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Pentecost and Shavuot

28/5/2023

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 This weekend two important festivals take place – Shavuot in the Jewish community and Pentecost in the Christian community. They are linked to the two major festivals of Pesach and Easter that were celebrated just 50 days ago. Like all else in our faiths these two festivals are linked but also show the distinctiveness in the two traditions.  Because Jesus was a Jew and the important Christian festivals remembering his life and death take place at times of significant Jewish festivals it’s not easy for Christians to celebrate them without some kind of reference to Judaism. Jews on the other hand have no need to refer to Christianity when they celebrate these festivals as Christianity is seen as having broken faith with its roots and developed in a totally different way from post- biblical Judaism.   
  
  Originally a harvest festival, Shavuot focuses on the Torah and remembers the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt Sinai. Religious Jews will spend the night studying Torah, the synagogue will be decorated with flowers and there might even be a marriage canopy built around the Bimah as a symbol of the marriage between God and the People that took place when they accepted to live in a covenantal relationship with God. This happened 50 days after the Exodus from Egypt and there is a strong link between Pesach and Shavuot. Pesach was the moment of liberation when a group of slaves left Egypt to spend time wandering in the desert to finally become a people when they accepted God’s Law given to Moses on Sinai and committed to it as their way of life. The days in between Pesach (at least the second day of Pesach) until Shavuot are called the counting of Omer which parallels the wandering of the Israelites in the desert. Counting the Omer is the practice of marking the 49-day journey from Passover to Shavuot by saying a daily blessing and identifying each specific day according to its number. It has been described as a time of reflection to remember that process of moving from slavery to liberation and how that very liberation is only fulfilled after the Israelites became a people when they took on responsibility for their own Law at Sinai. 

While the Jewish community has been counting the days of Omer Christians have been reflecting on the effect of the resurrection of Jesus on his disciples and his community. In church services and liturgies, the resurrection stories have been retold as have the stories of the early days of Christianity (not called that of course) when the apostles tried to share the good news of Jesus’ resurrection and how people responded. It gives an insight into an early community that has been brought together by a profound experience of being in a post-death relationship with Jesus, is trying to work out what this means for them as Jews and what it means to spread this word to others. Ten days ago was the feast of the Ascension which underlines that whatever the on-going relationship with Jesus was it was not in the flesh and the festival of Pentecost tells us that the relationship is through his spirit which keeps alive his presence and influence in the world. Pentecost is seen as the birthday of the Church when the apostles received this spirit which united them and established them as a community.

The parallels between the two festivals is obvious – the fulfilment of Judaism and Christianity’s foundation stories, celebrated fifty days ago and an acceptance of a way of life, expressed in the Torah and in the guidance of the Spirit, that forms both groups into a people and a community. There are also differences. The community of Judaism was associated with a particular people and a particular place. The Christian community was not to be confined to one nation or one language. It was to spread throughout the world and be available to different peoples and cultures. It was however to be united in its diversity and this by the common gift of the Spirit of Jesus, which is also the Spirit of God and simply known as the Holy Spirit.  

Sadly, in the past the differences between the two faiths have led to Christianity being seen as the fulfilment of Judaism in such a way that it replaces it. This is called supersessionism and has been rejected by the main denominations of Christianity. A popular anti-Jewish trope was to see the God of the Old Testament as a judging and censorious God with Jews living in bondage to a Law while Christians lived in the freedom of the spirit with the assurance of eternal salvation which was to be found in Jesus and not in keeping to an out-dated law. This is to show an ignorance of the Hebrew Scriptures that Christians call the Old Testament. Some of the most beautiful passages about the love of God are to be found in the prophets and the whole story of the journey of the Israelites shows God as continuing saving and delivering them from themselves and their infidelities. It is also to misunderstand Torah which is the body of wisdom and law contained in the Jewish scriptures and other sacred literature and oral tradition. It can mean teaching, direction, guidance and law. For Jews the Torah is the voice of God and the Torah Scrolls are the symbol of God’s presence among them, the most sacred object of their faith and to live according to the Torah is to keep alive God’s presence among them. It is not a dead letter of the law and is to be reflected on and its meaning discerned through prayer and study. For this Jews would look for the guidance of God’s Spirit. For Jesus the Law was important. He did not reject it but claimed to fulfil it by interpreting it in a particular way, as did others of his time.  Christians may claim to live by the Holy Spirit, but this does not excuse them from discerning the ways of the Spirit or what the Spirit is asking of them in their personal and community lives. Both communities are engaged in the same thing even in different ways.

Jonathan Sacks has said that to hear the voice of God you need a listening silence in the soul, an ability to listen with faith which he describes as “the ability to hear the music beneath the noise”. This is true for Jews and Christians alike in their embrace of the Torah for one and the embrace of the Spirit for the other. And in this we are in fact walking the same path.  

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The Kingdom of God

15/5/2023

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Britain is still reflecting on the recent coronation of King Charles – some people thinking it was a waste of money, others enjoying the pomp and circumstance of it all and others decrying the fact that still the King must declare his allegiance to the Protestant faith and to uphold the beliefs and traditions of Protestantism. It wrangles a bit that it is impossible for a Catholic to be crowned king or queen, perhaps the last vestige of sectarianism within governmental structures. Some changes in the coronation service were applauded – the involvement of other Christian denominations and faiths, we even had a Hindu Prime Minister read from the Christian scriptures. And some people look forward to greater changes at the next one!

