist (ed.), Perspectives, Theology in the Life of the Church Muslims?” has been a vital question for series vol. 6 (Geneva/ Minneapolis: LWF/ LUP, churches in the Middle East, in Southeast 2009), p. 116. He highlights the potential for Asia and in some parts of Africa. For constructively relating with others in the Lutheran others, such as the churches in Europe dialectic of the simul, e.g., the view of the Christian and the Americas, it has only recently as simul iustus et peccator (simultaneously justified become a key concern. These and sinner), and the dialectic of law and gospel. churches need one another to be able 8 Mark N. Swanson, “The Trinity in Christian- to deepen their understanding of Muslim Conversation”, in: Dialog vol. 44, no. 3 (Fall Christian - Muslim relations today. 2005), p. 261. 9 Olaf Schumann, “Some Reflections on the 1 LWF press release on 15 October 2007: “LWF Meaning and Aims of Interfaith Dialogue”, in: President Hanson Responds to Letter from Muslim Sigvard von Sicard and Ingo Wulfhorst, (ed.), Leaders”, Dialogue and Beyond: Christians and Muslims http://www.lutheranworld.org/News/LWI/EN/210 Together on the Way (Geneva: LWF, 2003), p. 16. 4.EN.html 10 See Johannes Ehmann, “Martin Luther and 2 See the findings of a LWF study process Islam”, in: Simone Sinn (ed.), Deepening Faith, documented in: Lissi Rasmussen (ed.), Bridges Hope and Love in Relations with Neighbors of Other Instead of Walls: Christian-Muslim Interaction in Faiths, Theology in the Life of the Church series vol. Denmark, Indonesia and Nigeria 2 (Geneva: LWF, 2008), pp. 19-30. (Geneva/Minneapolis: LWF/LUP, 2007). 11 For an English translation, see Sarah Henrich and 3 For an overview see e.g. Willem A. Bijlefeld, James L. Boyce, “Martin Luther – Translations of “Theology of Religions: A Review of Developments, Two Prefaces on Islam: Preface to the Libellus de Trends and Issues”, in: Roland E. Miller and Hance ritu et moribus Turcorum (1530), and Preface to A.O. Mwakabana (ed.), Christian-Muslim Dialogue: Bibliander’s Edition of the Qur’an (1543),” in Word Theological and Practical Issues (Geneva: LWF, and World, vol. XVI, no. 2 (Spring 1996), pp. 258- 1998), pp. 45-100. 62, at 4 For results from international working groups www.luthersem.edu/word&world/Archives/16- under the auspices of the LWF, see: J. Paul 2_Islam/16-2_Boyce-Henrich.pdf . Rajashekar and H.S. Wilson (ed.), Islam in Asia: 12 Johannes Ehmann, “Martin Luther and Islam”, in Perspectives for Christian-Muslim Encounter Sinn (ed.), Deepening Faith, Hope and Love, p. 27. (Geneva: LWF, 1992); Roland E. Miller and Hance 13 In 1990, the United Evangelical Lutheran Church A.O. Mwakabana (ed.), Christian-Muslim Dialogue: of Germany published the first edition of a book 48
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam On Lutheran Theology and Practice – Simone Sinn
called ”What everybody needs to know about Rev. Simone Sinn is researcher within the Islam,”, which became a standard reference book Cluster of Excellence on “Religion and in educational settings as introduction to Islam: Politics in Pre-Modern and Modern Amt der VELKD and Amt der EKD (ed.), Was jeder Societies” at the University of Muenster, vom Islam wissen muss (Gütersloh: Güterloher Germany, since 2009, and currently Verlagshaus, 72007). 14 finishing her doctoral thesis. In this thesis, For an analysis of the Danish cartoon crisis, see: she explores Muslim and Christian Mogens Mogensen, “The Danish Cartoon Crisis”, in discourses on religious pluralism in post- Lissi Rasmussen (ed.), Bridges Instead of Walls, pp. Suharto Indonesia, analyzing recent legal 27-46. 15 and theological debates. From 2006 to Lissi Rasmussen, “Engineering Bridges”, in 2009 she served as theological associate Bridges Instead of Walls, Rasmussen (ed.): pp. in the Department for Theology and 202f. 16 Studies of the Lutheran World Federation See Anne Hege Grung, “Christian-Muslim in Geneva, Switzerland. She holds a Dialogue: A Gendered Arena: A Norwegian Experience”, in Sinn (ed.), Deepening Faith, Hope theological degree from the University of and Love, pp. 97-101; and Helene Egnell, “The Tuebingen, Germany, and an M.Phil. Discourse at the Margins: A Feminist Approach to (Ecumenics) degree from the Irish School Religious Plurality”, in: Sinn (ed.), Deepening Faith, of Ecumenics in Dublin, Ireland. Hope and Love, pp. 103-108. 17 For example, the Annual Sacred Texts Conference, which takes place in the Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago (USA): http://centers.lstc.edu/ccme/. 18 Oddbjørn Leirvik, “Law, Freedom and Responsibility in Christianity and Islam”, p. 15, paper prepared for the Christian-Muslim Dialogue Consultation on “Freedom and Responsibility: Joint Theological Explorations by Christians and Muslims”, 15-20 June 2009, organized by the LWF Department for Theology and Studies, the International Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS) and the Center for Religious and Cross- Cultural Studies (CRCS) at the University Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta (Indonesia). 19 Siti Syamsiyatun, “Women’s Freedom and Responsibility in Islam: A Brief Review on Texts and Contexts in Indonesia”, p. 6, paper given at the dialogue consultation on “Freedom and Responsibility: Joint Theological Explorations by Christians and Muslims”, in Yogyakarta, 15-20 June 2009. 20 WA T 1, 16, 13. 21 Mark N. Swanson, “‘Thinking through’ Islam”, in: Word and World, vol. 22, no. 3 (Summer 2002), p. 274. 22 Charles Amjad-Ali, “Some Critical Issues for Muslim-Christian Relations and Challenges for Christian Vocation and Witness”, in: The Muslim World, vol. 99, no. 4 (2009), p. 567.
49
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Some Aspects of Christian Theologizing – Daniel Madigan
Some Aspects of Christian Theologizing
in Relation to Islam
Daniel A. Madigan, S.J.
In my remarks I will be concentrating on engagement with humanity from the the theological aspects of Christian self- creation of Adam and Eve, through Noah, understanding and Muslim-Christian Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, David, encounter in pluralist – principally western Solomon, right up to Jesus and beyond – – situations. Much of this will have broader a history we both, along with the Jews, application, but it is important, I think, to see as our own. note the particularities of situations rather than to propose a one-size-fits-all This is the question of whether and to approach. I acknowledge that a what extent it is correct to approach Islam theological dialogue, even if it were to as another religion. Islam did not, indeed yield some increased measure of does not, present itself as a new religion, understanding of our differences, will not but rather as the re-establishment of the resolve the issues that lead to tension and original religion that has existed from the conflict between Muslims and Christians. beginning, and of which Judaism and Nonetheless, to speak of Christian self- Christianity are examples – even if Islam understanding without including theology holds that they have needed to be purified seems to me impossible. This is of certain extraneous elements. Islam particularly important in a western could be seen as a reform movement situation, where there is a tendency, or within the Judeo-Christian world of its perhaps a temptation, to think of Muslims time, a movement that proposes a principally in terms of social and political substantial re-reading of the Abrahamic, categories without recognizing their Mosaic, Christian tradition that had religious commitments. developed in biblical and post-biblical literature and practice. For believing Another religion? Muslims, it is not simply a human reform In the Middle East (though not always in movement, but God’s reform – first as a other Muslim-majority environments; restoration of what Arab religion had Pakistan, for example) Christians have a disfigured of Abrahamic cult, and second strong awareness of Islam as being not an as a warning to Christians and Jews that exotic “other religion” but as being a post- their grasp of, and adherence to, the Christian and quite novel reading of the revelation God had given them was Judeo-Christian tradition. The dialogue is seriously lacking. therefore qualitatively different from what it tends to be in more pluralist situations, Precisely because of this, the faith of especially in the west. Muslims has a very particular claim on the theological attention of both Christians and It is important to understand that our Jews. Most Jews have come to accept theological dialogue with Muslims is not gracefully the idea that Christianity, with its simply the polite study of the exotic beliefs radically alternative reading of the biblical and customs, some of them strangely tradition and the figure of Jesus of familiar, of a foreign people – as it might Nazareth, is not going to fade away. So be, for example, with Hindus, Buddhists or too we Christians may have to Jains. Rather that dialogue is a sometimes accommodate ourselves to the idea not quite lively disagreement about how to only that Islam as a religion is not going to “read” and understand the history of God’s fade away, but that it will remain a lively
50
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Some Aspects of Christian Theologizing – Daniel Madigan challenger of our reading of the Jesus prologue, in the flesh – in “body language” event and will call us to an ever clearer as it were. 1 expression of our faith. The words of scripture, then, are not simply the words of God, but words written Categories of discourse by the believing community inspired by the In the pluralist situation of many western Spirit in order to put us in touch with the countries it is quite common to make the capital-w Word that they had experienced various religions fit into a kind of standard in the flesh. As John puts it at the schema with pre-determined categories: beginning of his first letter, what he is founder, scripture, leadership, symbols, writing is “about the Word of life,” and that feasts, dress, laws and practices, food and Word was able not just to be heard but fasting, ceremonies, ideals etc. In terms of touched and seen (1 John 1:1). For Islam and Christianity, this leads to a Christians, Scripture is not simply category mistake which parallels Qur’an revelation itself as it is for a Muslim. It is in and Gospel, Jesus and Muhammad. It is the first place the witness to revelation, important to understand the correct and then is revelation in a derivative parallels in order to recognize the sense. specificity of each tradition. I propose the notion of the Word (not in the first place Although Muslims may see Jesus and the scripture) as the common term around Gospel as being parallel to Muhammad which we can build an understanding of and the Qur’an, Christians do not see our specificities. things this way. We need to avoid being drawn into a discourse of prophets and It is essential in order to understand the sacred books which ultimately leads us relationship of the Abrahamic traditions into a theological dead-end. What Jesus is that we get our categories right. The most for the Christian, the Qur’an (not important common belief our traditions Muhammad) is for Muslims. What share is that the Word of God has been Muhammad is for Muslims (the human spoken in our world – the eternal divine channel through which the Word of God word that is of the very essence of God. entered the world), Mary could be said to One might say that the thing that be for Christians.2 Of course, that Mary distinguishes our three traditions from role does not exhaust the reality of who each other is where we believe we can Muhammad is for Muslims. He is also a hear most definitively that Word of God. Moses figure, as the leader of the This has often led to a competition over community and its lawgiver. He is like the relative value of each other’s prophets Constantine in having united religious and and scriptures, but this is a category political authority in his own person. mistake and leads to a theological dead end. Getting these categories wrong leads many into proposing a kind of trade-off: “I For a Jew, the Word of God has been would be prepared to lower my claims spoken in a privileged way at Sinai, and about Jesus to something nearer your thus in the Torah, understood not only as claims for Muhammad, if you would just the Five Books of Moses, but as the whole lower your claims about the Qur’an and edifice of rabbinic reflection and study treat it the way we treat the Gospels.” This right up until our own day. For a Muslim, trade-off might be thought of as a God has spoken his word in Arabic in the “lowered” Christology3 in exchange for a Qur’an – and indeed in other languages in “lowered” Qur’an-ology, or what we could earlier scriptures. For Christians, on the call a Jesus-Seminar approach to Christ in other hand, God’s word is spoken not return for a trenchantly historical-critical primarily in words but, as John says in his approach to the Qur’an. This is what Hans Küng sometimes seems to be hoping for,
51
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Some Aspects of Christian Theologizing – Daniel Madigan
