Christian-Muslim Dialogue Part 10

The Mission of Jesus as "Paying Homage"
In his article, “Paying Homage: Being Christian in a World of Many Faiths,” Bruce Sanguin describes “two distinctive religious pilgrimages:”[1] one is a model for what Eboo Patel describes as Totalitarianism and the other is an example of Pluralism. In the first instance he speaks of a “modern pilgrimage of thousands of American Southern Baptists to the biblical land of Persia, now known as Iraq, to convert the heathen Muslims”[2] to Christianity; wherein, he says, “the current occupation of Iraq” is seen as “a unique opportunity to win the souls of the Iraqi people for Christ.”[3] However, in the other case, Sanguin describes an “ancient visit” which was led by Persian astrologers, the ‘wise men,’ to pay homage to the Christ child.” Both “represent two radically different models of faith and two different notions of how to get along with people who” inhabit a faith tradition which is “different [than] one’s own.”

            In the first case, Sanguin is right to argue that “The primary purpose of being a Christian is to convert other people” to Christianity and “The Muslim people quite naturally understand this for what it is—a holy war.”[4] In this form of mission, “the Mission of the Disciples,”[5] all efforts are made to demonize the religion of the religious other and to slander all that is held sacred to the opposing tradition. Nothing is to be gained by the exchange except another notch in the crusaders belt. While this type of missionary mentality is quite prevalent throughout the Christian world, one such case made local news this summer when a Sprinfield, TN pastor named Bob Old sought to stage a Quran burning in solidarity with an internationally recognized Florida pastor who advertised plans to torch a pile of holy Qurans on the anniversary of 911. In characteristic fashion, when asked what was motivating him to perform such an act he replied, that Muslims “worship a false god [,] have a false text [and] a false prophet.”[6] Likewise, when asked if it could rightly be perceived as an act of hate, he replied, “How can it be an act of hate when what I am doing is trying to save their souls?”[7]

            Returning once again to Sanguin’s second case, he argues that the Magi in Matthew’s gospel “have the wisdom to realize that the Holy One is not restricted to revealing [God’s self] to only their people;”[8] for, “they go to Israel for a single purpose, to pay homage.”[9] Through this model, Sanguin rightly challenges our understanding of mission and asks, “What would it mean for Christians to make the long journey across strange cultural and religious landscapes bearing only gifts of respect for all that is sacred in other traditions?”[10] Added to this, he points out a very important detail in the story of the Magi. The text tells that upon the conclusion of their visit, which involved no proselytization either way, they ‘“returned home by another road’ […] suggesting that their encounter with the sacred center of another religion had a transformative effect on them.”[11] Furthermore, he says, “they went home” but they returned there through a different route because “they [had] allowed themselves to be influenced by the experience.”

 Sanguin offers us a powerful image for the way in which Christian mission, as “the Mission of Jesus,” looks more like “paying homage” rather than proselytization. As such, he rightly concludes that “It’s time the religions of the world, including our own, got over having to convert everyone to our belief system.”[12] Reconnecting this to the dual commandment and the call to love our Muslim neighbor as ourselves, John Thatamanil insists that, “In the space between my neighbor and me, something like affection, respect, and admiration begins to grow.”[13] What is more, he beautifully argues that, “If by grace what transpires amounts genuinely to love, we will soon find that we cannot authentically claim to love our neighbors despite their deepest convictions;”[14] indeed, he continues, “we will find it difficult to bypass the central experiences, practices, and insights that animate and sustain persons of other faiths […] Should we embrace the calling to love our neighbors, we will find ourselves vulnerable to what is healing and life-giving in their religious traditions.”[15]

[1] Michael Schwartzentruber, (edtr.), The Emerging Christian Way; Thoughts Stories, and Wisdom for a Faith of Transformation, (Canada: Copperhouse, 2006), 137.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid, 137-138.

[4] Ibid.

[5] See past post: “Christian-Muslim Dialogue Part 5”

[6] Kim Gebbia, “Springfield Pastor Plans to Burn Quran,” (http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=13129871&v_t=keyword_rollover, September, 9^th 2010).

[7] Schwartzentruber, 139.

[8] Schwartzentruber, 138.

[9] 139.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] John J. Thatamanil, The Immanent Divine; God Creation, and the Human Predicament (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006) xii.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

---

Christian-Muslim Dialogue Part 9

Jesus’ Call to Christian Discipleship a Call to Christian Identity?  