It also was an opportunity for preachers to reflect on the idea of the Kingdom of God, something which to my mind is at the heart of Christianity but not too often talked about. In both Matthew and Mark’s gospel Jesus begins his ministry with the call to repent for the kingdom of God has come near, declaring this as good news. At that time the people of Israel were living under Roman occupation and control. They longed for a Messiah who would be both priest, prophet and king and establish the return of the Kingdom of Israel’s glory days under King David. For them any sense of kingdom was a physical one but not so for Jesus. His message was that there is another level of being, a spiritual kingdom which is not recognised by power, wealth or glory but by the more spiritual values of justice, peace, service, love, compassion, integrity, reconciliation, wisdom. It is to have a concern for the common good and indeed the good of all sentient beings.
Those who heard this message of Jesus interpreted it according to their own understanding at the time and, especially in the light of their belief in the resurrection of Jesus, thought that the end times had come, and the Kingdom of God was at last to be established in their land. This was a dilemma for those early Christians and led to much reflection on the nature of the Kingdom preached by Jesus. According to Luke the disciples of Jesus “supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately” (19:11) even though in the gospel Jesus had told those who were enquiring when the kingdom of God was coming “the kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say ‘Look here it is ‘or ‘there it is’. For in fact the kingdom of God is among you.” (17:20-22).

I like the idea that Christians ought to be kingdom spotters. And once you begin to look for evidence of the kingdom you see it everywhere – in the love and concern of parents for their children, in families struggling to care of their families during a financial recession, in parents living with children with severe disabilities, coping with difficult children who have left home, got themselves involved in addictions. It’s also to be seen in wider society in those working in our hospitals, social services, those committed to helping refugees, the homeless, the bereaved. It is also seen in those who are refugees, who are homeless, who are coping with trauma and bereavement as they struggle to make sense of their situation and cope with what life has thrown at them. It is to be seen in conflict and war zones, in those negotiating peace and those caring for the dead and wounded. It is to be seen in all those who have a concern for climate change and the environment, in those protesting bad and unjust government policies. It is indeed everywhere.

But it is not enough just to recognise the presence of the kingdom of God outside of ourselves for we are part of it. The kingdom of God is also within us, and the Christian belief is that, made in the image and likeness of God as we all are, inspired by God’s own spirit we have the potential within us to live out its values of love, commitment, justice, selflessness, wisdom – the gifts and virtues are all there if we would develop and use them. This of course requires repentance and conversion – repentance that we often live in our own bubble with only a concern for ourselves and our comfort, that we forget our interrelatedness with all living beings so that we forget what we do to others we are doing to ourselves and what we do to and for ourselves has repercussions on others. The idea of the kingdom of God and our ability to cooperate with it and work for its growth in ordinary ways is a vision to give meaning and purpose to our lives. We are facing great challenges of poverty, homelessness, refugees, climate change in society and we have our own challenges at home, but we have great possibilities within us to make a difference in that small part of the world in which we live.

Jesus says in the gospels that this message of the Kingdom is the good news. This I think should be at the heart of the new evangelisation that Pope Francis is promoting and I believe it is good news, easily recognised by those of other faiths as well as those of no faith. It is a vision for the future.

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The New Evangelisation

30/4/2023

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The New Evangelisation is something we hear a lot about in the Catholic Church. It has its roots in the gospel command to proclaim the gospel to all people. Pope Benedict XVI saw a need for Catholics to “rediscover the joy of believing and an enthusiasm for communicating the faith”. Pope John Paul II also called for a missionary outreach and Pope Francis has continued this call to missionary discipleship, setting up a new Dicastery for Evangelisation in the Vatican. Just this week he appointed Archbishop Leo Cushley of the diocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh as a member of the Dicastery and Mr John Docherty a former head teacher in East Renfrewshire as a consultor.  The new Archbishop of Glasgow is bringing some life into the diocese by reorganising and bringing together representative from local parishes to take up the challenge of the new evangelisation in a ‘Looking to the Future’ initiative, designed, he says, to equip the Church in Glasgow to be a vibrant community of outreach and support in coming years.  It takes up Pope Francis’ three focuses for evangelization … the care of those already committed, engagement with those who are lapsed, and outreach to those who do not believe.

As an interfaith practitioner I’m a bit allergic to the word evangelisation, being aware of the centuries in which the Church has taught that it alone was the way to salvation and demanding conversion and baptism of indigenous people as well as those of other faiths. But this new evangelisation is not proselytization but a new way of spreading the wisdom of Christianity that is seen as ‘good news’. In doing this the Church is only doing what other faiths do for all religions believe they have a universal truth that can make a difference to how people live their lives and find purpose and meaning. How they attract people and introduce them to this truth varies from those who serve a local community and hope people will then learn about their faith, like the Bahais, or set up retreats and study programmes like some Buddhists or offer hospitality to the wider community like the Sikhs.