or even demanding, when he deals with same time to find more fruitful ways of Muslims – something to restore some expressing them for a Muslim audience. balance to the schema of prophets and Given what I have already pointed out scriptures outlined above.4 about the parallel between Jesus and the Qur'an - it seems to me that a robustly Muslims as theological interlocutors Johannine, high-descending, Logos- Western and Asian theologies, for all the Christology is, perhaps contrary to pluralism of their contexts, have not, by expectation, a more promising point of and large, taken Islam as a significant departure for a theology responsive to interlocutor in the way Eastern churches Islam, than are the low-ascending have, though even there not a great deal Christologies often adopted as being most of progress has been made since the first appropriate to interfaith engagement. couple of centuries of Arabic theological writing. In the west, although there has Low-ascending Christologies have the been recent growth in comparative tendency to confirm Muslims in their belief theology and theology of religions, our that what Christians are up to is the discourse is still substantially carried on elevation of a merely human messenger to with an eye to those who do not believe, the divine plane where he has no place. rather than those who believe differently. Interestingly, the Islamic theological Thus there is a need to recognize the tradition in its reflection on the Qur’an as increasing presence of Muslims in our the Word of God had to grapple with a theological (and catechetical) contexts and number of issues that quite parallel those to take seriously the long-standing Islamic that emerged in the Christological critique of Christianity. I say this not in controversies of the early centuries of our order to suggest that we should let go of own tradition. These became issues the key elements of the Christian kerygma precisely because the Muslim community in order to develop a lowest-common- professed that what might seem to others denominator theology that any monotheist a merely human text was actually a divine believer at all could subscribe to. No, revelation, which, to use a Qur’anic as well rather it is to recognize that we have yet to as Johannine turn of phrase, had come find a way to express these central down from heaven, sent by God. elements in a way that is convincing or Questions about the relationship of God’s even understandable to a fifth of the Word to God’s self, about the relationship world’s population. between the obviously human and historically conditioned elements of the My own experience of teaching Christian text and its divinity, about the eternity or theology to Muslims over the last decade, otherwise of this word – all these for the most part in the west, has exercised the theologians of both our convinced me that taking seriously their traditions. High-descending Logos questions and perplexities leads us, by Christologies are not in vogue at the God’s grace, deeper into the particularity moment, and it may be that the encounter of our faith. It has convinced me, with Muslim faith and the need to “give an furthermore, that it is possible to make account of the hope that is in us” may help some progress in finding new expressions us recover some more recently discounted of our faith which are accessible to aspects of our core tradition. Muslims but nonetheless faithful to Christian tradition. All of this involves Muslims coming to recognize that some of their own The two big issues theological positions appear settled not It is essential for Christian self- because they reached a point of understanding to recover the centrality of equilibrium but only because the the Incarnation and Trinity, but at the exploration of them was cut short due to a
52
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Some Aspects of Christian Theologizing – Daniel Madigan
growing sense of the futility of speculative Much has been written in recent decades theology and its methods. If we can share – though perhaps not yet enough – about with Muslims our own theological the difficulties raised by the term “person” perplexities – those that led us to the in our trinitarian proclamations, and this authoritative definitions, and those that still deserves much more study.6 Since in the keep us exploring those definitions west we have been engaged in a largely centuries later – they sometimes come to internal theological conversation for so see that we are “in the same boat” many centuries in this area, we have not theologically. That is, we are both in a benefited from a careful listening to the position of having to account for the series Muslim critique of, or even simply their of questions and apparent contradictions puzzlement at, our trinitarian language. I that arise from the shared basic have found in teaching mixed groups, that affirmation that the eternal and the questions the Muslim students are transcendent God has spoken a word – prepared to voice also perplex the God’s own Word – in and to our world. Christian students, though they are They come to realize that for both of us, hesitant to express them. It seems to me Christians and Muslims, the appropriate therefore that the effort required to response to the Word we perceive has develop a theology responsive to Muslims been given us by God is not a sceptical will have also in this area a benefit for the analysis but the obedience of faith. Christian community itself.
A satisfactory Logos Christology gives us Generic religion a first opening into a more accessible In the western pluralist context that finds theology of the Trinity because Muslim itself having to systematize a range of theology has already settled on an traditions, religions tend to be reduced to expression about God’s Word (kalâm in varying schemes of rituals and actions to Arabic) to the effect that it is an essential be carried out, and of prohibitions to be attribute of God, which although it is not observed in order to keep oneself on the simply identical with God, is nothing other right side of God. Therefore, traditions than divine. In the classic Arabic tend to be compared on the basis of their formulation, la `aynuhu wa-la ghayruh. ethical standards and ritual observances. That is a paradox which to my mind is In this case the specificity of Christianity almost identical to the one John leaves us tends to get lost altogether. The God who with in the very first verse of his Gospel.5 takes the initiative in justifying us, that is in However, our approach to trinitarian putting us in right relationship with him, the questions will begin from the experience of God who bears the full force of our refusal the economy of the Trinity rather than from and who pays the price of making himself speculation about the internal life of the vulnerable – even physically vulnerable – immanent Trinity. to our rejection, is lost behind the mask of that object of cult and enforcer of ethics Muslim belief in the ongoing and that is the generic god of generic religion. immediate divine creativity in the world The God who so loves us as to enter into provides a basis for reflecting with them the depths of our humanity and suffer the on our belief in the Spirit. For both our injustices and indignities to which all flesh traditions God is absolutely transcendent is subject, the God who can bid us peace and therefore distinct from creation, and and raise in blessing a hand that still bears yet at the same time God recreating and the wounds we helped inflict by our sustaining the world at every moment, betrayals, denials and abandonment: this since the world is incapable of God risks being lost in the shuffle of guaranteeing and maintaining its own generic religion, where the “name above existence. all other names” becomes simply a brand name, a trade mark – a catchy label for a
53
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Some Aspects of Christian Theologizing – Daniel Madigan
product otherwise indistinguishable from the dozens of its competitors. Christologies has been overdrawn and is ultimately unhelpful. I use this shorthand here Christian self-understanding can be without intending to affirm that simplistic schema. immeasurably enriched in the encounter 4 See, for example, Hans Küng, Christianity and the with this tradition that bears in its very World Religions (London: Fount, 1987) 33-36, 122- foundation a critique of our faith. Yet we 130. would be wrong to set up the contrast 5 See “People of the Word,” 81–95; and also between us too sharply. Just as Christians “Gottes Botschaft an die Welt: Christen und are able to lose sight of the uniqueness of Muslime, Jesus und der Koran,” Communio 32.1 the Gospel, others are able to catch sight (2003): 100-12. A slightly enlarged English version of it. One can find a tendency in parts of appears as “God’s Word to the World: Jesus and the Christian tradition at times to reduce the Qur’ān, Incarnation and Recitation,” in Terence the message of the Gospel from a joyful Merrigan and Frederik Glorieux (eds.), Godhead proclamation of what God has done for Here in Hiding: Incarnation and the History of Human Suffering (Leuven: Peeters, 2009). love of us to a systematic treatment of 6 what we must do in order to be loved by See, for example, Karl Rahner, “The Oneness and God. At the same time, one can see Threefoldness of God in Discussion with Islam”, in emerging sometimes in the Islamic Theological Investigations, Volume XVIII: God and tradition a more complex understanding of Revelation (New York, NY: Crossroads, 1978): 105- human alienation from God and a richer 121, particularly 110-114. Also Nicholas Lash, Believing Three Ways in One God: A Reading of the appreciation of the tireless and self- Apostle's Creed (Notre Dame, IN: University of emptying love God bears us.7 Notre Dame Press, 1993), 30-33. 7 I deal with this issue at greater length in “Yahya The Word and the Spirit are at their saving bin Zakariya, Giovanni Battista e il Culmine della work everywhere and we are called to Profezia,” in Giuseppe Palummieri (ed.), Un bear witness to them wherever they are profeta e tre religioni: Giovanni Battista nei active. Experience teaches us that there Monoteismi (Trapani: Il Pozzo di Giacobbe, 2010). are indeed Muslims who, not in spite of their Islam but because of it, are oriented with us to the reign of God, who, though not explicitly, are de facto configured to Daniel Madigan is an Australian Jesuit Christ, whether in their patient suffering of priest who is the Ruesch Family Associate injustice, in their loving and forgiving, in Professor of Islamic Studies in the their gracious generosity, in their humble Department of Theology at Georgetown service or in their obedience to God. University, where he directs a doctoral program focussing on issues in religious pluralism. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Woodstock Theological Center, also at Georgetown, under whose auspices he 1 I have dealt with this in more detail in “People of directs a project entitled “Christian the Word: Reading John’s Prologue with a theologies responsive to Islam.” In 2013 Muslim,” Review and Expositor 104.1 (Winter Dan is succeeding Archbishop Rowan 2007): 81–95. 2 See Daniel A. Madigan, “Mary and Muhammad: Williams as chair of the international Bearers of the Word,” Australasian Catholic Christian-Muslim Building Bridges Record 80 (2003) 417-427. For a Muslim view of Seminars. this idea, see Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Ideals and Realities of Islam (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1966; second edition Unwin Paperbacks, 1979) 43. 3 I am certainly not alone in thinking that a distinction between so-called high and low
54
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam A relational theology – Oddbjørn Leirvik
A Relational Theology in Dialogue with Islam
Oddbjørn Leirvik
Traditional Plurality and Modern ecumenical conversation and Pluralism interreligious dialogue may sometimes Let me start with a brief note on the notion become blurred. of pluralism. When reflecting theologically on the encounter between Christians and Relational Theology: An Aspect of Muslims in modern pluralistic societies, we Trinitarian Thought should keep in mind that there is a As we move on to theological reflections, difference between traditional plurality and we all realize that the issue of Trinity is still modern pluralism. Traditional plurality a bone of contention between Christians refers to a situation in which different and Muslims. I will nevertheless frame my cultures and faiths coexist as entities that thoughts within a Trinitarian scheme. can be neatly separated, in a relatively Implicitly, however, I will raise the question stable constellation in which the borders of whether some aspects of Trinitarian between the communities can only be theology may be reformulated as a crossed at great personal cost. relational theology in dialogue with Islam. In situations of modern pluralism, everything is more fluid. Individuals may Is religious plurality willed by the identify with more than one culture and creator? may develop plural identities. In the As regards the first article of faith, in the course of their lives, some individuals may Creator, Muslims are still waiting for a also change their religious affiliation. Christian response to what they perceive Modern pluralism implies also that every as the Qur’an’s acceptance of religious faith has to recognize a plurality of views plurality as something willed by God. We within one’s own tradition, as a given fact. all know the verses of the fifth Sura which For instance in ethical discussions, read as follows: disagreements might be just as difficult to tackle within the Christian family as Let the people of the Gospel judge by between Christians and Muslims. In some what Allah hath revealed therein … To critical issues (gender relations is a point each among you have we prescribed a in case), liberal Christians may join hands law shir‘a and an open way minhaj. If with liberal Muslims, just as conservative Allah had so willed, He would have made Christians may sometimes try to strike you a single people umma, but His plan is alliances with conservative Muslims to test you in what He hath given you: so (typically around traditional family values, strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal as one has seen it in connection with of you all is to Allah; it is He that will show some UN conferences).1 you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute.2 With regard to overarching theological reasoning, “Christianity” (as an In this passage, the historical fact of ecumenical whole) is certainly distinctively religious plurality is seen as a divinely different from “Islam”. But in the case of willed test for humanity, in which each ethical disagreement (sometimes also in people (or community) is seeking to theological matters), the fault lines do not implement the will of God in accordance always coincide with the boundaries with the path to which they have been between the two religions. When we guided. We know, however, that there are recognize this, the distinction between other passages in the Qur’an that point in a different direction, as when Christians
55
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam A relational theology – Oddbjørn Leirvik