I recently had lunch with the minister who pastors the church I grew up in. We sat down to dialogue about the work we are doing in the community. In contrast to my own efforts, over the past year he has been steering his congregation toward a vision of Islam that defines the tradition and all who inhabit it as an irredeemable danger to Christians, religious freedom, and America herself. In addition, he has invited anti-Muslim groups into his church to hold workshops and conferences that spread this message to the outlying community. In step with Bill French, founder of the for-profit Center for the Study of Political Islam, my old pastor insists that as an oppressive political force that has been secretly infiltrating seats of power in America, Islam seeks to enslave all non-Muslims.[1]

For those like him, the battle lines have been clearly drawn as a war between Christianity (read America) and Islam. He admits, “I have no problem with Buddhism or Judaism or any other religion, and three or four years ago, I would do the Christian thing and support the Muslim religion’s right to practice freely in America. But we can no longer afford to let this happen.” While I applaud his seeming tolerance toward non-Muslim religious others (they are less of a numerical threat to the supremacy of Christianity), Im not sure that supporting our Muslim neighbor’s efforts to seek the divine should have anything to do with our legal responsibility to do so, let alone serve to confirm or define our identity as Christians…or Americans. I find it interesting that this pastor believes that such support is a sign of one’s identity as a member of the Christian Tradition. But is it, and if so, why would he willingly refuse to perform? There are a great many directions I could take this, but I will try to limit myself.

Expounding on my analysis of the Mission of Jesus, I feel it imperative that we explore in greater depth Jesus’ criteria for discipleship if we are to respond to the identity question. Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. [2] Concerning this command, Joanna Dewey argues that the “modern Western”[3] reader is prone to misinterpret Jesus’ words as commanding Christians to “wipe out any sense of self,”[4] and in so doing, sacrifice her/his unique identity. However, to do so, she insists, is to adopt both “a fundamental misreading of the Gospel,”[5] as well as an ill appropriated understanding of Christian discipleship in the context of the in-breaking of God’s Reign of Radical Kenotic Love. Christians are to suppress the ego-centered self so that the God-centered self might take priority. John the Baptist illustrates this dynamic beautifully when he says, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”[6]

Still more importantly, concerning Jesus’ call for disciples to ‘“deny themselves,’” Dewey argues rightly that while “today many […] tend to read it as denial of the individual self,”[7] the Markan audience, however, would have understood “the basic unit of society […] not [as] the individual person [,] but the multigenerational kinship group.”[8] In this way, one is a true disciple if one is willing, as Dewey points out, to leave ‘“house or brothers or sisters or a mother or a father or children or fields for’”[9] the Reign of Radical Kenotic Love.

Indeed, to be crucified with Christ,[10] does not mean “to wipe out any sense of self,”[11] as is Dewey’s concern, but to forgo one’s ego-centered self interests for the ultimate benefit of the whole. Furthermore, it is my contention that the call to “renounce one’s kinship group,”[12] as Dewey has put it, is tantamount to forsaking the human tendency towards tribalism of any sort. This is of particular import to the early Jesus movement around the issues of religion, race, gender, and class: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”[13] John Thatamanil labels all such identity distinctions as “marked identities” and he defines them as “sight[s] of conflict and power.”[14] In contrast, “An unmarked identity is of no particular significance for the way we organize our lives.”[15] He goes on to explain that “marked identities” can become “fraught identities”[16] if and when they begin to function for societal structures as a means by which to rate certain identities as being essentially better than others. For example, race has long functioned as a marked identity in America, because those in the social power majority deemed racial identities characterized by greater levels of melanin content to be “fraught identities.”  

In much the same way, Thatamanil argues that “Religious identities have become a terrain of battle in our time, especially […] since 911.”[17] As a result, “where you can build your house of worship or not is now a fraught issue.”[18] In particular, “if your community bears the brand Muslim, now the possibilities for where you can do so have become limited.”[19] In the context of our shared life together, religious peoples should be made to feel enhanced by the presence of the religious other, which demands that we resist the impulse to create uniformity whenever we encounter identities that society has branded marked. For this reason, Thatamanil is right to argue that,

The really deep categories that should shape our Christian identities should be things like child of God and neighbor […] stranger, [and] immigrant. [And consequently] the practices that should shape our life are hospitality and love of neighbor. We imagine a community where all are gathered. [One] that mirrors our hope for the kingdom of God, a peaceable community where difference is celebrated but never made into a fetish that so deeply marks who we think we are that it prevents us from forming community with people who bear other identities—very different identities. Something about the Christian life is supposed to relativize [but] not erase the power of identities that the world creates and would have us govern our lives. Christians are supposed to be people who are deeply suspicious by the way the world divides us against each other.[20]        

One’s commitment to Christian discipleship is thus undergirded by the practice of radical kenotic love for one’s neighbor. In this way, love is the identity with which we should concern ourselves most. As Thatamanil contends, the self-emptying nature of the Christian life is itself, “already something that undercuts identity.”[21] Jesus teaches us to let love be the marker that guides us into right relationship with our neighbors, Christian and non-Christian. And so, I maintain that Jesus sought to nurture the formation of religious identities that would bring individuals closer to their religious neighbors, not create greater separation from them. Thataminal agrees when he says, “the trajectory of the Christian life requires us to move toward our neighbor in love in order to move towards God in holiness.”[22] Additionally, he so plainly and yet so profoundly states, “The point of the Christian life is not to be Christian,”[23]  but to move into the divine life.