In his first encyclical Evangelii Gaudium Pope Francis invited Catholics to “be bold and creative in the task of rethinking the goals, structures, style and methods of evangelization in their respective communities…”  This task of rethinking the work of evangelisation needs, I suspect, also needs a rethinking of the content of the good news and how is it to be expressed in a way that it meaningful to present day realities? Perhaps too the purpose of it needs to be looked at very honestly. Is the new evangelisation a desire to return to a time when churches were full and influential in both people’s lives and society in general? Is it really about bums on seats so to speak. Will it involve a recognition that there is goodness and wisdom and even grace outside the bounds of Christianity? Will it understand that for some people a sense of meaning and purpose is to be found elsewhere and that the message of Christianity might not be for them? Is it possible for the Church to even think this possible?  Will it begin with personal interactions that listen to why people have simply lost interest in the Church and have drifted away from it?  Will it be willing to be alongside people and listen to what they long for in life and be prepared to encourage them in their search for truth and wisdom, even if they find that elsewhere. Will it be able to recognise that a creed centred on sin and redemption might need reinterpreting in the light of what we know about cosmology and the historical development of doctrine? Should we emphasise incarnation rather than redemption? Should the kingdom of God be at the centre of it? Can we recognise that there are other traditions like the Celtic tradition that have expressed the faith differently from what some people would call the imperial and clerical tradition of the Church? Will we be able to take seriously the sacred interrelationship of all things that helps us live out this reality both individually and collectively? Will we recognise that, in the words of Karl Rahner, all nature is graced, and we need not fear the secular.

This new evangelisation could be a moment of revolution if it is approached honestly and creatively. Not everyone will be happy with the questions I’ve posed. Whatever way the new evangelisation goes, hopefully it will be within the context of an open and welcoming Church and not that of a fortress buttressing itself against the world. A twitter from the National Catholic Reporter has suggested “If our public witness isn't always evangelizing in a broad sense, we are just another private country club, another gated community in a world of increasingly growing inequity and isolation”. Luckily this is not the kind of evangelisation envisaged by Pope Francis. Pope Francis situates the Church firmly in the world. He is committed to human fraternity; he has talked of the revolution of tenderness and is committed to building relations with other denominations and faiths. At the centre of his thought is the common good and a healthy pluralism which respects and values differences. If we could develop the new approach to evangelisation from this perspective it could change Catholics, their Church, and the whole human family. 

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Foundational Stories

11/4/2023

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This has been an auspicious weekend.  Christianity celebrated its annual sacred triduum of three days when it remembers the last days of Jesus, his death and resurrection. Judaism was in the middle of keeping the eight days of the feast of Passover and Islam was halfway through its annual fast of Ramadan. Friday, which was Good Friday for Christians. was the international day for remembering the Rwandan massacre and Easter Sunday was the anniversary of the signing of Pope John XXIII’s last encyclical, Pacem in Terris, Peace on Earth. There was a lot of spiritual energy and maybe even a bit of religious testosterone around.

Both Christianity and Judaism remember their foundational stories at this time. For Judaism this story is the liberation of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt when God freed them and brought them eventually into that land promised to Abraham and his descendents.  This liberation revealed God as a saviour and deliverer, a God who is faithful to his choices and promises. But this liberation came at a cost – the cost of the lives of the Egyptian army that tried to stop the Israelites escaping. A friend who taught Judaism once said that the liberation of the people of Israel from Egypt was gained at the cost of ethnic cleansing. While it might not have been as extreme as that it seems, according to the account in the bible, to have led to the death of the Egyptian army that followed the Israelites and tried to stop them at the Red Sea – and no doubt the disaster influenced the economy of Egypt. The story is told each Passover in the context of a ritualised meal, not as something that happened in the past but as something that is a continuing reality, an eternal present so to speak that binds people again to their membership of the Chosen People of Israel.

For Christianity this story is also a foundation story but that story of the liberation from Egypt is now expanded and extended to a personal and spiritual liberation from sin which offers the possibility of living a life of love and service of others. This liberation too comes at a cost – the death of Jesus of Nazareth, a charismatic Jew who while faithful to the Torah encouraged a heartfelt and inner response to it rather than an intellectual or legalistic one.  This approach brought him into conflict with the political and religious leaders of his time and eventually led to his death by crucifixion and then to his resurrection. Christians retell this story at their celebration of Easter but do so interpreting it and trying to make theological sense of it. The interpretation that has come to be expressed in the official liturgies of the church is that God freed humanity from a state of sinfulness but at a cost – and that cost expressed in terms of a ransom was the death of Jesus.

Both these stories can be and are for many people a source of spiritual inspiration, hope and renewed commitment. But they can also have a dark side which can lead to conflict and violence. The belief that the Jewish people have been brought by God into a land promised to them raises questions about the people who were in that land before them. This was the case in the past as the story of the history of Israel shows them conquering and being conquered, being ruled by foreign powers such as Rome, being sent into exile, the second of which lasted for centuries and was only ended with the establishment of the State of Israel. This is a good thing, and I am supportive of a homeland for the Jewish people, but it does demand some resolution of how the present-day people of Israel, can live in peace with those who also consider the land theirs.  Unfortunately, at this moment when the festival of Passover coincides with Ramadan there has been a lot of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, particularly in East Jerusalem at the Western Wall of the Temple and the Al Aqsa Mosque which stands on the Temple Mount. Both are places of pilgrimage for their respective faiths. The Western Wall is the holiest site in Judaism and the Mosque the third holiest place in Islam. The scenes of violence reported and seen on our television screens are so painful. They make a mockery of what our religions claim to be, especially those beliefs that claim peaceful co-existence and harmony.