and Jews are chastised as kafirun engage each other in an open because they are perceived as having conversation about how to understand the “covered up” some central aspects of signs of God. God’s will. But the question remains of how we as Christians respond to the For Askari, the discovery of the Other is 7 fundamental qur’anic acceptance of both a soothing and a painful experience. religious plurality as a divine test and a Thus when Askari speaks of divine potential blessing.3 This has also to do revelation as essentially dialogical, this with how we see the other’s scriptures. has nothing to do with harmonizing away When the signatories of A Common Word religious differences. What does Askari quote the Qur’an and the Bible side by mean by a dialogical to divine revelation, side, they implicitly dissociate themselves then? According to Askari, reading the from cruder version of the tahrif dogma,4 revealed signs of God in a dialogical way treating instead central aspects of the is different both from objectifying the Word Bible as reliable revelation. How do we as of God in a book (the potential Muslim Christians respond to that, with regard to fallacy) and from identifying it with a the Qur’an? In the Archbishop of particular Person (the corresponding Canterbury’s response to A Common Christian one). Convinced that Christianity Word,5 which is very rich in biblical and Islam constitute ‘a dialogical whole’, references, he quotes also verses from Askari speaks of Christ as a common sign the Qur’an. Implicitly, he seems at least to of God for Christians and Muslims. treat parts of the holy book of Islam as a Recognizing that Jesus is regarded as a divine source of spiritual guidance. divine sign in both religions, but interpreted in painfully different ways, Are we ready to pursue this course? Askari suggests that it belongs to the very When we engage in scriptural reasoning nature of a divine sign that it is interpreted together with Muslims, meditating together in different ways. He writes: on texts from the Bible, the Qur’an and Hadith (as it was done in a conference on A common religious sign must be A Common Word in Cambridge in October differently apprehended. It is the very 2008), a double experience can be made: ambiguity, richness, of the religious sign a sense of joint blessing, but also a that gives rise to different and even recognition that differences in scriptural opposed interpretations and interpretation do not necessarily coincide understandings [in this case, of Christ]. with the boundaries between our religions. This is Askari’s way of reasoning about For me, this double experience of joint religious plurality before God: the Creator blessing and sometimes confusing has left signs for us that can be difference resonates with an article that interpreted differently. Can we follow was written as early as in 1972 by Hasan Askari in this line of reasoning? Or do we Askari (an Indian-British Muslim of Shi‘ite feel that such an open approach to divine background), entitled “The dialogical signs compromises our faith in Christ? relationship between Christianity and Islam.”6 The double context of Askari’s Humanization of theological ethics: a writings is his background from multi- christological concern? religious India and his commitment to In the second part of my reflection, I will Muslim-Christian dialogue on the not address the classical Christological international scene. In his reflection on controversies between Christians and dialogical relationship between Christianity Muslims. Instead, I would like to bring up and Islam, Askari warns against the the issue of the humanization of theology, monological tendency in both religions, or more precisely, of theological ethics. In suggesting that “the monological trap” can my view, the humanization of theological only be escaped if Christians and Muslims ethics could (or should) be seen as an
56
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam A relational theology – Oddbjørn Leirvik aspect of Christology (or of incarnation penalty and hudud punishments (such as theology). Already in the Jewish Bible, the corporal punishment for theft and for human other can be seen as an epiphany illegitimate sexual relationships) in the of God.8 Further enlightened by the Christ Muslim world.9 The intention behind the experience, New Testament authors insist call, Ramadan explains, was to address: that love of God can never be isolated from love of the human other. In some … the conscience of each individual, to passages, the vulnerable other is actually mobilise ordinary Muslims to call on their placed between the Self and God – as a governments to place and immediate bridge or a potential barrier (cf. 1 John 4: moratorium on the application of these 20: “For anyone who does not love his punishments, and to call for Muslim brother, whom he has seen, cannot love scholars for the opening of a vast intra- 10 God, whom he has not seen.”) The community debate on the matter. judgement scene in Matthew 25, where community with Christ and solidarity with When reading his call, it struck me that the the vulnerable other is seen as guiding principle behind his moratorium inseparable, is another and even more was clearly a theologically motivated striking example. Can Muslims see the concern for the vulnerable human being. relation between the Self, the Other and Ramadan realizes that in an imperfect God in such intimate ways – to the extent world with asymmetrical power relations, that the human Other is placed between severe punishments will regularly hit the Self and God? Interestingly, in Sahih women more than men and the poorer Muslim’s “Book of Piety” there is a Hadith and weaker members of society more Qudsi about the merit of visiting the sick frequently than the wealthy and powerful which comes very close to the judgement ones. If we recognize this sombre reality, scene in Matthew. According to this says Ramadan, “it is impossible for us as hadith, God will say on the Day of Muslims to remain silent as irreversible Resurrection: “O son of Adam, I was sick injustice is done to the poorest and weakest members of society in the name but you did not visit me.” When the 11 accused exclaims: “O my Lord; how could of our religion”. I visit thee whereas thou art the Lord of Muslim reactions to the proposed the worlds?”, God will say: “Didn’t you moratorium proved its controversial know that such and such servant of mine character, whereas some Western was sick but you did not visit him and reactions implied that Ramadan should were you not aware of this that if you had rather have called for a full abolition of visited him, you would have found me by hudud punishments and not merely a him?” In spite of the close association of “moratorium”. The way Ramadan argues God with the vulnerable other in this his proposed moratorium, however, gives hadith, we know that Muslims are the impression that his call is really meant reluctant to associate God himself with for an indefinite period of time, probably vulnerability and suffering. However, when for ever. For in Ramadan’s perspective, A Common Word links love of God and how can such punishments ever be love of the other as intimately as it does, I justified, as long as human injustice take this as a possible point of departure exists? Ethical concern for the vulnerable for a dialogue on the humanization of human being is clearly the implied theology. premise for Ramadan’s moratorium. I The important question is of course what therefore take his call as a recent example concrete consequences a humanization of of humanizing theological reasoning in theological ethics might have. Let me give Islam. In Ramadan’s case, his application but one example from the Muslim side. In of the humane criterion in theological March 2005, Tariq Ramadan called for an reasoning leads him to sidestep important immediate moratorium on the death
57
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam A relational theology – Oddbjørn Leirvik
aspects of classical Shari‘a – for the sake Norway are pressing a liberal agenda in of humanity. some of these issues. I would rather say that the issues in question arise from the From Christian-Muslim dialogue in context, and from a shared public culture Norway, several examples might be cited in Scandinavia. Imbued with egalitarian of how concern for the vulnerable other and feminist thought, public discourses in has gradually become a shared religious the Norwegian context constantly commitment. Consider the following list of challenge Christians and Muslims alike to examples from the last three years of the reconsider their traditional positions – and Contact Group between the Church of humanize their theologies. As indicated by Norway and the Islamic Council: the following statement from the leader of the Muslim Students’ Association, Bushra • Christians and Muslims have Ishaq (when commenting on increased engaged each other in a joint concern subscription to values of gender equality), for religious minorities, be it in processes of change cannot be grasped Norway or in Pakistan (from where unless in a contextual perspective: the largest group of Norwegian Muslims come); Were it not for the fundamental influence • In 2007, a “Joint declaration on the of Norwegian culture and the values of freedom of religion and the right to the welfare state, the emerging Muslim conversion” was issued, confirming feminism would not be a matter of fact.14 the inviolable right of the individual to change his or her religion without In humanizing theological ethics, then, being met with any kind of Christians and Muslims are not merely in sanctions;12 dialogue with each other but with society • After long conversations about the at large as well. question of family violence and other critical aspects of gender relations, a Relational pneumatology “Joint Statement on Violence in the I now briefly touch upon relational Family and in Close Relationships“ pneumatology. What I have in mind is was published in 2009.13 Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue which includes a relational way of • In 2006, a dialogue about the highly understanding the work of the Holy Spirit. controversial question of Buber’s main ethical point is to avoid homosexuality was also opened. reducing one another to an object, an “It”. On most of these issues we have been If instead, in a truly dialogical relation, we able to reach a common stand, but not in treat each other as I and Thou, the space the last case. However, when discovering between us will be filled by Spirit. In I and deep-going divergences (as in our Thou he speaks of the realm of between different approaches to homosexuality), as the place of the Holy Spirit: we realise that ecumenical disagreement Spirit is not in the I, but between I and on the same issues might be equally hard Thou. It is not like the blood that circulates to tackle as Christian-Muslim differences. in you, but like the air in which you As for the issues mentioned above (from breathe. Man lives in the spirit, if he is minority issues to homosexuality), the able to respond to his Thou. He is able to, Church of Norway has increasingly come if he enters into relation with his whole to see them as interrelated, since they all being. Only in virtue of his power to enter touch upon the integrity of vulnerable into relation is he able to live in the spirit.15 groups and individuals. Thus in the Church’s perspective, addressing them In a later essay on “What is man?” Buber becomes also a necessity from faith in elaborates his relational philosophy and Christ. From the cited examples, one peaks of the “sphere” or the “realm” of might perhaps think that the churches in
58
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam A relational theology – Oddbjørn Leirvik
between as that which constitutes human communication. The realm of between is 6 In Journal of Ecumenical Studies 1972, pp. 477- also the sphere in which true dialogue 487. takes place, as a third dimension beyond 7 “The discovery of the other, of our own being, is the individual and social aspects of both soothing and painful, more the latter. The existence: other is pain, a sting, a bite, but a pain in our very being, of it.” (ibid.: 486) In the most powerful moments of dialogic, 8 Cf. Genesis 33: 10 and Emmanuel Levinas’ where in truth ‘deep calls unto deep’, it reflections on the face of the Other as an epiphany becomes unmistakably clear that it is not of God, in his book Of God who comes to mind. the wand of the individual or of the social, 9 “An International call for Moratorium on corporal but of a third which draws the circle round punishment, stoning and the death penalty in the the happening. On the far side of the Islamic World” subjective, on this side of the objective, (http://www.tariqramadan.com/article.php3?id_a rticle=264&lang=en), 5 April 2005. on the narrow ridge, where I and Thou 10 meet, there is the realm of ‘between’. 16 Ibid., p. 165. 11 Tariq Ramadan: “A call for a moratorium on In Buber’s vision of dialogue, something corporeal punishment – The debate in review”, in sacred takes place in any open-ended Kari Vogt, Lena Larsen and Christian Moe (eds.): encounter. He even characterizes the New Directions in Islamic Thought. Exploring word of dialogue as a sacrament: Reform and Muslim Tradition. London: I.B. Tauris 2009, pp. 163-174. “…where unreserve has ruled, even 12 wordlessly, between men, the word of See dialogue has happened sacramentally.”17 http://www.kirken.no/english/news.cfm?artid=14 9142, 22 August 1997. 13 Buber’s horizon of dialogue was mainly a See Jewish-Christian one. Does this kind of http://kirken.no/english/news.cfm?artid=265872, 09 November 2009. relational theology, or pneumatology, 14 make sense in Christian-Muslim dialogue? Bushra Ishaq: “Muslimer i endring” (”Muslims in I believe it does, because this way of the process of change”), Aftenposten 5. September 2009 (in my translation). reasoning protects the sanctity of every 15 true encounter, whether it is experienced Martin Buber: I and Thou (Edinburgh: T&T Clark as a blessing or as a difficult test. It 1987), p. 57f. 16 Martin Buber: Between Man and Man (London reveals both modes of interreligious and New York: Routledge 2004), p. 242f. encounter as a potential dwelling place of 17 Martin Buber: Between Man and Man, p. 5. the Holy Spirit.
