Loving Your Neighbor
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Loving your neighbor Encouraging constructive interfaith engagement – A Reader Loving your neighbor Encouraging constructive interfaith engagement – A Reader © 2020 The Lutheran World Federation This work, including all of its parts, is protected by copyright. Any use beyond the strict limits of copyright law without permission is strictly prohibited and punishable by law. Cover photo: Participants in an interfaith training workshop for youth in Medan, jointly organized by the LWF and the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies. Photo: A. Yaqin Design and layout: The Lutheran World Federation The Lutheran World Federation – A Communion of Churches 150, route de Ferney, PO Box 2100 CH-1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland Contents Preface .............................................................................................................5 Eva Christina Nilsson Introduction ......................................................................................................7 Sivin Kit The Challenge of Religious Pluralism to Christian Theological Reflection [1988] ............................................................................................15 J. Paul Rajashekar Some Theological Issues Between Muslims and Christians [1988] ...................23 Olaf Schumann The Theological Challenges of the Encounter Between Christianity and Other Religions in Europe [1995] ............................................................................. 33 Reinhart Hummel The Theological Challenges of the Encounter Between Christianity and Other Faiths in Europe [1995] .................................................................................. 43 Hans Ucko Christian Theology and Mission in the Midst of Many Theologies and Missions [1997] ...................................................................................... 53 Israel Selvanayagam A Response to Christian Theology and Mission in the Midst of Many Theologies and Missions [1997] .........................................................65 Péri Rasolondraibe Anti-Judaism – A Problem for New Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Historical Perspective [2003] ....................................................69 Wolfgang Kraus Spirits: The Biblical View [2005] ......................................................................85 Monica J. Melanchthon The Discourse at the Margins: A Feminist Approach to Religious Plurality [2008].............................................................................97 Helene Egnell 3 Lutheran Theology Between Exclusivism and Openness: Reconsidering the Classical Lutheran Distinctions Between “Creation” and “Salvation” [2016] ....103 Notto R. Thelle On the Use of Religion by Right-Wing Israeli and Christian Groups [2019] .......115 Munther Isaac Disarm the Hearts and Hands: Words matter! Overcoming Fear with Faith [2019] ................................................................123 Martin Junge Bibliography ..................................................................................................127 Authors .......................................................................................................129 Preface Most churches today live in multi-faith contexts. Societies traditionally perceived as homogenous increasingly find themselves becoming a mix of faith and non-faith traditions. Different understandings and faith traditions have gained new contexts either in close or far away geographical settings, especially in a time when more than 70 million people around the world are forcibly displaced. On the other hand, people have always been moving, and as new faith traditions find a home in new contexts, the search for cooperation and peaceful co-existence becomes inevitable. This is why interfaith engagement and peace building have been important for The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) for a long time. The focus is even more urgent for the communion of churches in view of the massive movement of people from their homes because of conflict, disaster and climate change. The late Krister Stendahl, Lutheran bishop of the diocese of Stockholm, Swe- den, and dean of Harvard Divinity School, formulated three guiding principles for interfaith encounters, which I paraphrase below: • Let the Other define him/herself. It is very often that we are influenced by prejudices and what we think the other is. • Do not compare the best in your own tradition with the worst in the Other’s tradition. It is always important to be aware of what we compare • Find something with the Other that you really envy. No tradition has the full- ness; all traditions have something to contribute.1 These guiding principles are both simple and useful. Different constructive tools are needed in our search for peaceful communities where people of different faiths can enrich each other. In our shared global home, we have to search for the common good of hu- manity. While some are building walls that separate people, this will not work in the long run. As human beings, we are mutually interdependent. When one part suffers, all suffer. Therefore, as Christians, we need to see the image of God in every person. People of faith and non-faith can recognize each other’s human dignity. Sometimes it is easy. Sometimes it brings many challenges. The Lutheran tradition emphasizes the search for dialogue, understanding, and common responsibility in this world. Loving your neighbor – Encouraging constructive interfaith engagement – A Reader shares insights from previous years. Nevertheless, the work does not stop now. These are imperatives for ongoing reflection and interfaith praxis. 1 “Introduction”, Offerings of Interfaith Dialogue (Massachusetts: Harvard College, 2012), 5. 5 Loving your neighbor Through its Department for Theology, Mission and Justice, the LWF is com- mitted to continue supporting the member churches in their life and witness in multi-faith contexts. There is no one model or straightforward answer to the many emerging questions. It remains an open invitation for us to see each other as neighbors, as we encounter, get to know and understand each other. Eva Christina Nilsson Director, Department for Theology, Mission and Justice 6 Introduction Sivin Kit We believe that, in our troubled world, religion and religious organizations can be an active force for peace, justice, and reconciliation — a source of solutions rather than a source of conflict.1 The first week of February in 2020 marks the 10th anniversary of the World Inter- faith Harmony Week. The United Nations proclaimed the annual event as a way to promote harmony between all people regardless of their faith. The LWF declared its support toward this initiative in 2011, when the Council called upon all the member churches to join in observing the event. Since then, various churches have participated in local and regional activities that highlight common values shared by humanity, importance of interreligious dialogue and mutual understanding. At regional level, gatherings such as the 2019 Asia Church Leadership Confer- ence highlighted how much interfaith and peace are closely related to each other. The Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa, or PROCMURA, recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of its work, which continues to have significant impact in many countries on the continent. In the global north, the initiative named “A World of Neighbors”, recently initiated by the Church of Sweden, seeks to connect interfaith praxis with people on the move in a social-political climate where voices of inhospitality are becoming increasingly loud. However, in spite of the significant contributions mentioned above and many others around the world, at times interfaith matters appear to be marginal or only mentioned in a reactionary manner — because we are forced to confront the new visibility or influence of other, religious communities (usually perceived as a problematic issue). Although there has been much theological debate in the field of interreligious dialogue, more could still be done to ensure the dialogue of theological exchange and the dialogue of life, as well as collaborative action, do not remain isolated from each other. Dialogue and diapraxis with people of other faiths mutually strengthen the participants in their own faith convictions. The World Interfaith Harmony Week anniversary is an opportunity to revisit our past reflections on interfaith relations and offer constructive ways forward. After reviewing the theological trajectories of study processes on interfaith relations in the Lutheran communion, Simone Sinn reminds us of the following: There is a temptation to fortify religion by immunizing it against inward and outward challenges. These attempts to protect religion may inadvertently turn into ideologizing 1 “Lutheran World Federation Endorsement of World Interfaith Harmony Week”, Letter to His Majesty King Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, 11 July 2011. 7 Loving your neighbor it. In order for religious plurality not to turn into destructive conflicts, interreligious encounter and engagement is needed, as well as theological critique.2 The purpose of this reader is to retrieve insights from study processes in the Lu- theran communion. The articles are chosen to highlight themes and thinking to stimulate fresh engagement that can guard Christians from any attempt to ‘immunize’ ourselves ‘“against inward and outward challenges.” The reader provides a historical and geographical sampling around various topics from the 1980s until