In the past Christianity was caught up in its own violence at this time. In medieval times Christians attacked Jews because they held them responsible for the death of Jesus and accused them of deicide. The history of Christian antisemitism is something that we Christians are ashamed of, and many denominations have repented of it. As we listen to the scriptures and hear again the story of Jesus’ death, we must remind ourselves that Jesus was a faithful Jew, put to death as a common criminal because he upset the political and religious authorities of his day but not by most Jews of the time, many of whom were his faithful followers and certainly not the Jews of today.
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It is easy for religions to celebrate significant festivals with blinkers on and not remember that there is a wider and perhaps greater reality. Remembering the massacre in Rwanda, with the evidence of how far we humans can sink in our hatred of others, and Pope John XXIII’s encyclical which calls us to work for peace could be a motivation this year for us to interpret our foundational stories and religious practices in a way that leads to the inclusion and  benefit of all people.
   

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Original Sin??

27/3/2023

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If there’s one teaching I would like to change in Christianity it’s that of original sin. This is the teaching that tells us that human beings have inherited the sin of Adam and Eve, our first parents, and as such are born in a state of sin which separates them from God and from which they need to be delivered. And the way to be delivered is to believe that Jesus has redeemed them from this sin through his death and resurrection and in believing this be baptised into the Christian church where alone resides salvation. It sounds like a good marketing technique. Convince people that they are inherent sinners and then offer them the cure which then bolsters membership of the church that first convinced them of their sinfulness in the first place.
 
Christianity is not the only religion to use this technique. Buddhism also does something similar. When the Buddha proclaimed his four noble truths, his dharma, he did so by setting it out as though it was a doctor’s diagnosis.  First, there is the illness and in the Buddha’s case this was dukkha, usually translated as suffering, understood as dissatisfaction, impermanence. All life is temporary, the good as well as the bad. Things change and this is the nature of reality.  The second truth is the cause of this suffering and for the Buddha this originated in the greed and the misplaced desire which leads us to want to cling to what we have, the ignorance that sees life as substantial and permanent as well as hatred of others and of all sentient beings. The third truth, the cessation of suffering, affirms that the cure for this is to extinguish desire and liberate self by not becoming attached to what is impermanent but accepting reality as it presents itself moment by moment. This can be a moment of enlightenment and liberation and can lead eventually to freedom from the cycle of rebirth that all sentient beings are caught up in. And the final truth is the path to end this human suffering called the eightfold path to enlightenment. This is a way of practice which covers right intentions and livelihood, the correct understanding of the nature of reality, meditation and compassion. For the Buddha what was important was discovering the truth of his teaching through the experience of practice, (which is found within Buddhism) not through accepting his word for it.  
 
What I don’t like about Christianity’s approach is its association with dogmatic belief rather than practice and the consequences of this through the centuries. The foundational story to support original sin is in the Book of Genesis where Adam the first man and his wife Eve are forbidden to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge at the centre of the garden of Eden. Eve is tempted by a snake to eat the fruit followed by Adam and as a consequence they lose their place in paradise. Adam’s punishment is to till the earth and Eve is told that God will greatly increase her pangs in childbirth and that her husband will rule over her. For centuries this story was taken as literal. Eve was blamed for tempting her husband to sin and so women were seen as temptresses, inclined to evil and to be controlled by men. The pains of childbirth were women’s rightful punishment and so literally was this taken to be the case that it was still being debated by obstetricians and others whether women had the right to anaesthetic help during childbirth in the 20th cy.  Then there was the tradition of “churching”, a private ceremony where a new mother would receive a blessing from a priest in church which, though meant to be an act of thanksgiving, was associated with the Jewish tradition of purification, and thus associating childbirth with impurity.
 
Augustine of Hippo, who lived in the 5th cy CE is the one often associated with original sin and its connection to baptism though it wasn’t formalised in the catholic church until the Council of Trent in the 16th cy. For Augustine human beings were born in a sinful situation and incapable on their own of changing this. What was needed was God’s grace given to them at baptism and without that they would be denied heaven if they died before baptism so better to have infants baptised than wait until they were adult and able to choose for themselves. This too has had its consequences. A superior understanding of Christianity vis a vis other faiths and ways of life as possessing the truth and the only way to salvation and eternal happiness led to forced sermons, forced baptisms, conflict and violence as well as the killing of people not of the Christian faith – and in time not of ‘my’ Christian denomination. It even led to a belief in a place called limbo – a place of natural happiness where unbaptised babies would go. They would be happy but not see the face of God. I have met mothers distraught at this thought and now it seems nonsense, against any belief Christians might have in the goodness of God. Nor is it possible to look upon the face of a new born baby and see it as disordered. 

All of this and there is more seems nonsense to me now. Thank goodness, limbo has been quietly dropped and the reading of the creation story as a myth says that it is not so much about original sin as original blessing, about a world and the creatures in it which are basically good even though we do have the tendency to sin and do wrong and in that sense we are sinful and ignorant and greedy. But we also have the possibility to striving to be otherwise and both Christianity and Buddhist offer a practice to help us in this – I just wish Christianity made more of its practice than it did of its doctrines which so often can bind rather than liberate us.  