---

[1] The Sothern Poverty Law Center has an interesting article on Anti-Muslim leaders in Middle Tennessee. http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/summer/the-anti-muslim-inner-circle

[2] Mark 8.34

[3] Joanna Dewey, “‘Let Them Renounce Themselves and Take Up their Cross’: A Feminist Reading of Mark 8.34 in Mark’s Social and Narrative World,” (FCNT), 23.

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] John 3.30

[7] 33

[8] Ibid

[9] Mark 10.29

[10] “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2.20).

[11] 23

[12] 34

[13] Galatians 3.28

[14] John Thatamanil, “Living Peacefully in a Multi-Religious World”, (St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, Nashville TN, Four Week Series. November, 7, 14, 21, and December 5). 

[15] Ibid

[16] Ibid

[17] Ibid

[18] Ibid

[19] Ibid

[20] Ibid

[21] Ibid

[22] Ibid

[23] Ibid

Christian-Muslim Dialogue Part 8

             Expounding on the Mission of Jesus through the Great Commandment  

             Some form of the dual love commandment can be found within every major religious tradition and this includes Islam. As we turn to the Christian articulation of the dual commandment we ask ourselves what it means to love our Muslim neighbors. However, before we do, let us consider first a teaching that is as central to Christianity. Following his summary of ethical teachings known in Luke as the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus concludes by extending the definition of neighborly love to include one’s enemies: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.”[1] Do not simply love those that love you or do good to those who do good to you, but “love your enemies” by doing them good. Here Jesus challenges believers to love their enemies, for in loving one’s enemy, both real and perceived, they will no longer be enemies. What is more, as Martin Accad rightly contends, “Jesus’ definition of ‘neighbor’ extends to one’s enemies because considering everyone a neighbor precludes anyone’s becoming an enemy!”[2]

            Before Luke moves to extend the definition of neighbor to include the religious other, it would seem that the author assumes that, where this practice has not been established in his community, it is because the religious other is characterized as an enemy. Here Jesus insists that even if this is the case believers must, as Accad concludes, “practice love towards persons whom history and social conventions have identified as […] enemies”[3] In the case of Christian believers in Middle Tennessee, the contextual circumstances would have them identify their Muslim neighbors as their conventional enemy, and yet, Jesus calls for said believers to “do them good” in the spirit of Christian love.

            Where this interpretation might fall short is that it could lend support to the notion that Islam is indeed an enemy of Christianity; though as I have mentioned above, I do not believe this to be the case. However, when challenging an ideology that assumes that this is a given reality, I believe that Jesus’ call to love them anyway effectively problemetizes the notion that Christian believers are permitted to do the Muslim community ill on the grounds that they are an enemy. It appropriately sidesteps the debate over whether or not Muslims are friend or foe and in so doing effectively undermines the ideology that perpetuates hostility towards the religious other.           

With our definition of “neighbor” already taking definitive shape, we move now to the Great Commandment, wherein the Gospel of Mark’s account opens with a scribe asking Jesus which of God’s commandments is the most important. Jesus responds with the recital of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4), a traditional prayer that was foundational to the upbringing of any devout first century Palestinian Jew, saying: “The first is, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'”[4]  Jesus continues his response by providing another, seemingly distinct commandment, ‘“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.” When the scribe hears this he concedes that Jesus has answered satisfactorily; indeed the love of neighbor is the greatest demonstration of love to God, even above the priestly duties of presenting “burnt offerings and sacrifices"[5] to God. Jesus replies, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God (read: Reign of Radical Kenotic Love)."[6] Prioritizing religious allegiance for the sake of religious allegiance is transcended when one is moved to love neighbor as a demonstration of one’s love for God.

It is my contention that “the Great Commandment” describes love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self to be equally important objectives; what is more, I deduce that love for God is profoundly and mystically connected to love for one’s neighbor as one’s self. Indeed, I maintain that these acts are one and the same. When I love my neighbor as myself, I am loving God. Love is God and “God is Love.” (see note >) [7] John Thatamanil adds something important to the way I understand this dynamic when he says, “We are made for the mystery of divinity and the truest thing we can say about that mystery is to name it love—all other words fall short.”[8] It is this sacred synergy (συνεργός) that I believe gets to the heart of both the Great Commandment and the Gospel message and Mission of Jesus.