1 In her book Born Again. The Christian Right Oddbjørn Leirvik is professor of Globalized (London, Ann Arbor MI: Pluto Press), Interreligious Studies at the University of Jennifer S. Butler describes and analyzes several Oslo. His books include Human attempted alliance of this kind. Conscience and Muslim - Christian 2 Sura 5: 47f. (in Yusuf Ali’s translation). Relations (Routledge 2006/2010) and 3 Cf. Sura 49: 13 (in Yusuf Ali’s translation): “O Images of Jesus Christ in Islam mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a (Concilium 2010). Leirvik has been a male and a female, and made you into nations and participant in Christian - Muslim dialogues tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye at local, national and international levels may despise (each other).” since the end of the 1980s. He is a 4 Implying that Jews and Christian have altered minister in the Lutheran Church of Norway their scriptures. 5 and co-founder of the national Contact “A Common Word for the Common Good” Group between the Church of Norway and (http://www.acommonword.com/lib/downloads/ the Islamic Council Norway. Common-Good-Canterbury-FINAL-as-sent-14-7-08- 1.pdf), 14 July 2008. 59
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam An Arab Christian Perspective – Georges Massouh
A Theology of Christian-Muslim Relations:
An Arab Christian Perspective
Georges Massouh
It has become very clear to Arab Christian thinkers towards Muslims has greatly theologians that they should acknowledge influenced the content and form of their that Islamic belief in God is a monotheistic theology. In other words, it can be said belief, since it stands in the tradition of that such good relations between Abraham, as do Judaism and Christianity. Christians and Muslims has led Arab Muslims worship the one and only God, theology into making some quite unusual the God who is worshipped by Christians theological statements. and Jews. This can be seen in the case of Patriarch This recognition is rooted in Arab Christian Ignatius IV (Hazim), the Greek Orthodox experience of living together with Muslims Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, who in the various countries of the Middle East. at the Islamic Summit of Taif in 1981 It is an experience built up over decades stated that Christians and Muslims believe in our churches with their different in the same one and only God. His linguistic, doctrinal and liturgical traditions. statement was made in fact in a national context in which the liberation of In most cases this recognition is linked, Jerusalem was under discussion, “so particularly in the minds of the heads of that,” he said, “all worshippers of the One the Eastern Churches, to the national and and Only God might there offer their political situation within which Muslims worship.” The Patriarch also mentioned and Christians relate to each other. That is the “wounded” land of Lebanon and called why, on Fridays and Sundays in sermons on all present to work for it to again find in mosques and churches, there is often peace. repeatedly heard an insistence on patriotic unity based on their common belief in one According to Ignatius IV, the foremost God, Allah, the creator of heaven and vocation of religions is to gather all earth. This call to unity between Muslim humankind together and by God’s grace and Christian citizens rests on unity in guide them towards holiness and purity. belief. Doctrinal issues, such as the “Jerusalem is an important meeting place Trinity, the person of Jesus, the cross, for the different religions and the different Muhammad’s prophetic role, the Qur’an, spiritual traditions. In Lebanon we have an etc., are left aside. What is important is authentic place where diversity can be national unity, and particularly so in times practiced. In Jerusalem and in Lebanon of crisis, as was the case after the we seek God’s face.” assassination of the former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafic Hariri, who raised the The Patriarch’s remarks are based on an Lebanese people above all confessional apophatic theology in which the main affiliation in order to demonstrate their emphasis is on God’s omnipotence and national, but also religious, unity. transcendence. This offers common ground between Christian theology and The positive coexistence of Muslims and Muslim theology which rejects any Christians in good days has certainly Christian approach based on the influenced Christian thinkers in matters of incarnation of the Son of God. That is why belief and theology. The love of such in an Arab setting Christian witness is best 60
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam An Arab Christian Perspective – Georges Massouh served by an apophatic theology. It should Harat Alyahoud (the Jewish ghetto). not be forgotten that God remains an Although, historically speaking, Christians unfathomable and inaccessible mystery, are not responsible for having built their who can only be discovered by Harat.” worshippers who are humble of heart. Alongside his appeal to abandon Harat In this context it is important to quote Mgr Alnasara, Khodr calls on Muslims to Georges Khodr, the Greek Orthodox regard Christians as citizens having the Metropolitan of Mount Lebanon: “That same rights and the same duties as their means that we should use an apophatic Muslim fellow citizens. He says, “The aim approach when speaking of God, not only of the national struggle by Christians is in a Christian context, since all concepts that Harat Alnasara shall no longer be a are idolatrous, but should also expand our feature of the world of Islam.” way of speaking of God to include the way in which non-Christian scriptures speak of Olivier Clément notes that for Georges God.” Khodr, as for Kenneth Cragg, “Christians have the task to seek out and to recognize It is also important to examine Mgr the signs of Christ’s presence in the whole Khodr’s thinking as regards the link of human life, whether religious or not. between theology and relations between Now, Islam is a spiritual world where people holding different beliefs. Khodr Jesus is present. And the task of Christian speaks of the city of his birth, Tripoli, witness is to reveal that presence, which Lebanon, as containing many memories of is often latent or distorted, but is none the respectful and loving relations built up less real.”1 between Muslims and Christians. He has not forgotten his native city and what it In fact, Mgr Khodr states that “The whole stands for: Tripoli, which makes no of the Church’s missionary task is to distinction between its Muslim and awaken the dormant Christ, who is asleep Christian sons and daughters, where, he in the night of other religions,” for Christ is says, “the unhealthy feeling of being a to be found outside the historic confines of minority does not exist,” and where the the Church. tensions between the different Lebanese communities have not entered. He still That is why he states, “It is Christ alone believes in the coexistence that he has who bestows light when grace visits a experienced over many years. He can Brahmin, a Buddhist, or a Muslim as they only see Lebanon as pictured in his read their scriptures.’ He does this by beloved city. He desires to revive the making no distinction between the activity respectful and loving spirit between the of the Son and the activity of the Spirit, for two communities, so that they can again ‘the activity of Christ cannot be find peace and God’s name be praised. understood apart from the activity of the He rejects the idea of Harat Alnasara ( Spirit.” Khodr, quoting in his support the ‘the Christian ghetto’), which seems to him words of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon, to signify a desire on the part of Christians “Where the Spirit is, there is the Church,” to live isolated in a ghetto away from what concludes by saying, “The Spirit operates appears to be the danger presented by through the Spirit’s energies according to Muslims. That is why he often appeals to the Spirit’s own economy, and on that Christians to move out of Harat Alnasara basis one can regard non-Christian and live alongside Muslims without any religions as places where the Spirit is at inferiority or superiority complex. He has work inspiring them.” actually said, as regards Jesus’ triumphal The Apostolic Exhortation New Hope for entry into Jerusalem, “Today Jesus has Lebanon correctly states, come to abolish Harat Alnasara, to break “Muslim/Christian dialogue is not only a down all walls, after having abolished
61
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam An Arab Christian Perspective – Georges Massouh dialogue between intellectuals. Its prime world outside the Christian revelation in aim is to encourage coexistence between the person of Jesus Christ. Christians and Muslims in a spirit of openness and cooperation, which is 2. The Eastern Church must respond to essential for all to be able to flourish by the appeal by Professor Mahmoud Ayoub deciding freely, guided by a sound to move beyond mutual tolerance and conscience, between the choices offered respect to what he calls “communion of them.”2 faith between Muslims and Christians.”
Conclusions 3. To be Antiochenes--that is, to sense that the rebirth of our countries will come 1. Relations between Christians and mainly through the rebirth of all the Muslims come prior to any to any inhabitants of the region. That is why I theological theory. We can go as far as to ask: say that theology has developed, either positively or negatively, out of, and • How can Arab Christians join in the reflecting, the state of those relations. struggle against Islamic fanaticism? 2. Christian/Muslim relations should, at • How can they be salt in least on the Christian side, not be contemporary Arab culture? determined by the strength or the numbers of the two communities. Christians should regard themselves only Translation from French, WCC language as citizens who are equal to their Muslim service fellow citizens.
3. Ordinary people, in their daily lives, are 1 Mohamed Talbi and Oliver Clement, Un respect not interested in discussing theological or têtu (Collection Rencontres), Nouvelle Cite, 1989, doctrinal questions. They all adhere to p. 276. 2 their own beliefs and inherited traditions. Apostolic Exhortation Une Esperance Nouvelle Relations between them develop quite Pour Le Liban (A New Hope for Lebanon) of Pope independently of theological disputes. In John-Paul II to the Patriarchs, Bishops, clergy, other words, their living together is far religious, and all the faithful of Lebanon, 1997. removed from theology. Section 92.
4. They do, however, often discuss moral or ethical questions in a joking, lighthearted way, issues such as polygamy, temporary marriage, woman’s place in society, the veil, and so on. Georges Massouh is Associate Professor Finally, there are, to my mind, three of Islamics in the Islamic/Christian Study challenges which Eastern Christians need Centre, University of Balamand, and he to take up as they develop their teaches in the St. John of Damascus theological thinking: School of Theology there. He holds a 1. There is a need for a theology of “the doctorate in Islamic studies from the other,” acknowledging the genuineness of Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic their faith and their spiritual inheritance. Studies, Rome, Italy. That also involves finding the place of “the other” in God’s plan of salvation for the
62
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Christian – Muslim Relations in Pakistan – Charles Amjad-Ali
Historical and Political Context of Christian-Muslim Relations in Pakistan:
Challenges to Missiological and Theological Vocation
Charles Amjad-Ali
Postcolonial State Formation and Thus Pakistan sits as a challenge to the the Role of Islam primary nation-state paradigm generated Pakistan is the first modern nation-state to by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 in be created in the name of Islamic identity. Europe. This first model, at least in In spite of the oft repeated romantic principle, informs the configuration of most Mughal referent, it did not have any major modern nation-states and was genuine roots in an actual past Islamic based on the: state. It had further difficulty in that the • homogeneity of ethnos; classical construct of nation (ethnic) state • homogeneity of ethos; was hard to maintain given its multi-ethnic • a fixed topos (area) for these make up and territorial division into East homogenous groups; and and West Pakistan with a thousand miles • borders as primary demarcations, of hostile India in between. It is clearly a around which were other states post-colonial state, but not in the sense with similar characteristics. that there was a people called “Pakistani” The second major state formation model or a nation called “Pakistan” prior to the is that of the immigrant states. These arrival of the colonizers. Even the name states grew out of a particular pattern of Pakistan is an artificial construct and given colonization in which the land itself was different etymological explanations and grabbed and occupied. So the original mythologies. “owners” of these territories were deprived of their land; they were either wiped out or It is a given that postcolonial states are at best treated as alien and trespassers new nations. Iin most cases, however, on their own homelands, c.f., USA, there was an ethnic identity that existed Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South prior to the period of colonialism in whose Africa, Zimbabwe, etc. These new name the independence struggle was usurped states were created by diverse carried out and the new state(s) created. European ethnoi and ethoi, they therefore There was no such ethnic identity prior to developed high transcendent nationalisms the present Pakistan. Rather, this state with whiteness as the superior identity was created with the idea that a marker, all this to create a new transcendent Islamic identity was the past homogenization which excluded the First referent, and would provide the essential Nation native peoples as full participants. homogenizing principle. Such an allegiance was to generate the necessary The third state formation model is largely integration of its multiple ethnicities based on the post-colonial state which (ethnoi) with their respective cultural ethos emerged and was based on forced (ethoi). It is precisely this original assertion amalgamation of several different ethnoi that, in recent years, has been pressed (like the immigrant state), however each of into service as the raison d’etre for these ethnic groups was more or less Pakistan, along with its concomitant located on their own fixed topos, (like the demand for a comprehensive Islamic Westphalian states) e.g., India, Nigeria. socio-political structure.1 etc. These are multi-ethnic nation-states, but they operate largely with the secular
63
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Christian – Muslim Relations in Pakistan – Charles Amjad-Ali