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Engaged Religion

4/3/2023

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Religion and its place in society has been up for discussion these last two weeks after one of the candidates hoping to be elected First Minister of Scotland admitted that she was not in favour of same-sex marriage, the birth of children outside of marriage and abortion. She has faced a rash of criticism and much antagonistic questioning of her position by political commentators and journalists who suggest she is unfit for public office, particularly that of First Minister and is against the liberalising agenda being promoted by the government and party of which she is a member. She has affirmed her commitment to following the law and would not let her personal views interfere with that.  For some this hostility is seen as misogyny (especially as one of the other candidates is a Muslim and likely to have similar views but not undergone similar scrutiny), or religious intolerance or a kind of liberal totalitarianism that demands everyone accepts the prevailing view. Even for those of us who are not in public office there can be a tension between a personal morality and what is best for society. Many Christians I know would be against abortion and see it as wrong yet accept abortion legislation for the sake of the safety of women who otherwise might seeks back street abortions which often led to the death of those seeking to terminate their pregnancy, often because of poverty, poor housing, and large families.

In a sense I think the Christian churches that have been so dominant in society until recently are still feeling their way as to how they should communicate with the secular. It’s no longer enough, I think, to repeat Christian morals without dialogue about what is best for society and why we hold the views that we do. Religious people need a new language to communicate with a secular world in a meaningful and relevant way. Jonathan Sacks was particularly good at this. He knew how to share religious ideas and translate them into a language that was accessible to those who were not of his faith. Not only is this approach important for society but it is also important for religion. Religious beliefs and morals have developed over the years and been influenced by the times and cultures in which they were articulated.  It’s important for religions not to get stuck in the past but to constantly dialogue with contemporary culture, including science, psychology, sociology etc and to reflect on how their faith might relate to the present. It’s this that keeps faiths fresh, innovative, and relevant. 

It’s easy to think of religion and society as being in opposition, especially over moral issues, doing battle for what they think is best.  Perhaps it’s important to keep in mind that all of us – or at least those of goodwill – are wanting what is best for society and if we are to achieve that then there is a need for dialogue and engagement, listening to one another and considering one another’s point of view. This of course takes time, something that public bodies and politicians are not good at. But Jonathan Sacks was good at it, and we could all learn from him. In a tribute to him after his death in 2020 Rabbi Gideon Sylvester said “Rabbi Sacks searched the modern marketplaces to uncover how people think and speak. His sensitive listening enabled him to create discourse around morality which his audience could relate to without ever feeling that they were being preached at, patronised or missionised.”
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An alternative to this engagement and sensitivity to society at large is to withdraw from it and live in a sheltered community cut off from interest in and discourse with the world. Religions have been doing this for centuries. It’s how religious life started with the withdrawal of men and women from the empire to focus on faith and spirituality in the Egyptian desert. When I joined religious life there was a sense of leaving the world to live a truer and more spiritual life. It happened to groups such as the Puritans, the Amish, the Mennonites who sought freedom from the state church of Europe and established communities and churches of their own with a strict but peaceful and simple way of living. It so happened that the Mennonites were on my mind as the debate about religion and society was going on.  I had recently seen the film ‘Women Talking’ based on the book of the same name by Miriam Toews and was reading another book by her called ‘A Complicated Kindness’. Both deal with situations within the Mennonite community and show the harm that rigidity, isolation, conformism can do to a community and to personal development.  This is not the way forward for religions. Religions like other aspects of life are evolving which will mean struggling with new situations and viewpoints but also offering something, hopefully wisdom, to the evolution of society as we try to learn what it means to live with one another and form the bonds of kinship that will help us work together for the common good.
 

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Human Fraternity Day

12/2/2023

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 Last Saturday, the 4thFebruary was International Human Fraternity Day. It comes during UN Interfaith Harmony Week and celebrates the signing of the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam from Al-Azhar University, Ahmed el-Tayeb on 4th February 2019. The document has caught the imagination of many people and has led to the setting up of the Higher Committee on Human Fraternity, composed of Christians, Muslims and Jews and was
 
Since the signing of the document in 2019 the Scottish Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Interreligious Dialogue and the Ahl-al Bait Scotland Society have worked together to understand and reflect on its implications for good interfaith relations. In the first year we read it together and discussed its relevance. In 2021 we had a conference at which Sheikh Shomali and Cardinal Michael Fitzgerald, spoke on and responded to the document. Last year we focussed on the question of women as one of the issues worth pursuing. This year we thought we would try something a bit different from a speaker followed by questions and discussion. We decided that a workshop that would engage participants in considering how the document related to interfaith relations would be worth a try. So, we invited three members of the planning group to say three things that stood out for them in the document. This was then followed by three open questions: The challenges in society that particularly concern me as a person of faith are …….; The challenges facing interfaith relations are ………….; As a person of faith and someone interested in inter-religious dialogue, the ways in which we can foster fraternity and help us live well together are …... Each participant then finished each of those statement in their own way in a time of quiet reflection which was then followed by group sharing, with each group then suggesting three points they would want to share with the whole group which was 50 -50 Christian and Muslim.  
 
