Christian-Muslim Dialogue Part 5

Revisiting Christian Mission

Today there are many in the church that still affirm and strive to live in accordance with a definition of Christian mission that inspires them to risk friendships for the sake of bringing Christ to the lost through the Church. As I mentioned in the previous post, I was once counted among their number. Such people site readily the Great Commission in which Jesus calls the church to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and [to teach] them to obey everything [that he] commanded.”[1] This totalitarian vision supposes that the world would be a better place if everyone were Christian, for to be sure all of the world’s problems have been brought on by non-Christians.

            Many have rethought this and as Wilfred Cantwell Smith reports, “Much of the Church now recognizes that its former attitude to other religious communities was wrong.”[2] After all, as John Hick is want to ask, if Christianity is “God’s own religion in a sense in which no other religion can be […] Ought there be more evidence [of this] in Christian lives than in the lives of others.”[3] For those who have called this view of Christian mission into question, such evidence is sorely lacking. Are we to just drop mission all together? What of the Great Commission? One can’t ignore that Jesus calls his followers to spread the Gospel. What is more, the pre-Easter Jesus sent the disciples out on a mission to spread the Gospel as well, thus we can’t dismiss this facet of Christianity as being simply a post-Easter anomaly. If the mission of the Church isn’t to convert the world to the Christian Church, what could it be?

As I attempt to resolve this question, I believe that M. Thomas Thangaraj offers a compelling possibility for us to consider. He argues that there is a distinction between the mission of Jesus and the mission of his disciples; that “what the church is doing today is enacting the mission of the disciples of Jesus rather than the mission of Jesus himself.”[4] At some point during the post-Easter transition, the mission of Jesus, which was to spread the Gospel of the Kingdom, became subordinate to the mission of the disciples, which was to spread the Gospel of Jesus and the Church. Thangaraj rightly contends that as a result of this shift, “Jesus is no longer merely the […] initiator of mission, but he becomes the central content of the mission.”[5] Furthermore, as a result he says that, now “the announcer of the good news […] is the good news [and] thus mission becomes a matter of discipleship.”[6]

            With this, we find Thangaraj offering a corrective articulation of what the mission of the Church and likewise the Gospel message of Jesus was intended to be. If he is correct, and I believe he is, the Gospel was never meant to be about Jesus as a dying and resurrecting God-man who satisfies the debt of the world’s sins owed to God.[7] Indeed, I would argue that this picture is made more compelling when we take into account the great lengths to which the Gospel narratives go to illustrate that the disciples didn’t understand the Gospel message of the pre-Easter Jesus until after his death. Furthermore, if the Gospel was really about the satisfactory nature of the post-Easter Jesus’ death on the cross, one wonders what the disciples were supposed to have been preaching when the pre-Easter Jesus sent them on mission. It is imperative that the Church reclaim its original mission—the mission of Jesus.  

It is my contention that the mission of Jesus as the proclamation of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God was itself a corrective to the cultural degradation of the Values of Radical Kenotic Love, due to the universal adoption of the opposing Values of Individualism/Independence. Jesus’ ministry was a response to the egregious and systemic injustice that he was subjected to, as a first century Palestinian Jew, living in the power minority, under hostile occupational oppression. He offered a new vision that contradicted this socio-political structure.   

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[1] Matthew 28.19-20

[2] John Hick and Paul F. Knitter (edts.), The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, (Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1987), 54.

[3] Dan Cohn-Sherbok (edt.). Interfaith Theology; A Reader, (Oxford: Oneworld Pulblishing, 2001), 108.

[4] M. Thomas Thangaraj, The Common Task; A Theology of Christian Mission, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999), 135.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] The meaning of the cross in Christianity has been internally contested since the tradition began. The popular understanding of this event, which interprets it as satisfaction for the sins of the world, is by no means the only one. In future posts, I will present a more in-depth exploration of the meaning of the cross, complete with a historical analysis of its doctrinal development.    

Christian-Muslim Dialogue Part 4

Confessions of a young Totalitarian…..

There was a time when I was morally averse to engaging in theological conversation (let alone dialogue) with individuals from outside of the Christian tradition, for any reason other than to challenge their faith claims for the purpose of converting them. This began to change during my second year as an undergraduate student at Belmont University where I majored in Religious Studies. Through this program I befriended a classmate who was a devout adherent of the Islamic Tradition. Prior to this encounter I had developed friendships with non-Christians before; however, this relationship was unique to my experience in that it was set in the context of the academic study of religion. When, in past friendships, the issue of religion could be politely ignored, so as to avoid unwanted tension, there was no way around discussing issues of faith with my new companion.