European nationalist ideal as their opposed, both theologically and transcendent homogenizer. doctrinally, to the very concept of Pakistan, now vehemently demanded a Pakistan is not a typical postcolonial state. comprehensive Islamic character for it; It is not a nation based on some model of only now on a much smaller and narrower secular transcending homogenization on nation-state scale.6 This began to happen top of the heterogeneous ethnicities, like very early during the defining moments of the immigrant states. Nor is it based on Pakistan as a nation. Once the nation- some pre-existing state or ethnic state of Pakistan was established, they identity(ies) acting as the base for its sought to superimpose shari’a and creation, following either the Westphalian Khilafat on the new state, even though the or the typical post-colonial models. It is, in concept of nation-stateness was in itself fact, a hybrid with some elements of each abhorrent to them, and violative of the of the above models. And in this fundamental principles of Islam. So during uniqueness Islam plays a major role in the the first years of writing the constitution of formation and subsequent developments Pakistan, issues such as the role of of Pakistan. shari’a, religious minorities and the cynical demands to designate Ahmedis as non- Islamic stance: From anti-Pakistan to a Muslims, etc., all became a part of the radical insistence on an Islamic state debates about the national identity. Most Islamic ulema and mullahs2 in India at the time of the struggle for These hard debates led to the reworking independence were against the formation and rethinking of what were the objectives of Pakistan. They saw it as a creation of behind the creation of Pakistan. Such a modernist nationalism, and therefore in document had already been produced and general they held that the concept of promoted by the founding Muslim League nation-state was in fact a return to the party as early as March 1940, but this was period of jahiliyya3 with its tribal and superseded by a new series of objectives clannish identities. Therefore, for these and raison d’être just nineteen months ulema it was a fundamental violation of after Pakistan’s formation in August 1947. the principle of Islamic umma as the new It established the Islamic character/identity identity for the community of the Prophet. of the country and was used by the ulema So people like Abul Ala Maududi, and to push their cause throughout the history groups like Jamiat-e-ulema-Islam and of Pakistan. So Pakistan is one of those Jamiat-e-ulema-Hind (later changed to - unique countries which had two sets of Pakistan), with a few notable exceptions, stated objectives, one generated for the were against the formation of Pakistan independence struggle, and another to because it violated those historical, define it post-independence. theological and doctrinal principles which lay behind the umma (community with The new “Objectives Resolution” (OR) common faith), led by a common stated for the first time that Pakistan was Khalifa/Khilafat.4 This is especially to function according to the “teachings and relevant because Indian Muslims were the requirements of Islam as set out in the main champions of the Khilafat Movement Holy Qur’an and the Sunna.” Therefore (1919-24) after the collapse of Ottoman Pakistan became de jure an Islamic state Empire as well as the caliphate on March as the politicians cynically demurred to the 3, 1924 and the creation of a “modern” Muslim forces without allowing the Islamic secular nation-state of Turkey by Mustafa law and ideology to dominate the Kemal Atatürk.5 grundnorms of Pakistani politics and law. Therefore, the OR was consigned to being What therefore is truly ironic is that the only the preamble of the first three very same people who were fervently constitutions (1956, 1962 and 1973). This
64
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Christian – Muslim Relations in Pakistan – Charles Amjad-Ali
document has however come to haunt the Bhutto’s government was the most secular nation over and over again, especially government in Pakistan’s history and was during the Zia-ul-Haq dictatorship of 1977- deeply disliked by the Islamic forces. This 1988, who made the OR part of the main was, in fact, the second formation of body of the Constitution in 1984 and then Pakistan, with a newly defined territory went on to ensure that all laws of the land and restricted ethnicities with a new were congruent with, and filtered through, configuration of military, bureaucracy, and his very conservative version of Islam. the capital base as well as ideological reconceptualization. Between 1947 and 1971 there were many attempts both to Islamize Pakistan on the The character of Pakistan underwent a one side, and secularize it on the other. radical change with the military coup of As such there are many precursors to General Zia-ul-Haq in July 1977. The what led to the present crises in Pakistan. Islamic character was not only Something very critical, however, took endogenously generated, but within two place in 1971. Suffice it to say that what years, three critical exogenous elements was Pakistan prior to that year no longer came together which greatly helped this existed. Not only the political and policy process: 1) in 1979 the Soviet Union infrastructure that had been in place but walked into Afghanistan – the aftermaths also the various ideological foundations of this are still with us; 2) the revolution of that undergirded Pakistan all collapsed 1979 fully established Iran’s Shi’a identity with the secession of East Pakistan and which in return provided succor to Shi’as the independence of Bangladesh. The around the world and to the possibility of 1971 crisis challenged the whole successful revolution in Muslim countries ; infrastructure that had so far held Pakistan and 3) Pakistan, which had already begun together, namely: to claim a nuclear status as early as 1. Transcendent homogenizing Islamic 1974/5, negatively dubbed the “Islamic identity – a nation for Muslims, not for Bomb,” was allowed to pursue the Islamic law; finalization of these goals, now as an ally 2. A bureaucracy which provided the of the West. permanent state; Islamization and the dislocation of the 3. A “militocracy” mostly from Punjab, Christians which provided the security of the In Zia, the West found an ideal Sunni frontiers; and figure to fulfill all their purposes in the 4. Economic infrastructure based largely region. As an ally of Saudi Arabia, on West Pakistani “carpet baggers” in Pakistan became an anti-Iran force; and East Pakistan controlling its industry as an ally of the United States and Saudi and exploiting its raw materials. Arabia, it became a major force against All these collapsed: the military was the Soviet Union and against nascent reviled by Pakistanis, who physically spat “socialism” in the region. These two at them; the ulema/mullahs were seen as international alliances reinforced at best irrelevant and at worst as failed Pakistan’s Islamic identity, which was now interpreters of Islam and as hypocrites combined with the military’s dictatorial (munafiqun); and the bureaucracy and the rule. This led to a state-based revival of capital base were now divided between Pakistan’s Islamic character through a two countries. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto emerged change in the constitution and the as the charismatic leader in the aftermath introduction of new laws. For the first time of this critical crisis in Pakistan’s history. in fact, Pakistan was finally established as He governed from 1971-1977 and tried to an Islamic state. The minorities were find space for, and to reinvigorate, all the removed from adult open franchise defeated elements in the newly truncated through “separate electorates” into a Pakistan, except for the ulemas/mullahs. restricted apartheid electoral role. Though
65
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Christian – Muslim Relations in Pakistan – Charles Amjad-Ali
these separate elections were very been little local contextual development. detrimental for the minorities, they were at So while they were being very first welcomed by the Christian leadership. conservative Christians, they were in fact Ostensibly they provided the minorities much closer to Islam than they realized or certain rights of self-determination, acknowledged. When theology was done however limited such rights were. Later, at all, it was usually done as a high however a consensus emerged on the polemic against Islam and as a debating negative implications of these separate tool against it, following the traditions of electorates which led to a general activism Phander’s Mizan ul Haq (Balance of against them in the Christian community. Truth). This tradition made five basic Separate elections were finally discarded points: during the 2002 elections. 1. Muhammad was a corrupt and lecherous man who was not a prophet Throughout these developments, the or even a holy person; minorities, especially the Christians, have 2. Islam is basically a corruption and responded in two ways. In public they act distortion of Christianity, and is as totally obsequious sycophants toward therefore, by default, of the Devil; whoever is in power, while in private they 3. Islam is nothing more than Judaism are absolutely negative toward those warmed over and a corruption of it. So, same power holders and Muslims in in terms of abrogation or evolution of general. The level of obsequious theology, Islam, though a post- sycophancy and internal negativeness Christian faith, is seen as actually a towards Islam has been proportionate to backward-looking rather than a the public demand for Islamic law in forward-looking movement, and clearly political and social life. The Christian pre-Christian in its ontology; missiological and theological vocation 4. Islam is totally law-bound and has no within Pakistan was determined by their grace. Further since it has no Fall it social background and theological has no salvation, and also no real formation. Inside the Protestant traditions, concept of sin and sinfulness. almost all followed the evangelical 5. Finally, Islam is devoid of any freedom theology that was coming out of of thought, action, and will, and is Presbyterian and Reformed circles in the fundamentally fatalistic. West. In the case of the West, this That polemic still continues to be a part of theology was developed largely as a the convention circuits of the Pakistani counter point to the Enlightenment and the churches today, though now there is a scientific revolution, and was based on an little more discretion, not because of some appeal to the past. It developed a very change in theology, but rather because of conservative theological, doctrinal and the more violent, vicious and aggressive biblical position. Pakistani Christians nature of Islamic groups in Pakistan. adopted this theology wholesale without Christians who make such claims ignore ever raising the question of contextuality, the fact that their own theology makes etc. So they applied this theology in the almost exactly the same moves as Islam. context of Islam while it was developed in They hold to a hard inerrancy of the text the context of what we compositely call (the direct revelatory quality of the Bible), “modernity.” On the other hand, although and the use of legal piety, etc., in the this is rarely acknowledged, in terms of maintenance of morality and devoutness, piety they were deeply affected by Islam. which are an absolute requirement for So, on issues like fasting, clothing, and faithfulness and sanctification. anything to do with sexuality (including wedding rituals), their cultural norms are It is absolutely undeniable that the overlaid by a deep Islamic and/or Hindu Christians in Pakistan have physically veneer. Theologically, however, there has suffered, and often this suffering has been
66
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Christian – Muslim Relations in Pakistan – Charles Amjad-Ali extremely severe. One overlooks this at same sort of power, however the cost of truth, virtue and even sanity. eschatological or apocalyptic such an One should also, however, acknowledge expectation was. One of the ways they that sometimes the perception of that thought they could achieve this was suffering has been exaggerated and through continuing the mission and further aggravated because a lot of that ministry of firstly education and secondly suffering is psychological rather than health put in place by the missionary simply physical and at times a product of structures. Following a tradition in which paranoia. education was seen as a way to raise standards of life, and provided access to Inherited Christian theology and lack of power and position, the Pakistani church contextuality continued to sustain the schools which Following the traditional evangelical had been put in place across the Indo-Pak theology which saw the political arena as subcontinent by the Catholic and a place of corruption to be avoided, the Protestant missionaries, and built further Pakistani Christians largely stayed away on that foundation. These institutions, from any role in public life and the political however, almost exclusively catered to the arena. So they did not even deal with the Hindu and the Muslim elites, so they could role of religion and politics and/or church be infused with Western and Christian and state. They read Romans 13 as a values and thus converted to Christianity. literal statement of essential fact, but The guiding light behind this was argued that in the context of Pakistan it Alexander Duff, of the Scottish Church did not apply to them, because their College, Calcutta, fame. In the early 19th authorities were Muslim and this text century he argued that if we convert the applied only to Christian leadership. So Brahmins, the whole of India would follow. their theology was predominantly based The dysfunctionality of this assumption on Christendom and for a Christian had already been articulated in the early majority, however, their experience of 20th century in what was called the Great piety and religious practice was Missionary Controversy, for it was obvious determined by their minority status under that this strategy was not working as only a serious Muslim threat. This theological a very few Brahmins had ever been schizophrenia caused a serious crisis of converted. On the other hand a huge responsibility and theological formation, number of Dalits were converted to mission and witness. Christianity, but could not be given a place
in these institutions. After 1947, the Christians of all stripes in Pakistan Church continued this policy and followed the dominant western theology continued to provide high quality and missionary structures in adopting the education to the Muslim elite in Pakistan, theology of glory, with its spirituality and so much so that there is still a strong concomitant emphasis on power, rather distinction between Urdu medium and than the theology of the cross and English medium schools. The former theology of vulnerability, which their serve the lower classes and the latter is context surely demanded. This was of for the elites, a distinction which maintains course further exaggerated by a a permanent underclass as an operational vulnerable minority wanting to exert the social principle. The Churches have been superiority of its God over the God of the wholly complicit in this process. The irony Muslim majority. Thus they totally aligned is that the Pakistani Christians, who are themselves with the successful West over largely poor and lower-caste, are against the “failure” of the Islamic world. educated in the Urdu medium schools, The emphasis on power, based on the and their masters also educated by normative of the post-Constantinian Christians are products of the English church, influenced Pakistani Christians, medium schools. and they looked for ways of achieving the
67
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Christian – Muslim Relations in Pakistan – Charles Amjad-Ali
When the schools were nationalized by Future Contextual Theology and the first elected head of Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ethics Ali Bhutto, in 1971, the Christian Five critical issues must be brought to the community felt utterly disenfranchised and fore for evolving a new doctrinal and went into a period of bereavement. They theological base for a genuine Christian saw this as an issue of their vocation, theology in Pakistan: identity, and presence, even though in 1. We must address the critical issues most cases they did not directly benefit surrounding the theological, from this system. They therefore missiological, ethical and faith developed an antipathy towards the sources. The critical question is democratic process and leadership, a whether we follow Islam in treating the situation that continues to plague the text as the preexisting logos (the Word Christians. So they supported military or Kalaam in Arabic), when talking dictators, even when they were Islamizing about the Bible, the only difference the country, like Zia-ul-Haq. The latter being, for them it is the Qur’an, and for completely Islamized Pakistan, changed us it is the Bible. Do we try to compare the constitution and actually degraded the sacrality, veracity, authenticity and minorities, including Christians, to a status immutability of our canonical text with of non-citizens, with only a millat type the Qur’an? Or should we concentrate Dhimmization. Under Zia, each minority on Jesus Christ as the preexisting group became a millat unto themselves, logos, and the Bible not as the and could only vote for a highly restricted preexisting logos itself, but as the number of their own representatives to the witness to Christ as the logos? So national and provincial parliaments. This although we acknowledge that the was even worse than the Ottoman millat Bible is of critical importance, and system, because Zia added to this even God-inspired text, it has to be marginalization the permanent Sword of seen as human-authored. So inspired Damocles, namely the infamous but not dictated, or written by God. “blasphemy laws,” which have created Further, do we acknowledge the and continue to create incredible theological task and accept that each dislocation and victims in every generation must do a hermeneutics of community. These were clauses 295-B the text in which they are fully (blasphemy against the Qur’an), and 295- involved, rather than just trying to find C (blasphemy against Muhammad), in the the pre-existing truth of the text which Pakistan Penal Code; the latter was is outside of time and space? punishable by death. These have become Theologically we cannot continue to an ever present cudgel against the sustain the notion that both Jesus and minorities, and have been most the Bible are the preexisting word of aggressively used against the Ahmadis God. We have to give up the theology and the Christians. There is another irony that the theotokos (the god-carrier), that I must point out: on the one hand, whether that be the Bible or Mary, Pakistani Christians are treated as must have a divine essence also; thus untouchables (dalits), relegated to the we must reject an immaculate margins of society and thus irrelevant; on conception for Mary and for the Bible. the other, they are regarded as the We must begin in the context of the agents, allies and symbols of the West, positive materiality and vulnerability of particularly America, and thus a fifth- Christ, following the tradition that column. So whenever world events comes from Anselm through Thomas transpire to reflect some anti-Islamic and Luther, in the West, which claims feelings, the Christians are held to blame, that redemption is possible only and thus suffer mightily at the hands of through the God-Human, two-natures aggressive jihadists. held together in Jesus. Now whether