What I liked about this process was that it engaged people throughout the two hours. There was no time to be bored and there was much to ponder and consider. For me it was important to reflect a little on the nature of interfaith relations and the place of interreligious dialogue within that. The two are not the same thing. Many people talk of interfaith dialogue or interfaith relations, but the Catholic Church has a dicastery for interreligious dialogue. The Human Fraternity document, which was signed in the name of God and suffering humanity, covers a broad sweep of social issues which is something that we have come to expect from Pope Francis. It is truly aspirational and envisions a world free of poverty, violence, injustice, inequality  etc and recognises the importance of faiths working together to establish this. My question in the planning and organising of this event was, what is the contribution of interreligious dialogue to this work and vision – what we Christians call the Kingdom of God.

 I was one of the contributors to the initial 5-minute input and focussed on three words. One of those words was unproductive.  The document supports and encourages dialogue. It suggests that in the way of peace and justice we need “the adoption of a culture of dialogue as the path; mutual cooperation as the code of conduct; reciprocal understanding as the method and standard”. But it also talks of transmitting the highest moral virtues that religions aim for and avoiding unproductive discussions.  How do we avoid these? Can interreligious dialogue and conversation ever be unproductive?   I do believe that interfaith dialogue is a worthwhile activity in itself. It is a contribution to peace and a witness that friendships across divides are possible. But I sometimes wonder if those of us who are engaged in interfaith issues sometimes find ourselves in dialogue about matters in which we have no expertise just because we are interfaith activists. Should there be a difference in our conversations as people of faith from that of a social action group?  What we want is that social action, justice and peace groups develop an interfaith approach to their work, working alongside others interested in the same things from different faiths and none.  This is what Jonathan Sacks called ‘side by side’ engagement and the focus is on the issue. What of us, however, who are involved in interreligious dialogue which suggests the other kind of engagement which Sacks called ‘face to face.’  Do we have a special and unique contribution to make, not just to mutual understanding and respect but also to social issues? What is ours to do as people of faith and what is ours not to do?  Jonathan Sacks says that it is knowing what is not ours to do that is the mark of a great leader.
 
The feedback from the groups of course showed a great variety of responses, including the importance of working together on issues such as climate change but also the need to understand and value the religion and cultural heritage of others and the ability to dialogue with each other with humility and a willingness to learn from another’s religion in a way that will enrich our own faith tradition and take us out of our comfort zone. There was still a call for education about other faiths – “we lack understanding of the other, we need more dialogue. This will add to respect for each other and overcome being prejudiced about other religions”.  There were a number of good ideas, covering interreligious, face to face dialogue as well as interfaith engagement. Hopefully these will find their way on to the website of the Bishops’ Committee – www.interreligiousdialogue.org.uk and help us know what is not ours to do as much as  what is ours to do.


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An Ordinary Person

27/1/2023

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Today is International Holocaust Memorial Day, the day when we remember the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis in their desire to eliminate all Jews from Europe.  The Jews were not the only ones targeted. Other groups were also regarded as racially and socially inferior such as the Roma and Sinti people, black people, people with disabilities, gay men and Jehovah witnesses. They too experienced horrific persecution by the Nazis. But it was the Jews who were targeted for complete genocide. The systematic plans to eradicate them all from the whole of Europe and the calculating way in which these plans were drawn up and the gas chambers constructed is chilling. Chilling because all of this was planned and carried out by ordinary men and women. It's easy   to think that we would not be capable of such things but if one human being can do it, we all can do it – we all have the potential within us to perpetrate evil, to collude with injustice and violence in different subtle ways and to standby and watch it happen to others without interfering or standing up for justice, possibly out of fear for our own lives or a sense of powerlessness. 

The 27th January was chosen as Holocaust Memorial Day as it was that day in 1945 that the Russians liberated Auschwitz – Birkenau, the largest of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps which is not too far from Krakow in Poland. Approximately 1.1 million men, women and children were murdered there, over 90% of them being Jewish. It was only then that the depth and horror of the Nazi atrocities was understood. I cannot imagine what it was like for those liberators and the realisation of what people had been made to endure  must have stayed with them forever. I have been to visit Auschwitz when I was with a group of Christians and Jews visiting Poland to reflect on the absence of Jews in a country that had a strong and thriving Jewish community. The visit to the death camp was chilling and sobering. I had always imagined that a place like Auschwitz would have a sense  of evil around it but in fact it was beyond evil and  the horrors of it hard to believe –but  the proof was there before our very eyes. And these were ordinary people – the ones murdered, the ones carrying out the murders and all the others who made  the functioning of such places possible.

HMD was set up after 46 governments signed a declaration in Stockholm on 27th January 2000. committing those present to preserve the memory of those killed in the holocaust. It’s purpose is that we should never forget the depths of that barbarity in the hope that such things would not happen again. And yet they have. There have been subsequent genocides – Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Darfur and also the violence that is recognised as ethnic cleansing perpetrated against groups such as the Uyghurs in China and the Rohingya in Myanmar. The world has not learned the lessons of the Holocaust. Rather it would seem that the Holocaust showed just how cruel human beings can be to one another and unleashed that potential into the world – a bit like Pandora’s box.    