            Throughout this period I often found myself contemplating my concern for the state of his soul and this environment provided an open arena through which to test his convictions against my own. Going into this encounter I was convinced that God was calling me to lead my friend to Christ. Intent on doing so, I set out to study and develop apologetic arguments that would counter the validity of Islam, holding firm to my inherited conviction that Christianity alone was the only way to God and salvation. Along the way, however; friendly debate developed into genuine interfaith learning and the makings of meaningful interfaith dialogue. Looking back now, I find it ironic that it was my totalitarian understanding of Christian mission as the work of winning souls to Christ and the church that eventually led me to see the value of interfaith dialogue.

            I recently shared this facet of my personal history with a new friend. This gentleman is an evangelical Christian who believes that Christ is the only way to salvation. He is a Christian totalitarian. My friend is associated with an organization called the Crescent Project that is devoted to converting Muslims to Christianity: https://www.crescentproject.org/. He has come to the conclusion that Islam is an evil oppressive religion that should be eradicated in the name of Christ. When it comes down to it, he agrees that his faith in Jesus offers him little incentive to see Islam in any other way. Additionally, he expresses concerns that Christians in this country have become too stagnate when it comes to spreading the gospel to the “lost” (Though, when asked if he has proselytized any Muslims, he admits that he has never spoken to any Muslims). He posits that it is our reluctance to proselytize that is destroying Christianity. And yet the proposition of the true evils of Islam could actually be what saves Christianity because they will compel American Christians to take pride in their country and religion once again. In accord with his mission, he hypothesizes that it will be best to empty the Mosques of Muslims by converting them all to Christianity, rather than to try to close the Mosques down. I continue to meet with him and others like him and I am learning a great deal.

While it would seem that our agendas are the complete opposite, I am exploring the possibility that “God is at work” in and through his life and work as well as my own. It is still yet to be determined just how I will ultimately reconcile this theologically. Stay tuned.      

Abrahamic Interfaith Scripture Study in 2012

Beginning in March of 2012 Brentwood United Methodist Church has asked me to organize another three session Interfaith Scripture Study. This study will offer members of Nashville’s Abrahamic faith communities another opportunity to build friendships founded on mutual interreligious understanding with their Jewish, Muslim, and Christian neighbors through a joint exploration of the Hebrew Bible, the Quran, and Christian Bible. We seek to read and engage our sacred texts together because in doing so we share who we are at a level of intimacy and vulnerability that has the power to heal the rifts that divide us, all the while preserving and celebrating that which makes us distinct. I will provide more details as they become available.

Christian-Muslim Dialogue Part 3

            In an effort to better understand the current tensions which are now so clearly on display between some Christian and Muslim communities, I have come to appreciate the dynamic that Eboo Patel, the founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, brings into focus through his description of what he calls, “The Faith Line.” Put simply, Patel divides the global religious community into three ideological camps: pluralists, totalitarians, and those who straddle “The Faith Line” between these two poles. To begin, Patel rightly contends that one must go beyond establishing that interfaith dialogue is an important practice worthy of one’s time and effort—which of course assumes that a religious community has even been willing to go so far. Indeed, he says, “One's own identity and the identities of the other participants may form the fabric of an interfaith dialogue, but the ultimate goal of interfaith work is the creation of a larger identity that makes room for the distinctiveness of different traditions,”[1] while at the same time being open to the possibility of being transformed as a result of encounter. Patel defines “This larger identity,” as “pluralism: the conviction that people believing in different creeds and belonging to different communities need to learn to live together,”[2] and I would add, learn to learn together. Consequently, pluralists are individuals who hold to this “conviction,” and as Patel reports, “they come from every religious and political creed on the planet, for pluralism is neither syncretism nor relativism.”[3]

            In contrast to pluralists, Patel asserts that, “totalitarians seek to blot out any identity but their own.” As the picture of the totalitarian agenda takes shape it becomes ever more pertinent to my understanding of the tensions that exist between some in the Christian and Muslim traditions. For example Patel reports that,

Where pluralists seek relationships across religious divides that provide for mutual inspiration and growth, totalitarians seek to cow, condemn, or—at the extreme—kill anyone not like themselves. Where pluralists seek to work with others for the common good, totalitarians seek to destroy the dream of a common life together. The one characteristic they do have in common is that either one can come from any religious and political creed. Rabbi Abraham Joehua Heechel was a Jewish pluralist; Rabbi Meir Kahane was a Jewish totalitarian. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a Christian pluralist; Eric Rudolph is a Christian totalitarian. Imam Feieal Abdul Rauf is a Muslim pluralist; Osama bin Laden is a Muslim totalitarian. Thus the central challenge of our time is indeed the faith line, but it does not exist, as some have argued, where religious civilizations bump up against each other but, rather, within and across all of them. As Martha Nuesbaum writes, "The real clash is not a civilizational one between 'Islam' and 'the West,' but instead a clash within virtually all modern nations—between people who are prepared to live with others who are different, on terms of equal respect, and those who seek the protection of homogeneity, achieved through the domination of a single religious or ethnic tradition." What is perhaps most intriguing about the faith line—in the struggle between pluralists and totalitarians—is that the majority of people in the world are standing right on it, uncertain and undecided about their allegiance.[4]