68
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Christian – Muslim Relations in Pakistan – Charles Amjad-Ali
those who are non-Chalcedonian will but because of an ontological saviour. accept this, is a conversation for That assumption of worthfulness another time, but a conversation that changes the character of our politics, needs to be covered in the context of ethics, philosophy, and theology. This Islam. is because it changes our understanding of the character of 2. What is the nature of law in exclusivity and inclusivity. This is not Christianity and Islam? Is the law inclusivity based on the creation binding, like shari‘a, or is it a model, i.e. God created all and makes parameter defining guide for human his sun shine and rain fall on ethics, sociality, inter-exchange, inter- everybody; but is based on the subjective activity, etc.? If we exclusive cruciform model, with an all Christians take the law of love, our inclusive assumption. So instead of understanding of the law is different, looking at everybody as an outsider or than if we go for an extended list of as a hostile enemy, we must begin prohibitions and commands based on with a tradition of love, care and either a requirement of sanctification, giving. This worthfulness does not post-justification or in dialectic with it. If make them non-sinners, but precisely we take the Christian understanding of because we and they are all sinners, law, based on God’s justice, God’s and therefore subject to the love of the dikaiosune, and God’s love – philia, one crucified. This is a theology based agape – that changes our both on God’s judgment, on sin and understanding of the law itself. It the sinner, and God’s love on the doesn’t begin with limiting but with Cross and salvation for that sinner. expansion. However, it does not Therefore the two commands that the assume a Christendom majority, it Christians have are: “‘love the Lord assumes a cross-carrying minority of your God with all your heart, with all Mark 8:27-38; it assumes the your soul, and with all your mind, and metaphor of leaven (Matthew 13:33, with all your strength’ ... ‘you shall love Galatians 5:9) and not of dough, it your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no assumes the metaphor of salt other commandment greater than (Matthew 15:13) and not that of the these” (Mark 12:30-31). We have dish, it assumes the metaphor of light mostly failed in fulfilling that command (Matthew 15:13-15) and not that of vis-à-vis Islam and Muslims, and we darkness. Thus God who has have constantly borne false witness reconciled the world has to be against Islam and Muslims as part of proclaimed by the ambassadors who our Christian faith expression. So we know it. (2 Corinthians 5:19ff). have violated the central tenet of our faith, and tried to justify it on the basis 3. What is the status and place of that “Muslims do it to us, so we should sinners? In Christianity we are all do it to them,” – a lex talionis of an eye sinners and have come short of the for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth glory of God (Romans 3:23), and at which may perhaps have credence in the foot of the cross every one of us is Islamic faith praxes, but certainly has just as dependent and vulnerable absolutely no place in Christian ethics (those who know about it and those and life praxes. who don’t know about it). Because Christ died for all, and not just for 4. In Pakistan we must relook at our own those of us who claim to be Christian, history and shift our perception of the therefore we must begin with the formation of Christian praxis, theology assumption of worth for everyone, and and mission away from that informed not just because of a common creator, by the post-Constantinian church, to
69
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Christian – Muslim Relations in Pakistan – Charles Amjad-Ali
that which is informed by the biblical because they are both an ontological and the pre-Constantinian church part of human existence. However the experience. The pre-Constantinian juridical separation of church and church experienced intermittent state, as properly expounded in the persecution throughout the Roman Reformation call, must be maintained, Empire, in some places and times and one should not be allowed to much worse than others. Occasionally, determine either the functioning or the during periods of intense and policy under the dictates of the other. I sustained persecution, as was the think this dual position opens us to case under Nero and Diocletian, some better dialogical possibilities between Christians lapsed but the church was Islam and Christianity, for I believe that also purified and understood the Islam has this juridical institutional centrality of the theology of the cross. separation of “church” and “state” We, Pakistani Christians, haven’t dealt (though the nomenclature used and with these issues well, because we the institutions had different keep looking to a Constantinian model expressions), while maintaining an of Christianity and thus see all ontological inseparability of religion persecution as abnormal. and politics, more on this later.
5. The separation of church and state, This gives us critical clues for a proper which is often confused with a dialogical existence with Islam. It separation of religion and politics, is a challenges us to never accept a much more nuanced and complicated theological justification to a state subject than we have claimed when claiming divine right, or special we have demanded such a separation providence or covenantal relationship. within Islam. A product largely of post- Nor should the church or religious Reformation theology, starting with institution be allowed to pass fatwas Luther, and re-worked by Calvin, it on the state, on how it controls the life became part of the Western of citizens, who represent much larger constitutional polity in the Treaty of faith expressions than one restricted to Westphalia, and the emergence of the faith of the institutions which pass what we call “modernity.” However, it such fatwas, bulls, edicts, etc. must be remembered that every European nation until the 1917 These are the questions we must face Russian Revolution (except perhaps in squarely because we have neither the one particular case – since the French possibility of creating a transcendent Revolution of 1789-99), had a state- meta-narrative in which the particularity of based church which was the product the given faith dies, nor do we have the of this Treaty and its principle of cuius luxury of excluding the other so that the regio, eius religio (whose domain, his cosmological implications of the religion). So even though de facto incarnation and the cross become only religion has a minimal role because of restricted to the confessional borders of a modernity, de jure there has been a given church. state-sponsored religion in most western European nations. In the US, Critical Questions for Islam to Face because of the 1791 First Amendment Squarely to the constitution, there is a de jure For the Muslims we need to pose a couple separation of church and state, but de of critical questions as well, which may facto Christianity, with its myriad of make for a comprehensive dialogue and interpretations, is still seen almost as reconstruction of political thought. the state religion. I believe that religion and politics cannot be separated First, it is clear that Islam does not make an epistemological separation of religion
70
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Christian – Muslim Relations in Pakistan – Charles Amjad-Ali
and politics. This poses a challenge to vocations rather than one place in which Western political theory and secularity but both the institutions of religion (‘church’) it also posses a challenge to our and politics (the khilafat/’state’) are missiology, theology and ethics, because located, in spite of the fact that during this we assume, wrongly I might add, that this early period the Caliph was seen as the separation has universal validity. But we head of both the Islamic state and religion, must also pose a challenge to Islam about following the vocation of the Prophet? the validity of the separation of institutional expressions of religion and politics The point I am trying to make is that the (“church and state,” if I may!). We must proper understanding of these two ask the question: Why did the Prophet not binaries (i.e., religion and politics, and make Mecca the capital of the Islamic church and state) give us critical community after the Treaty of Hudaibiya in missiological clues as to how to do our 628, or at the latest after the 630 final missiology as a part of our political victory over the Quraish? Mecca, after all, activity, and our political activity as part of was the place of his origin, early life, work, our missiological commitment to God, who marriage, relationships, and the place of is creator, saviour and sustainer of this his first revelations, call to prophecy, and universe, while maintaining a hard juridical proclamations. Rather, after this victory he separation of ‘church’ and ‘state.’ returns to Medina as the locale of statecraft (capital), leaving Mecca as the The second critical issue is that after a qibla – the locus of religion, a status which prolonged struggle and a stunning victory it still has 1400 years later. Having over a much more powerful enemy – the struggled hard to win Mecca for 8 or 10 Quraish – it is surprising that the Prophet years (622 to 630) such a move at least declared amnesty for all, no lex talionis demands a critical examination. This is an here. We must ask what the implications extremely telling development, especially are of this amnesty for Muslim theology, since there is a precedent for shifting the law and ethics. Does not this sunna (or qibla, the Prophet having moved the qibla hadith) of the Prophet provide us with from Jerusalem to Mecca as late as 624 ethical imperatives, which act as final (i.e. about 12 years after the revelation abrogation of all that went before this and 2 years after the migration). The amnesty? Why is the lex talionis paradigm Prophet returned to Medina and died constantly used by the jihadists to justify there, and following his death the Khulafa war, terrorism, etc., as part of their fervor ar-Rashidun, all originally from Mecca, for Islam and to be imitators of the kept Medina the capital for the next 29 Prophet, while seldom if ever mentioning years and did not attempt to move to this amnesty? The question is, are the Mecca or make it their capital. Already jihadists interpreting Islam for their during the rule of the last caliph ‘Ali, or convenience, or is their claim authentic around 24 years after the hijra, Medina that they are being good Muslims in doing begin to go through a crisis as the political so? hub of Islamic umma, and finally the Khilafat moved to Kufa, from there to The third series of questions deals with Damascus, and then to Baghdad and then the contemporary Muslim minority status. all over. None of these capitals, despite It is estimated that some 28% of Muslims high intellectual developments, academic live as a minority today, from India, which and research activities, architectural has arguable at least the third largest wonders, etc., ever acquired, nor were Muslim population in the world after claimed to be, the qibla, for this orientation Indonesia and Pakistan, to all of Europe, point was always Mecca. Is this not a Africa and North America. This number is source for two different loci in Islam, much larger than the Arabic speaking representing two distinct, if not different, Muslims who see themselves as the
71
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Christian – Muslim Relations in Pakistan – Charles Amjad-Ali criterion and as normative Muslims. The these early years in Mecca, the Prophet usual glib answer in the face of this survives the persecution because of the situation is that since there are no protection of Abu Talib, his uncle, and resources available in the earliest Islamic Khadija, his wife. So he is their dhimma, history and tradition which provide as is also the case for those who made guidelines for the minority Muslim context, their hijrat to Abyssinia in 615 and in 616, what is exercised and practiced in majority they become the dhimma of the Muslim states must also apply for the Abyssinian Najaf (king) as Ibn Ishaq minority Muslim contexts. Religion after all records it.7 So Muslims were clearly a is not bound by time or space. Thus what minority during the earliest years of Islam happens in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and were someone’s dhimma. Even after etc., has implication for, and must be the hijrat the Prophet remained part of a applied also, in India, South Africa, minority in Medina where there was a Germany or USA, etc., so we have the large multi-religious society. This situation recurrent demand for full application of lasts at least till 624 and the first expulsion shari‘a, etc., in these minority contexts of a Jewish tribe (Bani Qainuqa); or we also. Faced with this question the can fix it to 625 and the second expulsion traditional argument is that Islam demands of a Jewish tribe (Bani Nadir); or finally to that the faith and piety as established and 627 and the execution and enslavement of exercised by the earliest Muslims must be the Jewish tribe of Bannu Quraiza. So the the paradigm for piety and practice of faith expulsion, execution and enslavement of today. I would argue that this stance is not the Jewish tribes helped in raising the only essentially wrong, or simply lazy, but percentage of the Muslims, till they finally also shows a lack of care for the Muslims acquired a majority status. Thus from 610 in minority situations and does not provide to, at the earliest, 624 Muslims were a them with a proper place in the umma. minority, this status could be expanded to Besides generally being conservatively as late as 627. Therefore for a period of backward-looking, even within such an over 14 years, during the life of the operational stance it fails to look at some Prophet, Muslims were a minority group of the fully accepted resources within and during most of this period they were Islam for handling such a task. In these under the protection (dhimma) of different cases the minority Muslims may be more people. Islamic majority-ness during the of a criteria than the majority. life of the Prophet begins at the earliest in There are a number of sources in the 624 and he dies in 632. So at most this early Islamic context which give clear status was 8 years but it could even be clues and which could help in doing less. Now why is this Sunnat-e-Rasul theology in the context of Islam as a Allah not being seen as the source for the minority. These quite diverse sources present dilemma of Muslims being a show that Islam does have a critical minority? Further, if Islam is going to talk understanding of being a minority and it of umma, are these minority Muslims fully did experience such situations early in its a part of the umma, only if they follow the history, so that these sources can be patterns of Islamic life based on the drawn upon for developing new paradigms majority existence, or have they for Muslim minorities and their piety in the something to contribute to this universal contemporary world. discourse?