The theme of this year’s HMD is Ordinary People. Yes, ordinary people can perpetrate great horrors, ordinary people can stand by and do nothing, but ordinary people can also do extraordinary things in surviving genocides, telling their stories and working for justice. Here in Scotland we have a woman who was not Jewish but who died in Auschwitz and as far as we know is the only Scot recognised as one of the Righteous of the Nations in Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Her name is Jane Haining. She was born in 1897on a farm on the  outskirts of  a small village in Dumfriesshire called Dunscore. She was educated at Dumfries Academy where she was awarded 41 prizes and became Dux of the school in her last year. After school she came to Glasgow, took a business course and worked in the clerical department of J&P Coates in Paisley. Jane was always interested in young people, she was a devoted member of the Church of Scotland and in 1932 responded to an advert for the post of matron in the Girls’ Home at the Scottish Mission to the Jews school in Budapest.  She was responsible for about 35 girl boarders and tried to give them a safe and happy environment while away from home. She loved the work and her charges and feared for those of them who were Jewish in the light of the anti-Jewish laws being passed by Hitler in Germany.  When Germany annexed Austria in 1935 more refugee Jewish children were housed at the mission. The second world war started while Jane was on leave in Scotland but she returned to her post and refused to leave it even after the Nazis invaded Hungary. Shortly after that Jane was arrested and transported to Auschwitz, where she died on17th July 1944.
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For the past 30 years Hungary has organised a national essay competition to reflect on the impact of the life of Jane Haining. The top three winners come to Scotland each year, visit Dunscore and other places associated with her life and work. Yet she is until recently little known in Scotland, certainly not the way she is known in Hungary. We aim to rectify that and I am working as part of a group organised by the Council of Christians and Jews to organise something similar to that carried out in Hungary. I hope we will be successful and that this ordinary woman who did an extraordinary thing will give us hope and inspiration to also stand up for those who are marginalised and discriminated against.

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A Star to Live By

9/1/2023

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 Today is the feast of the Epiphany when Christians reflect on that episode in the Christmas story that tells of wise men coming to visit the stable in Bethlehem and bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus - 3 regal gifts that have led to the interpretation that they were 3 kings though this is not stated in the story as set out in the gospel of Matthew. At least that’s the case in the western Church for Eastern Orthodox Christians the 7th of January is a celebration of the birth of Jesus with Epiphany being celebrated 12 days after on the 19th of January which should give us a clue that the date is not to be taken literally.

I always feel a bit sorry for these wise men as there is, for me anyway, a feeling that Christmas is over by the time we’re hearing their story. I have a nativity set at home (made from recycled paper), which I display over Christmas – it has a figure of Mary with child Joseph, an angel and three kings who are positioned at the side of the main characters as though on a journey but since my nativity set is put away with the Christmas decorations the wise men never arrive. We do hear of them of course in some of the Christmas carols that are sung over the season, and they have certainly taken hold of the Christian imagination that sometimes depicts them as kings and imagines three of them though that’s not stated in scripture. We know very little about them but as with all scripture the point is not so much what is said about them but what their significance is in the Christmas story and what message this might have for us.

The symbolism of the story of the wise men can only really be appreciated in what we know about the life and death of Jesus and the impact he had after his death. It takes us away from any sentimental devotion to Christmas being about baby Jesus but rather reminds us of who and what Jesus is within the Christian tradition. The men from the east remind us that though Jesus was Jewish, his message came to have a universal appeal and took devotion to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob beyond the bounds of Judaism into a gentile world.  The gift of myrrh, a resin uses in embalmment is a recognition of his death, the gold a recognition of his kingship and lordship over all and the frankincense a recognition of his divinity. This is the Jesus who is celebrated at Christmas.

Two elements of the story are interesting and worth reflecting on – the star that was the inspiration for the wise men setting out and the journey to find what they were searching for. All of us are on a journey, a journey that will have its ups and downs, its light and shadow, its obstacles and advantages, its helpers and hinderers, all made worthwhile by the sense of purpose and meaning we bring to it.  Religion has traditionally seen itself as giving this sense of purpose, offering its adherents a practice and way of life that makes the journey meaningful. It offers a final reward, which either in a paradise or heaven or as an escape from the round of rebirth is realised beyond this human existence. There are of course other goals such as working to promote the kingdom of God or the kingdom of Shambhala, as some Buddhists would say, to serve others, make our world a more just and equitable place to live.  

Perhaps we all have our own stars that lead us forward and give some direction to our lives and some may be less noble than others. What is it we want to achieve in life – riches, happiness, health, a long life, power, my way of doing things? Religions I like to think offer a noble direction in that all of them have something to say about love, compassion, wisdom, justice as a way of living. But what about those who have no religion? Here in Britain the results of the recent census reveal that for the first time there are more people who see themselves as nonreligious. What is the story they live by, what is the journey they are on, what is the star that guides them?  Some religious people decry this move to and shake their heads at the thought of a world without meaning and spirituality. But surely this cannot be so. Just because people no longer affiliate with a religion does not mean that their lives are selfish or lacking in love and concern for others. It does not mean they do not have a philosophy by which they live their lives. It might mean that the religious story no longer makes sense to them, and religious people might just have to accept that without judging them. Perhaps we need a new story which unites us all, religious and non-religious.
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I think there is such a story and it’s one that I have become increasingly interested in. It’s the story of the universe which is also the story of humanity. We now know that out of the mysterious order of reality, from which burst forth a great fireball of creativity, evermore complex forms evolved until we humans were given form at this point in history – the “most recent and youngest extravagance of this stupendously creative universe” as the cosmologies Brian Swimme describes us. Each of us carries within us the whole history of evolution. We are made not just of the dust of the earth but of star dust itself. We are empty of any discrete separate existence but are interrelated and interconnected with all of life – our life is one of interbeing as Thich Nhat Hanh would say.  And as such we have great potential for the future of our world and our race.  We can help it achieve love, harmony and peace or we can undermine it. I do believe that if we talked more about this common story that unites us all we would have a star to guide us towards the fullness of life and inspire us on how to live and cope with our journey through life whether we be religious or not. I also think that religions, particularly my own, would be made more relevant by taking this universe story seriously and reflecting on its articles of faith in the light of this story. It’s a story that gives hope not just to our world but also to our religions. We need more of it.


