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Religion and Politics

What is the Point of Interfaith Dialogue?

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There are people in the world who will take extreme umbrage at this question. There are others who will laugh. This question is not intended to evoke either response. This question is absolutely real: Why engage in interfaith dialogue? 

A report of a recent gathering at the University of Chicago entitled “Coming Together 6” led me to this question, because the author asked how people with multiple spiritual and religious identities participate in interfaith dialogue. It was the first time I had ever considered the possibility that someone might choose not to choose a faith at all – that someone might choose to attempt to glue together a number of different religious or spiritual worldviews. Choosing whom to serve has always appeared to be a rather exclusive decision because as Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters.” It appears that there are a number of people who try to do exactly that. 

That choice appears at first glance to be an irreconcilable contradiction. How can someone, for example, be Christian and Muslim and pagan all at once? Yet the author of the report quotes a friend who is studying in the Master of Divinity program at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Her friend says, “I identify with whatever moves me. Sometimes that means Islam, sometimes that means Christianity or Buddhism. Sometimes it’s not even a religion. Wherever I find something that impacts me deeply, makes me wonder about my own identity, that’s spiritual to me. I’m looking for truth where I can find it, via the Vedas or a physics book. And I claim that openness, that exploratory urge, the seeking for “the more,” as my spirituality.” After reading this statement several times, it is still difficult to imagine what this person means by faith when engaging in interfaith dialogue.

The key word may actually be not faith but identity. This man starts talking about religious pluralism (the focus term in Jem Jabbia’s report) by saying “I identify with whatever moves me.” This response is not the way converts to Christianity, for example, describe their experience. The teaching of Christianity is, first of all, that Christ calls people to confession and forgiveness of sin through Christ, and then if people receive Christ and his forgiveness, the ensuing relationship is exclusive. It isn’t about choosing a club to belong to, and wearing those colors on the club meeting day while being free to belong to other such clubs and to wear the colors of other clubs on other days. The same exclusivity applies to Islam. The idea of a spiritual decision as the recognition of identity does not ring true for Christianity or Islam, the first two religions or “faiths” named in the friend’s response.

The notion of loyalty based on identity is more commonly expressed in politics. During the recent presidential campaign, two women were talking about the candidates, and one said to the other, “I can’t identify with some rich guy who doesn’t live on a budget like I do.” Some of the political announcements were testimonials by people who made comments to the effect that they found they could identify with some candidate because of the candidate’s views on a topic that was important to the voter. In other words, the voter appeared to be choosing the candidate most like himself. The identity mentality of voters might well explain the degree to which candidates sometimes contorted themselves in relation to certain subjects; they may have been trying to express identity rather than commitments.

Is it easier now to answer the question: What is the point of interfaith dialogue? If people connect with a faith, which in the context of the term interfaith dialogue is more commonly called a religion, on the basis of the way they identify with it, then it appears as if the religions are all in a campaign for the favor of people. If a religion wants to grow in numbers of adherents, then it would need to find ways to express its identity with a lot of people. In fact, it might need to find identity with many different views, just a politicians campaigning for office seem to think must be done. It is a very different way of looking at religion. If Jem Jebbia speaks for the 120 participants at Coming Together 6, then those people are not looking for someone or something to serve. What, then, are they talking about?

The report listed some organizational questions that came up. That is understandable. Any conversation needs ground rules, even if they are more or less assumed. The easiest way for a conversation to be transformed into combat is for the parties to operate according to different rules. This sort of questions calls forth images of navel staring, but it is more or less necessary.

There were a few meatier issues:

  • What does it mean to be spiritual and not religious? Are these concepts mutually exclusive?
  • How do I represent my own faith at the table when engaging in interfaith dialogue?
  • What about those of us who inhabit multiple spiritual and religious identities?

It is fairly easy to imagine the group discussing the first two topics, although neither question will get to the answer of the title question: What is the point? The third question brings up an issue that is likely not very familiar to many people. How many people “inhabit multiple spiritual and religious identities?” What does that even mean? 

The story of the Israelite escape from Egypt and from slavery, the trek through the wilderness, and the subsequent invasion of the Promised Land under God’s leadership is replete with moments when they were expected to make choices. After they had made some headway in conquering the inhabitants that had been in residence in the Promised Land, Joshua called them to Shechem where he said, “Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15) There is plenty of evidence that even though the people had been led through the wilderness by the Lord, their loyalties to their Provider and Protector were not unwavering. Joshua, however, called them to make a choice. He said they could serve whomever they chose, but they could not serve all the different gods that might appeal to them. The relationship with God Almighty who had taken them out of Egypt was an exclusive relationship, just like marriage. In fact, in other places in the Bible, the relationship between God and his people is precisely and exquisitely described using the model of the relationship between a man and a woman – a marriage, an exclusive relationship.

Islam calls people to the same sort of exclusivity. In fact, in Islam-dominated countries, the very idea of someone following two religions, of which one is Islam, would be considered blasphemous. In such countries, nobody is permitted to convert away from Islam, either. Being a Muslim is not about finding a god with whom a person can identify. It is about serving one god.

There are religions in the world that have no barriers to pluralism. Buddhism is often the religion people turn to as a model for tolerance and open-mindedness, but then Buddhism does not actually claim to be a religion and does not actually worship a god. Religions that worship a pantheon of gods are not usually exclusive, either, but the gods want what they want and are usually reputed to take terrible vengeance if they are offended. Where do people pick up the idea that it is their job to approve the religions that they identify with rather than that religion involves obedience and transformation?