After all, was the Prophet not a member of I think, if the Muslims reflect on these a minority community in Mecca from 610 three issues, they may find a modus (the beginning of the revelation), to the vivendi, both for living as a minority and to two Abyssinian hijras in 615 and 616, reach for their own sources while at the respectively, and all the way till 622 and same time begin to understand the the Hijrat from Mecca to Medina? During minorities living in its midst where it is a
72
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam Christian – Muslim Relations in Pakistan – Charles Amjad-Ali
majority. This could move the Muslim debate from the trite usage of dar-ul-Islam 5Turkey is the third state in the modern era to (House of Islam) and dar-ul-harb (House emerge as a secular state. The first was the First of War) to a search for dar-ul-ahad (House Republic of France after the Revolution of 1789- of Covenant/Contract) and maybe even 99; the second such state was the US with its dar-ul-aman (House of Peace). separation of church and state, or the determination to establish a secular state during The time has come for both Muslims and the constitutional debates from 1777 to 1788 and Christians to deal with our respective especially after the First Amendment of 1791. It is dilemmas keeping the other in mind. therefore ironic that one of the main reasons for These are wonderful dilemmas to be in, blocking Turkey from the EU is its Islamic identity and from which we can truly confess as compared to the secular identities of other loving God with all our strength, heart and European member states, which are mostly de jure mind, and our neighbor as our self in all its religious states, except for the ones who were part nuances. Amin. of the Soviet bloc till 1989. More on this later in the paper. 6 This cynicism was similar in a way to Luther’s first 1 The only other state in modern times to have a similar type of religious identity formation and rightly challenging, critiquing and moving away history is the state of Israel, which was created a from the conjunction of Church (Papacy) and state year later. (Holy Roman Empire), but then later applying 2 For the sake of brevity, let me translate the title almost the same conjunction, now on a much ulema as theologians, and mullahs as mosque narrower and smaller scale, to the princely states (masjid)- based leadership. These definitions are which became Lutheran. good enough for the present purpose, though the 7 A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A meanings of both these titles are far more Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah complex than this. 3 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1955), pp. 146 ff. Jahiliyya generally means ignorance, but in the
context of Islamic studies and history it acquires a more theological provenance, where it is applied to the period in Arabia prior to the Prophet Muhammad and his revelation, and generally means paganism and related nuances. In the Charles Amjad-Ali is the Martin Luther present Islamic jihadist rhetoric the word jahiliyya King Jr Professor of Justice and Christian has not only been revived but is used derogatorily Community, and the Director of the against the present leadership in Muslim countries Islamic Studies Program at Luther as a full blown critique. Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has 4 Khalifa (caliph) generically means viceroy, graduate degrees in philosophy, theology, vicegerent, vice regent, successor, lieutenant, etc. and Islamic law and history from Germany In Islam it is used to refer to the leadership of the and the US. He was the director of the Islamic community (umma) after the death of Christian Study Centre in Rawalpindi, Prophet Muhammad, and thus a caliph was the Pakistan from 1985 to 1996. vicegerent and successor of the Prophet in terms of the political order. Though the term continues to be applied to the many caliphs who have ruled the Islamic umma over time, its true significance is restricted to the khulafa ar-rashidun (or the rightly guided caliphs), viz., Abu Bakr, `Umar, `Uthman and `Ali. Khilafat (Caliphate) means the rule of the Khalifa. Khalifa is also used in the Qur’an to mean humanity as the Khalifa of God, as in Sura al- baqara 2:30; al-an`ām 6:165; al-naml 27:62; al- fāṭir 35:39; Noah and his household as Khalifa to the land after the flood, Yūnus 10:73; and David as the Khalifa of God in Sura Ṣād 38:26, etc.
73
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The story of Jacob and Esau – Clare Amos
“Christ is Our Reconciliation” Icon: The Story of Jacob and Esau
Clare Amos
This was an address given at a service central scene of the icon – the of prayers held during the consultation. reconciliation between the two brothers, In a service of prayer being held during a Jacob and Esau. I will also talk more consultation about Christian engagement briefly about about the two smaller scenes with other faiths – especially Islam – it halfway down on the left and right of the seems good to spend a few minutes picture – which illustrate the stories of exploring the icon “Christ is our Sarah and Isaac, and Hagar and Ishmael. reconciliation.” (The icon can be viewed at And I will conclude with a short comment http://www.paxchristi.org.uk/documents/Ic on the scene depicted in the picture in the on.pdf) This icon has fascinated me ever bottom left hand corner of the icon, the since I first caught sight of it in St account of Jesus meeting with the woman Ethelburga’s Church in London. St at the well of Samaria, which we have just Ethelburga’s is a church in the City of read as our second biblical lesson. London which was destroyed by an IRA Looking over all the scenes and bomb in 1993 – and then reopened 10 embracing them in his arms is the figure of years later as a centre specifically Christ. I see this as a symbol of the way dedicated to the work of Reconciliation that Christ invites figures of the past, and Peace. These days a particular focus present and future – the past of the Old of its work involves reconciliation between Testament, the present of the New and people of different faiths. So it was a very the future of the life of the Church – to apt place to come across this icon. Across share in his ministry of reconciliation. the middle of the icon you can see those words written in Greek and Latin and “Esau ran to meet Jacob, and fell on his Hebrew – languages chosen of course to neck and kissed him and they wept.” It is echo the languages that were used to these words from Genesis 33 that set the write up the inscription on Christ’s own scene which the icon is illustrating. Yet to cross. understand the full power of the scene and the story – what it has to say to us Appropriately for an icon which has the about reconciliation and how we are desire for reconciliation as its meaning, it incomplete without the other – we need was created shortly before the millennium also to turn earlier episodes in the story of in the Holy Land at a Greek Catholic Jacob. Both the icon and the biblical text monastery called St John in the desert, hint at this: the icon through the just outside Jerusalem. Implicitly written mysterious incorporation of the ladder into into the different scenes of the icon the background, a ladder that actually therefore is the passion and pain of the relates to the experience of Jacob at Middle East and the Holy Land today and Bethel, in Genesis 28, several chapters its need for reconciliation at so many earlier in the story – and the biblical text levels: between Israel and Palestinians, through those words of Jacob to his between the three Abrahamic faiths, Jews, brother at their meeting, “Truly to see your Christians and Muslims, between Eastern face is like seeing the face of God, with and Western Christians, and even such grace or favour you have received between Eastern rite Catholics “Greek me.” They are words which both Jacob – Catholics” and their more numerous and we – have quite literally to wrestle Western rite, Roman Catholic brothers with if we wish to appropriate the exquisite and sisters. In my reflections in the next yet demanding grace of what he – and we few minutes I will be focusing on the main his spiritual descendants – are being
74
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The story of Jacob and Esau – Clare Amos
offered. To understand them we need to binds together this entire section of the dig deep into the whole of the book of book. The story of these particular two Genesis. brothers is recounted with an intensity unparalleled elsewhere in Genesis. In part I believe that there are two great themes this is a reflection of the intimacy of the in Genesis, which ultimately cannot be relationship between Jacob and Esau, not separated. The first is that human beings merely even full brothers, but actually have been created as the image – or as twins sharing the same womb. When I the Greek translation of the Old wrote a commentary on Genesis I called Testament actually puts it – the icon of this section ‘Double trouble’, for the God. The second theme is that the comparisons and contrasts between number two, a sense of duality, is written Jacob and Esau challenge us with the into the fabric of creation. Think for possibilities and problems inherent in the example about how creation happens number two. Let us take up the tale of through a series of splits and pairs - light Jacob and Esau at the moment when and darkness, land and sea, male and Jacob has been forced to flee to escape female. This rhythm of twoness is the anger of his brother Esau, after he has emphasised by the steady refrain at the deceived his father and stolen Esau’s end of each day – there was evening and blessing. Despondent, he is on his way to morning. Yet this creation is the what will prove to be twenty long hard expression of a God of whom it is said, years of exile. “Hear O Israel the Lord is one” and of whom Christians believe that he is unity in At a place called Bethel – the name Trinity, unity in relationship. So the means ‘House of God’ – Jacob sees a question the writer of Genesis is posing ladder which stretches between earth and throughout the book is how can or should heaven, with angels going up upon it, and the one and the two relate to each other even catches a vision of God himself so that neither dominates or disappears? standing by the ladder. That is the ladder Both unity and duality are necessary. And shown in our icon. In the ancient world it is the task of human beings to live at the temples were built to be the earthly house very heart of this conundrum – as created of a god, places where their worshippers beings to be part of the world of duality in would come to meet them and sense their which ‘otherness’ is important and protection. And so in Jacob’s night vision honoured, and yet also, because we are the ladder was there to link God’s made in the image of God, to reflect also heavenly and earthly dwellings, and within ourselves the divine unity. We are if Bethel is living up to its very name, which you like to be a sort of sacrament, means ‘House of God’. Yet then the words showing through our human life, just what that God then speaks to Jacob subvert the it means to be incomplete without the very rationale for this holy place – other. This is the tension which Genesis effectively declaring it redundant. For God explores, initially through the tale of a man promises to be with Jacob ‘wherever you and a woman – but then, and for most of go’. Normally worshippers had to come to the book through the stories of brothers. a particular holy building, a temple, to find The question of what it means to be a their god – that was their essential brother is visited again and again. It is as purpose: but God assures Jacob that he if the book is telling us – if this can be got can find him anywhere. This is a God who right, then the relationship between is not confined by a building or even a human beings and God can become what holy land. He will be Jacob’s travelling it was always intended to be. But nowhere companion – but on his own terms. And in in Genesis does ‘brotherhood’ get doing so he will offer Jacob an immense explored as seriously as in the story of challenge. For one way of reading the Jacob and Esau. It is ‘the’ issue which story of Jacob’s experience at Bethel is to
75
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The story of Jacob and Esau – Clare Amos