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Festivals of Light

19/12/2022

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The Late Lord Jonathan Sacks likened the multifaith society to a hotel with different faiths and cultures living in fairly close proximity but keeping to their own separate communities. Just as in a hotel visitors could pass one another in the corridor or even share a table in the dining room and be civil to one another yet be living quite distinct lives so too in society. Communities tend to keep to themselves and live quite separate lives.  Society is, as King Charles has described it, a community of communities. There are many kinds of communities, of course, in which we find our sense of belonging – family, professional and social associations of one kind or another. In the past, if less so in the present, religion has given people a strong sense of identity and belonging and for immigrants a sense of security in a strange land. Traditionally religions have been suspicious of one another which is something the work of interreligious dialogue tries to overcome.

Religious communities are now more open to inviting other faiths to celebrations of their faith, especially during festivals. In many places non-Muslims are invited to break the fast at least once during Ramadan and this week I joined the Jewish community for the lighting of the first Hanukkah candle. The service was in Hebrew so I couldn’t follow the exact wording of the prayers or readings but the service was led by a minister with a lovely singing voice so it was easy to get caught up in the atmosphere and simply enter into the beauty of the chants, remembering that they would have been sung for centuries and that I was participating in a revered and ancient tradition. I also knew the story of Hanukkah, how the Maccabees had cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem from desecration and how oil that should have lasted for only one day did indeed last for 8 days once it had been reconsecrated. Hanukkah is a minor festival and yet an important one as it celebrates religious freedom and, as the minister leading the service said, it gives us the confidence to dream and to believe that our dreams can be fulfilled. So, I was able to get some meaning out of the service.

Part of the tradition is to put a hanukkiah – that is an 8 branched candlestick by a window – with one candle being lit from what is called a helper candle on each day of the 8-day festival. It’s a public witness to the hard -won freedom of the Jewish people to practice their faith without fear of persecution. Religious freedom and respect for religious identity are important human rights but unfortunately ones denied many people in over 20 countries and growing antisemitism in the west has led to some people being afraid to identify themselves as Jewish, even to the extent of not wanting to display their hanukkiah. However, within the community Hanukkah is a festival of light full of family fun, games, and gifts much as Christmas is for Christians. When I worked in teacher education, I often took my students to visit the Jewish primary school some time before Christmas to give them an insight into another kind of denominational school. They were always a bit surprised to find the school alive with rehearsals for hanukkah plays, hanukkah decorations and preparations for hanukkah parties in the same way catholic schools would be celebrating Christmas.  At our celebratory meal after Sunday’s hannukah service there was even a hanukkah hat and a few hanukkah jumpers!

Christmas too is a festival of light and it takes place in the darkest time of the year. Recently a Muslim friend asked me if Christians really believed that Jesus was born on the 25thDecember. Well, there may be some people think that, especially if they take the story and the words of the traditional carols sung at this time of the year literally. I once told a class of students that I was rather tired of hearing in some lessons that Jesus had been born on Christmas day i.e.25th December. One student protested! No, Jesus was not born on 25th December – we do not know when he was born. Christmas day is the day we remember the birth of Jesus and celebrate it, but in a spiritual way. In fact, not all Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus on Christmas day. Some do this on 6th January. It’s possible that the date of 25th December was borrowed from the Roman mid-winter celebration of Saturnalia and the feast of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun) to christianise the pagan feast and show Jesus as the true Light of the World.   

The hymns and carols of Christmas tell the story of his birth in an imaginative way. The stories of his birth in scripture are not literal or historical documents but myths in that they point to the meaning of Jesus expressed in stories that often reflect Old Testament prophecies. My friend was relieved to hear this and suggested that many Muslims don’t recognise Christmas. Even though they respect Jesus as a prophet, they think that Christians are wrong in thinking Jesus was born in wintertime because the Qur’an tells us quite clearly that Jesus was born in the summer and in the desert.  

Within the context of interreligious dialogue can I tell my Muslim friend that he is wrong, and can he tell me that I am wrong to be celebrating Christmas when I do? Can we respect one another’s traditions and accept that as a Christian I am not likely to accept his view and as a Muslim he is not likely to accept mine - and do the differing views take us a bit further in understanding the reality of Jesus?  Perhaps but only if we can dialogue about it and surely that’s what we must do.

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    I am  a Catholic nun, involved in interfaith relations for many decades.  For me this has been an exciting and sacred journey which I would like to share with others.

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