            Pluralism, as Patel has defined it, challenges individuals and communities to move beyond simply coexisting with the religious other. What is more, in my estimation, the call for individuals from different faiths to “coexist” is simply the latest way of advocating for religious tolerance, which in itself is certainly better than intolerance or worse, religiously sanctioned violence. However, as Diane Eck rightly asserts, the mere establishment of tolerance “is too thin a foundation for a world of religious difference and proximity;”[5] for, as she is want to argue, “It does nothing to remove our ignorance of one another, and leaves in place the stereotype, the half-truth, the fears that underlie old patterns of division and violence.” Furthermore, and this gets to the heart of where I believe the problems between totalitarian Christians and Muslims lies, Eck maintains that, “Tolerance is a necessary public virtue, but it does not require Christians and Muslims…to know anything about one another.”[6]

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[1] Eboo Patel, April Kunze, and Noah Silverman, Interfaith Dialogue at the Grass Roots, “Storytelling as a Key Methodology for Interfaith Youth Work”, (Philadelphia: Ecumenical Press, 2008), 38.         

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] IIbid.

[5] Diana Eck, Director of the Pluralism Project, Harvard University, http://pluralism.org/pages/pluralism/what_is_pluralism. 

[6] Ibid.

Christian-Muslim Dialogue Part 2

            Throughout the Bible God calls the believer to love God and neighbor. Jesus offers a definition of neighbor that is radically inclusive. Indeed, it is through the instruction to love ones enemies (Luke 6.32-36) and most profoundly through the teaching of the Great Commandment and the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10.25-38), that Jesus challenges the members of his faith tradition to love neighbor without condition. What is more, Jesus’ teaching of the Parable of the Good Samaritan offers many valuable contextual parallels that speak to the current Christian-Muslim state of affairs. Where those members of the Christian community who have responded with hostility to the presence of the Muslim community once believed this to be the proper response, they will recognize themselves in the lawyers questioning of Jesus: “And who is my neighbor?”[1]

            With regard for Christian-Muslim relations in Middle Tennessee, Jesus teaches the Christian believer that the Muslim is one’s neighbor just as much as one’s fellow Christian. And yet, opposition to Mosque building projects and, in most cases, the Islamic Tradition itself has come largely from members of the Christian Tradition. However, it must be noted that those who have responded with opposition represent only a small (however loud) percentage of the Middle Tennessee’s Christian population. While those who oppose the Islamic Community’s right to freely construct places of worship appear quite certain that theirs’ is the proper Christian response to the presence of Muslims in Middle Tennessee, the majority of the Christian Community, though positive that open hostility is not the answer, are admittedly less clear just what is appropriate. Indeed, one Christian that I spoke with concerning this issue insisted, “I don’t know enough about Islam to know if it is a peaceful religion or not, but I know enough about Christianity to know that it should be—if it’s not peaceful and loving then it isn’t Christianity!”

            In such cases there is an increasing need for Christians to engage in interfaith dialogue with their Muslim neighbors. As citizens of one of the most religiously observant and at once most diverse societies in the world, James L. Fredericks is right to insist that American “Christians have a responsibility to promote new forms of social and religious solidarity that reach beyond the ‘old diversity’ of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews.”[2] Likewise, in a speech delivered to the Turkish Embassy, President Barack Obama spoke for many in our nation who, like Fredericks, view religious diversity, not as something to be met with hostility, but as a positive development that offers us a powerful new incentive and opportunity to work towards a truer and more robust expression of religious solidarity. Opposing the notion that the United States operates solely as a Christian nation, the President declared, “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation," but rather, "We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."[3]  

            With the nation’s ever increasing religious diversity and the need to engage in meaningful interreligious dialogue as our context, the reality of a thriving plurality is a call for Christian theology to acquire and implement a multi-religious competence; for, as Alan Race is right to point out, “the very fact of religious plurality surely cries out for interpretation.”[4] The growing reality of religious diversity is perhaps the most important issue facing the Christian Church today. In the face of global consciousness, we as Christians must seek out a faithful response to the growing number of religious expressions and in particular the corresponding rise of Islam: a religion that has traditionally been characterized by Christianity as a competing missionary religion and thus, an enemy of the church. This task, while not my responsibility alone nor solely within my power to attain, is where my attention lies.   

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[1] Luke 10:29

[2] James L. Fredericks, Buddhists and Christians; Through Comparative Theology to Solidarity, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2004), 14.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Alan Race and Paul M. Hedges, (edts), Christian Approaches to Other Faiths, (London: SMC Press, 2008), 4.