suggest that God’s promise to Jacob to God face to face, and yet my life has been travel with him was effectively offering preserved’ is a cry of both exultation and Jacob the opportunity to be the gateway to wonder. The new name – Israel – that he God for others. But it was not an is granted as an apparent blessing opportunity that Jacob is yet brave enough through his struggle expresses the to accept.. ambiguity. For, according to the biblical writer, ‘Israel’ means ‘the one who strives We move fast forward 20 years – and to with God’. What a name and a destiny for Jacob’s eventual return to his homeland. Jacob to bequeath to his descendants! Is And just as the meeting with God by the it a blessing to struggle with God, or is it ladder at Bethel marked the beginning of the reverse? Elie Wiesel, writing out of the Jacob’s journey into exile – away from his experience of the Nazi holocaust, speaks homeland, afraid of his brother – there is of the “eternal struggle” of the Jewish another equally mysterious meeting with people, “in more than one land, during the divine that takes place on his return,. It more than one night.” Back in 1940 the is a wrestling bout with an angel which Jewish sculptor Jacob Epstein sculpted an takes place at a river ford called Penuel, a extraordinary portrayal of the two figures place whose name means the “Face of wrestling. It can be viewed in the Tate God”. This is described in Genesis 32.22- Britain gallery in London. Epstein’s 32. We shall discover it is strangely sculpture was created in the knowledge of interconnected with the meeting Jacob the terrible suffering the Jewish people has the next day with his brother Esau in were already enduring at that time. The Genesis 33 – that scene depicted on our embrace of Jacob by the angel – is tight, icon. These two means by which Jacob so tight that it must have been painful, meet God at this point approach the almost forcing the breath out of him. And profoundest insights of biblical spirituality. yet the massive angel also seems to be The key which links them both is the word supporting the frailer figure with which he ‘face’. is interlocked. The way the statue portrays the intimacy between Jacob and the angel One of the interesting things about Jacob is remarkable – it feels almost shocking. It is that up till now he has never found it is a sharp reminder that for God to touch easy to look people in the face, especially us, and allow himself to be touched, costs his brother. His very name means ‘heel’ God. It foreshadows the intimate and as befits someone of that name he relationship God will have with the has always been a ‘behind’ sort of person. prophets. Perhaps it also foreshadows the But when he wrestles with the angel in the intimacy of incarnation? Words like passage we have just read he has no “incarnation” are Christian terminology, yet choice: it is a face to face encounter. it is telling that the Jewish Elie Wiesel writes again, “God does not wait for man Rembrandt has painted an inspired picture at the end of the road, the termination of of this scene. In it Jacob is being held by exile; he accompanies him there. More the divine wrestler in such a way that his than that: He is the road, He is the exile. head is gradually being forced round so God holds both ends of the rope, He is that he is compelled to look his opponent present in every extremity, He is every in the face. He will not be allowed to avoid limit. He is part of Jacob as He is part of confronting his past, his present and his Esau.” What might this have to say to us future.. There is an incredible frisson to as Christian church people and scholars the moment: Jacob is all too aware that to as we reflect on our engagement with look on the face of God in this way was people of other faiths? dangerous – yet it was also his only means of healing. Jacob’s cry as the But all too often people fail to realize that struggle comes to its close, ‘I have seen the story of Jacob’s encounter with God’s
76
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The story of Jacob and Esau – Clare Amos
face does not stop here in chapter 32. dual and interlocking struggle, “wrestling” After this painful night struggle that has for reconciliation both with God and with resulted in his wounding – though also his their brothers and sisters, and discovering new name – next morning the sun rises. that the ‘face’ of each illuminates the Careful readers of the story of Jacob can other. In that struggle is the blessing. Take notice that this is the first time we read of another look at the icon. Now you can the sun rising since we were told of its realise why the ladder is there as the setting more than twenty years before as background to the embrace and Jacob approached Bethel. This new day reconciliation of Jacob and Esau. I think seems to herald a new future and new the icon painter is telling us that it is only possibilities. And the new future is fleshed when Jacob and Esau are reconciled in in reality when Jacob finally meets the this way that the ladder really can span brother, Esau, whom he once deceived so from earth to heaven. It is only when bitterly and has feared so long, to be human beings can see the face of God in greeted with a graciousness which one another that the holy place of God’s surprises him. Those words that Jacob presence can really be manifested here uses in response to Esau’s welcome on earth. perhaps offer the profoundest biblical summary of what reconciliation can and There is a wonderful traditional and should mean. They so often pass humorous Middle Eastern tale which unnoticed – but they are at the heart of expresses this perfectly: this story. “Accept my present from my hand; for truly to see your face is like Two brothers worked together on a family seeing the face of God – since you have farm. One was unmarried and the other received me with such favour.” This married with children. They shared what brother has become a “holy place” for they grew equally as they always did, Jacob, the gateway by which he can meet produce and profit. But one day the single God. Without this brother Jacob is brother said to himself, “You know, it’s not incomplete. Esau seems to have accepted right that we should share the produce the challenge which Jacob was too afraid equally, and the profit too. After all I’m all to accept all those years ago at Bethel. alone, just by myself and my needs are simple. But there is my poor brother with a Jacob’s experiences of the previous dark wife and all those children.” So in the night and this bright morning somehow middle of the night he took a sack of grain mysteriously coalesce – there are Jewish from his bin, crept over the field between traditions that suggest that Jacob’s divine their houses and dumped it in his brother’s assailant at the river crossing was none bin. Meanwhile, unknown to him, his other than the guardian angel of Esau, or brother had the same thought. He said to perhaps the nation of Edom, of which himself, “It is not right that we should Esau was to be the ancestor. We need to share produce and profit equally. After all, read both episodes together. That Jacob I am married and I have my wife to look had to struggle so hard for the blessing, after me and my children for years to and was wounded in the struggle, is a come. But my brother has no one to take rightful reminder of how costly care of his future.” So he too, in the middle reconciliation can – and sometimes should of the night, took to taking a sack of grain – be. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once from his bin and sneaking across the field commented there must be no “cheap to deposit it in his brother’s. And both grace”. Likewise reconciliation if it is to be were puzzled for years as to why their authentic must never be easy or “cheap.” supply did not dwindle. Any who wish legitimately to claim the name “Israel” given to Jacob that night by Well, one night it just so happened that the river must be prepared to continue the they both set out for each other’s house at
77
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The story of Jacob and Esau – Clare Amos the same time. In the dark they bumped And secondly the scene of Jesus’ into each other carrying their sacks. Each encounter between Jesus and the woman was startled, but then it slowly dawned on at the well of Samaria, which you can see them what was happening. They dropped in the bottom left corner and which we had their sacks and embraced one another. read as our New Testament lesson. It is a Suddenly the dark sky lit up and a voice passage of extraordinary richness – which from heaven spoke, “Here at last is the offers such a variety of insights that there place where I will build my Temple. For is no hope of doing it justice in these few where brothers meet in love, there my remaining words. For our purposes here it Presence shall dwell.” is interesting to note that some Christian scholars of Islam compare the relationship The Old Testament will never again of Jews and Samaritans in the time of wrestle quite so powerfully with this topic Jesus, with that of Christians and Muslims of brotherhood. It is as though it is too in our world of today. In both cases we are painful to do so. Human beings cannot speaking of sibling faiths – yet ones bear so much reality. It is easier for Jacob whose very proximity to each other can to travel to Canaan and Esau to Edom, lead to distance and bitter hostility. But rather than live together face to face. But there is one thing that I cannot resist once on a dark night and a sunlit morning pointing out. You will be aware that one of we were given a glimpse that we cannot the features of John’s Gospel is Jesus’ ignore. This blessing will not be taken repeated declaration of himself as “I am”, from us. an apparent claim to the divine name. Some of these “I am” statements include a But before I conclude – those two other predicate such as “I am the bread of life”. parts of the icon that I want to comment But some of the “I am” statements do not, on very briefly: first the scenes of Sarah and these are harder to recognise in the and Isaac on the one side and Hagar and text because they are often half hidden in Ishmael on the other. I suspect that the the translation. The very first “I am” two different scenes are intended to recall statement in John’s Gospel occurs here in the respective positions of those such as this encounter between Jesus and the Christians and Jews, who honour Sarah woman. In verse 26, towards the end of and Isaac as their forbears in the faith, their conversation Jesus proclaims, “I am, and those, such as Muslims who turn to the one who is speaking to you”. Isn’t it Hagar and Ishmael. It is perhaps no extraordinary that the first time Jesus accident that there is such a distance speaks clearly of his real nature, it would between the two scenes: it speaks of the be to a woman, a member of a different sometimes tense and conflicted nature of religious community to his own, and a our mutual relationships. Unlike Esau and person of apparent ill repute? Might that Jacob was there ever reconciliation just possibly be hinting to us that it is between Isaac and Ishmael and their through our engagement with ‘the other’ respective mothers? Well, just perhaps. that we can come to a truer revelation and There is an intriguing line in the birth understanding of who God is, that God oracle of Ishmael in Genesis 16. Normally discloses himself to us in our relationship it is translated as “Ishmael will live in with others? I leave you with that hostility with all his brothers.” But tantalising thought. significantly it is also possible to translate the line as “Ishmael will live alongside his And what might the stories depicted on brothers”. Perhaps the destiny of the this icon mean in our world today? Middle East, Christian-Muslim engagement, even the life of our world, It seems fitting to end with a challenge lies caught between these two offered by Archbishop Elias Chacour, a possibilities. Palestinian Christian, writing from the
78
Current Dialogue 52 (Special Issue) Christian Self-Understanding in the Context July 2012 of Islam The story of Jacob and Esau – Clare Amos
context of one of the most intractable conflicts of our world today:
The true icon is your neighbour, the Clare Amos became Programme human being who has been created in the Coordinator and Executive for image and with the likeness of God. How Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation at beautiful it is when our eyes are the World Council of Churches in transfigured and we see that our September 2011. At the time she neighbour is the icon of God, and that you, delivered this address during the October and you, and I – we are all the icons of 2008 consultation she was Director of God. How serious it is when we hate the Theological Studies in the Anglican image of God, whoever that may be, Communion Office, London, including whether a Jew or a Palestinian. How holding responsibility for inter faith serious it is when we cannot go and say, ‘I dialogue. am sorry about the icon of God who was hurt by my behaviour.’ We all need to be transfigured so we can recognise the glory of God in one another.
79
Forthcoming issues of Current Dialogue
No. 53 – December 2012 will focus on Christian Self-Understanding in the context of Judaism.
No 54 – July 2013 will include further material relating to Christian Self- Understanding in the context of religious plurality. However we also hope to publish some articles specifically linked to the WCC Assembly which will be held in Busan, Korea, in November 2013. The theme of the Assembly is ‘God of life, lead us to justice and peace’. If you wish to propose an article linked to this theme for possible publication in this issue of Current Dialogue, please contact the Programme Coordinator, Clare Amos by 31 October 2012. ([email protected])
P.O. Box 2100 150 rte. de Ferney CH-1211 Geneva 2 Switzerland
Copyright © World Council of Churches 2012. All rights reserved. The views expressed in the articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the WCC.