            In the case of both Matthew and Mark, Jesus responds to questioning with the Great Commandment. However, in Luke’s presentation Jesus responds to the religious authority’s question with a question and it is the religious authority (the lawyer) who delivers the Great Commandment. Indeed, when the layer asks Jesus, ‘“What must I do to inherit eternal life,’”[9] Jesus tests him by asking what the tradition teaches. It is inquirer now who answers with the recital of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4). To this Jesus reacts affirmatively saying that the inquirer has “given the right answer” and he goes on to challenge him to follow through saying, “do this, and you will live.”[10] The inquirer already knows what he must do because it is so central to the practice of his faith tradition.

            I believe that this feature is essential to Luke’s presentation of Jesus’ message of love for neighbor, which is only brought to completion when it includes the religious other (see note >).[11] What is more, according to the Gospel of Luke, just after Jesus delivers the dual commandment, the text says that the individual, “wanting to justify himself [asks] Jesus, ‘[…] who is my neighbor?’”[12] Assuming to already know the answer, this inquirer seeks to demonstrate his righteousness; however, Jesus provides an unexpected response when he offers a parable wherein the morel exemplar, the one who is justified, turns out to be a Samaritan. As such, I contend that this parable seeks to challenge the cultural stereotypes of Jesus’ day and to provoke the hearer to think twice about her/his own criteria for judging others. Not unlike Jesus’ other parables, we have a scenario that plays out contrary to the way the hearer would expect; complete with actors that refuse to be pigeonholed to fit their social profile.

Thus, in this story the Samaritan (the religious “other”) is cast as the “good neighbor,” whereas one would expect Jesus to have cast the wounded Jew on the side of the road as a wounded Samaritan, and the “good neighbor” as a merciful Jew who understood what it meant to ‘love one’s neighbor as one’s self.’ Instead Jesus seems to be challenging the members of his faith tradition to look beyond the boundaries of Judaism; not just to signal that the neighbor that one should ‘love as one’s self’ is the religious “other,” or to demonstrate that one doesn’t have to be Jewish (or Christian!) to be a “good neighbor,” but most importantly, Jesus insists that there are examples of individuals demonstrating incredible acts of love for God and neighbor outside of one’s religious tradition, which are worthy of our recognition and emulation. Indeed, I have something to learn from those who inhabit other faith traditions that can and will help me practice my own tradition more faithfully!!!

---

[1] Luke 6:27

[2] Mirsolav Volf, Ghazi bin Muhammad, Melissa Yarrington, (editors), A Common Word; Muslims and Christians on Loving God and Neighbor, (Michigan/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2010), 158.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Mark 12:28-34

[5] Mark 12.33

[6] Mark 12.34

[7] The following passage from 1John conveys this dynamic as well: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love…No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them…Those that say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also” (1John 4.7-8, 12, 16, 20-21).  

[8] Anonymous.

[9] Luke 10:26

[10] Luke 10:28

[11] Though I have offered believers an interpretation of Luke’s Parable of the Good Samaritan, which warns them not to be like the lawyer who asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29), I would like to lift up a positive narrative figure that believers should be encouraged to imitate. Through the story of the blessing of the Faithful Centurion, Luke offers an example of mutual interreligious understanding and hospitality that demonstrates the kind of love for one’s neighbor that the Parable of the Good Samaritan strives to teach. As the story goes, there is a Centurion officer with a sick servant living in Capernaum. When he hears that Jesus has come to Capernaum the Centurion sends some of the local Jewish elders to ask Jesus to come to his home and heal his servant. In their appeal to Jesus, the elders relay two key details about the Centurion that believers need to pay close attention to: He is described as worthy of Jesus’ attention because, in the words of the elders, “[1] he loves our people, and [2] it is he who built our synagogue for us” (Luke 7:5).  

Before Jesus arrives to heal the servant Luke tells us that the Centurion sends friends to stop Jesus from coming into his home because he believes that he is unworthy to receive him there. What is more, he believes Jesus has the power to heal his servant from a distance. This takes a tremendous amount of faith on the part of the Centurion, which is why Jesus declares ‘“I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith’” (Luke 7:9). Ironically, because of Jesus’ praises of the Faithful Centurion’s unparalleled faith in God, it may be the case that the believers in my context already seek to emulate this figure. In addition to his faith in the power of God to work through Jesus, however, the Centurion would have known that because Jesus was a Jew he would have been rendered ceremonially unclean had he been allowed to enter his household—the home of a Gentile. As such, in addition to faith, I would like to lift up for emulation the Centurion’s willingness to acquire knowledge about the beliefs and practices of the religious other, a knowledge that he deploys with respect and admiration for Jesus and the members of his tradition.  Indeed, this demonstrates why he is considered a lover of the Jewish people, and most shockingly, further demonstrates this love by paying for the construction of their place of worship. The Faithful Centurion is a model co-inter-religionist, one who has not made an idol of his own tradition and thus is free to love, value, learn from, and support the religious other.

[12] Luke 10.29