In Fifteen Years Interreligious Relations Have Changed from a Field Of

HENDRIK M. VROOM INTERRELIGIOUS RELATIONS Incongruent Relations and Rationalities Introduction In this article I will deal with the relations between religious traditions. People often think that the differences between traditions consist in their having different rituals and contradicting one another with respect to beliefs and ethical views on certain points and converging on others. That is not untrue, but the important differences lie on a deeper level, as I will show. Although we need “global” categories like “religion,” we must be aware of the structural differences between traditions. I will show how these differences appear in the views that those traditions have of other religions. These views are not congruent—in the sense that they spring from different paradigms and entail differing valua- tions of reasonableness. First, I will describe the urgency for deepening our understanding of the otherness of other traditions and the danger of an all too- easy acceptance that the “others” are “like us”—which comes down to an en- capsulation of the other and hinders a real understanding and the possibility of truly learning from other traditions. Second, I will describe the incongruent rationalities that follow from three “types” of religions: theistic, acosmic and cosmic. Third, I will make some comments on the incompatibility of the three types. Religio-Cultural Differences Religious pluralism is one of the main cultural “problems” of global society, and neglect of the differences between cultures and religious traditions one of the main causes of serious conflict. These problems are very much apparent in societies in which many people from different cultural backgrounds and religions live together. Analyses of these problems tend, however, to neglect cultural differences. The causes of conflict and criminality are often attributed to socio-economic circumstances, but the fact that cultural conditions are neces- sary for the proper functioning of an economy (Fukuyama 2004: ch. 1) is often overlooked. In our present globalizing world culture religio-cultural differences have become more important than ever. Allow me to give an example. Many Muslims came to Europe in the 1960s and 1970s as so-called guest workers 59 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 16 (2006) 1 and more recently as brides and grooms and refugees from Bosnia, Iran, Af- ghanistan and Sudan. France, Belgium, and the Netherlands have a Muslim population of between 4.5 and 5.5 %—in certain urban areas about one third of the population and sometimes half or a majority of the population in some city districts. These people have to become inculturated in order to be able to get better jobs—or to get jobs at all. Many of them do well, but a great many young people are in danger of becoming part of a lost generation. Some of the highest percentages of all negative statistics are found in certain (not all!) groups of newcomers: middle or high school dropouts, joblessness, a high rate of delinquency and incarceration. These are serious problems. And one primary cause is a matter of culture. For the descendants of neo-liberalism and Marxism it is common to neglect cultural and religious differences. Liberal politicians often think that all people are equal and, if they have jobs and salaries, will be happy, autonomous human be- ings who live just like “we” do. The accepted socialist explanation for conflict is that of social and economic exclusion: if we take care of the poor, provide them with jobs, they will be as happy as we are. Socio-economic explanations have become paradigmatic, as was nicely shown in an interdisciplinary discussion at the Vrije Universiteit. In a project on multiculturalism we invited a professor of criminology to discuss the question of whether the high delinquency rate among the youth of one national group in the Netherlands, Moroccans, had cultural roots or not. He accepted the invitation and wrote, by way of answer, that there were no cultural explanations at all for this. I thought, therefore, that he would indicate poor housing, not enough jobs, and, in general, unfavourable circumstances as causes for this group turning to crime. In his lecture, however, he pointed to their family life and the requirement that women be virgins when they marry, male-female roles in the family, and the less skilled or unskilled jobs held by the fathers who, for various reasons, often lose their jobs, loiter in tearooms and do not provide any role models for their sons. Of course, that is not the case with all Moroccan families, but it is indeed so with many of those where the young men go astray. Because of the honour culture and the purity of young women, the woman’s place is in the home and boys live on the streets without supervision by uncles and/or neighbours. The first generation and many who come to be married came and come from rather remote rural areas in their native countries and are not used to big cities—neither in Moroc- co or Turkey nor in Western Europe. Thus, our very well qualified criminolo- gist explained—contradicting his own claim—that religio-cultural circumstances are the main cause of the delinquency of these youths. I will supplement this by some observations of my own. Their homes are all well supplied with equipment to help them receive television broadcasts from Morocco, Egypt, Sudan, Turkey or wherever. Their homes—and streets—are, 60 INCONGRUENT RELATIONS AND RATIONALITIES in a cultural sense, Moroccan, and the European language of the country in which they live is, for a great many people on the lower end of the education scale, foreign. That is the reason why they have unskilled jobs and why their children will not be educated well enough either. Girls, however, are better educated. Young women and their mothers are much more aware that education is the road to improving their situation. This example is taken from Western Europe, but it is typical for a great many urban areas in other parts of world. People live in areas in which cultural, ethnic and religious identities can easily become sources of conflict. Ethnicity and religion play a larger role in the world than they have in the recent past. This has been explained by the fact that nations have become less important. National governments—except, perhaps, in the USA—have less independent power than they did in the twentieth century. The world economy has made wealth more and more a common issue; businesses have to compete internationally. For various reasons one hundred million people are migrants and refugees. Therefore, nations and national bor- ders are less important for human identity. People have to find new groups with which they can identify themselves. This is what ethnic and religious groups offer. Where religious and ethnic identities merge conflicts between groups can easily occur (Carino 2005: 77; Schäfer 2005: 93f.). Therefore, it is urgent that we have a clear view of the relations between different cultures and religious traditions. Incongruent Rationalities I will argue that not all views that religions have of other religions agree with the views that these religions have of themselves. On the contrary, some views are incongruent, as I will show in this paper. Because they are incongruent, it is difficult to see oneself through the eyes of the truly other. We project our way of perceiving others on to those others. We know that they are different from us, but in a way they are like us. We think that they will accept or reject us for the same reasons that we accept or reject them. How could we do otherwise? On the basis of our view of life we infer how other people see us—as if they are simply more examples of our religio-cultural approach. It is precisely this projection of our categories in our understanding of others that hinders a real encounter and can cause conflict. We should learn to understand the paradigms of other traditions, which can differ considerably. Professor Takada of Kyoto states it pointedly: “I am shocked by the idea of revelation” (Takada 2006: 21f.). It does not fit into his Buddhist view. He cannot understand it because it has no place in his paradigm. We can press this point a bit. Takada is a Pure Land Buddhist. Most Westerners who see a statue of the Buddha or perhaps the enormous statue of the Great Buddha of Kamakura near Tokyo will say that Buddhists, just like Christians and Muslims, have a God, because they think that the Buddha is a kind of God. But he is not. In fact, we can climb this statue just like we do the Statue of Liberty in New York. Could we imagine 61 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 16 (2006) 1 climbing a statue of Christ in Rome or one of Mohammed in Mecca? Of course, there are commonalities between the grace of God in Christianity and the boddhisatvas that help one to reach the Pure Land, but the Buddha is neither the Creator nor the Lord of heaven and earth. I will simplify the discussion somewhat and reduce the wide variety of religious traditions to three types and sketch different paradigms for theologies of religions (cf. my 2006: chs. 6ff.). Before doing so, we have to remember, first, that such a typology does not mean that all Hindus or all Muslims belong only to one of these types. Second, there are profound differences within each type as well. Nevertheless, these three types can help clarify different approaches to the “others.” I am basing this on earlier studies and especially on a project un- dertaken with some colleagues, published as Religions View Religions, in which scholars from various religions and parts of the world describe how they view other traditions.

Load more