It may actually be a product of cultural changes associated with rising secularism. Among the attendees at Coming Together 6 were people who self-identified as agnostic, seeking, or even none. In a traditional view of religions and conversations among people of faith, it would look peculiar to include participants with no connection to any religion. However, in the context of the interfaith dialogue at Coming Together 6, nobody seemed to think it odd. Does any of this information answer the question: What is the point of interfaith dialogue?

This gathering is likely a sign of things to come, maybe even a sign of things that have already come, things that have slipped into the culture while Christians were not looking. It appears that some people have scrapped the whole idea of religious faith as an expression of adherence and obedience to someone greater than self. The idea of becoming subject to transformation by that higher power is even less palatable. Why would anyone who chose his or her faith because he could identify with it or simply because it moved him at the moment ever let go of himself in favor of being transformed?

Many other questions come to mind after reading about Coming Together 6.

  • What is a faithful and loving Christian response to someone who says, “I can’t identify with a religion where somebody is brutally executed.”
  • Or this, “I can’t identify with a religion that tries to invade my body and tell me what I can do with it.” How do Christians respond? 
  • What is the Christian message to people who are trying to glue Buddhism and Cherokee shamanic practices into a personal spirituality? 
  • Is there really a difference between spiritual and religious?
  • Is there really a difference between Christianity and all other religions or faiths?
  • Is it possible for someone to be a Christian as a consequence of identifying with Christianity?
  • What might be the difference between identifying with a religion and living by a religion?

What do you think?

Is it an Arab spring or a Christian winter? Read Living on Tilt the newspaper

 

 

Faith Practice, the Exercise

 

Jesus from the Deesis Mosaic
Jesus from the Deesis Mosaic (Photo credit: jakebouma)

The teachings of Jesus are all about love. In fact, when we read those teachings closely, we discover that the teachings of Jesus are about transformation. When we get close to Jesus and spend time listening to him, we open ourselves to become different. When the Holy Spirit dwells within a person, that person simply cannot continue to be like everyone else.

Today’s daily news is filled with rhetoric about the way people relate to each other. If I read only the specific spoken words, I would conclude that all the people involved are trying very hard to get along with each other. Each party to the conflict simply feels the need to point out some little failing in the words the other person is using. Simply using better words would clear everything up in a flash.

NOT!

Politically correct language is not about loving anyone. The rules for speaking politically correct language do not transform anybody, and abiding by those rules will not produce a culture where people love or even respect one another. The best possible outcome from mandating correct speech is tolerance. If you have ever dealt with a sibling you could barely tolerate, you could testify to the fact that tolerance is not love.

Still, the secular culture of our day holds the usage of correct speech in high regard. The level of regard is expressed by those who not only watch what specific approved or disapproved words are spoken, but they also peer beyond the specific words and recognize when otherwise innocuous words have become code for forbidden words. I don’t need to elaborate on this image. You hear it every day from commentators and politicians and the spokespersons for politicians.

The problem with policing speech is that while people can be legislated to use or to avoid specific words with some degree of success, there is no corresponding success in changing attitudes. The underlying problems remain, and the problems are not all in the hearts of those who use what is considered to be offensive speech. For every person who expresses a heart illness that is manifest in speech that assaults someone, there is someone who cannot forgive some past offense, and that person is on high alert to find the slightest remnant or suggestion that the offense is approved by any speaker. Someone who takes offense at people who have done nothing to offend, finding hate speech and code words everywhere, has a serious problem with the inability to forgive. The mechanism of managing verbiage can never heal an unforgiving heart. That heart must be transformed by love, and that kind of change can only be made by the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to achieve transformation of the culture by policing the speech of the people.

It is hard to imagine how such behavior arose in a nation whose regard for the freedom of speech given to every human being by God himself at the moment of creation is enshrined in the First Amendment to our Constitution. As often happens, it arose in response to very real wrongdoing, but effects of the perpetration of evil have been exacerbated by the effects of the inability of people to forgive, even when the old wrong no longer even exists. This problem mirrors the behavior of the Pharisees in Jesus’ time, and when we look at what Jesus thought about the Pharisees, we can see clearly why political correctness will never have the desired effect. Jesus criticized the Pharisees for washing the outside of a cup and ignoring the garbage inside. He accused the Pharisees of being like mausoleums – ornate and beautiful on the outside, despite being full of rotting corpses and the bones of the dead.

The solution to a culture where people actually do get along, where people respect one another and even love one another, is not political correctness. The solution is in the teaching of Jesus. Jesus said that love is the greatest commandment of all. We should love God above all, and love our neighbors as ourselves. He said that even if a neighbor became an enemy, we should love that neighbor anyway, and even pray for that neighbor. Furthermore, if that neighbor needed anything from us, Jesus said we should give it. We should not withhold ourselves or anything we have from that enemy neighbor while it lies in our power to make the situation better. When people are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit to live the law of love, then this culture will be transformed as well.

When I point out that political correctness will not solve attitude problems, I do not suggest that we should all abandon good manners and polite consideration for others in our words. I simply mean that good police work never ends crime. Criticizing or even punishing people for unacceptable speech does not really do anything for the issue that lies beneath the words. There is only one way to transform the human heart. That heart must be open to the Holy Spirit.

How does this work?

16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. John 3:16-17