Interfaith Journeys
  • Home
  • Interfaith Journeys
  • Stella Reekie

The Islamic Jesus

25/2/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
  I often come across an intriguing book review and, I’m sure like a lot of people, feel the temptation to go on to buy it but I often resist the temptation knowing that  I might never get round to actually reading it.  I recently read a review of a book called ‘The Islamic Jesus’ and it has been tantalising me ever since though I haven’t yet bought it. The book, written by Mustafa Akyol suggests that Islam reflects the beliefs of the early Jewish Christian community, centred in Jerusalem, whose leader was the Apostle James. The earliest New Testament writing, the Acts of the Apostles, shows a tension within the early Christian community between those who wanted to stay faithful to their Jewish roots and those who understood that the spread of the Christian message to the Gentiles meant a new focus – on faith in Jesus rather in fidelity to some aspects of the Jewish law and tradition. Akyol suggests that the beliefs of this Jewish community, who saw Jesus as a prophet, rather than divine, and emphasised salvation through faith and good works, disappeared in the face of Gentile Christianity to re-emerge as Islam. The review recognised the seriousness of Akyol’s research which shows a real historical connection between, Judaism, Jewish Christianity and Islam. It was suggested that from this vantage point, Jesus need not divide the Abrahamic religions. Rather he could  reconcile them, overcoming the usual ’them-us’ mentality.   

That is, I’m sure, a real possibility but the problem is that the Pauline form of Christianity is the one that has prevailed and the orthodox Christian position is that Jesus is greater than a prophet. This on-going tradition sees him as a reflection of the invisible God and the presence of God among us.  Of course this doesn’t mean that Jesus can’t be a focus of unity within Judaism, Islam and Christianity. There is a growing trend within Judaism, as recent statements from both Orthodox and Reform Rabbis show, to emphasise how Jesus is perhaps the greatest and most well- known Jew of all times and how Christianity has been the cause of the spread of the knowledge of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and therefore helped Judaism in its universal mission. Muslims too have great respect for Jesus – the  gr
eatest prophet next to Mohammed – but I have often wondered how we reconcile the different versions of stories such as the birth of Jesus or the sacrifice of Isaac found in the different religions’ scriptures.

 Some of the stories, such as Jesus making birds out of clay, are certainly found in some apocryphal writings which were not included in the canonical scriptures of Christianity. Mohammed was a merchant and would have come into contact with Christianity in his travels. His wife, Khadija, had a cousin who was a Nestorian monk. He was the first person to tell Mohammed of his prophetic calling.  Early Muslims took refuge in the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia. It’s possible these contacts introduced Mohammed to Apocraphyl and Nestorian  writings. Was Mohammed aware of them as he received the Qur’anic revelation? Is that how they got into the Qur’an?  But for Muslims who believe that the Qur’an is a replica of a heavenly book and is the not just the Word of God but the Words of God it will be difficult to reconcile the Qur’anic versions with the orthodox Christian version. Will it be possible for Christians, Jews and Muslims to accept Jesus as a central figure but allow Christianity to see him as divine? Can the three religions recognise that the historical facts of the stories are not important and in fact irrelevant compared to the truth they are trying to illustrate? This is certainly a way of understanding the Christian scriptures but will it be enough for Muslims? Is it possible to find unity in the message of Jesus which relates so well with Judaism and Islam as Akyol suggests.

What all this does show is that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are part of the one story of God’s interaction in human history. They all claim to be children of Abraham and receptive of God’s revelation in history.  Baha’is too claim this. Their founder Baha’u’llah came from the Muslim religion  before he received his unique revelation but somehow Baha’is are often missed out when we talk of the Abrahamic faiths though there’s no doubt their story is also part of the Abrahamic story.

It also shows the interrelatedness of the faiths – true of the eastern religions as well as the Abrahamic ones. We are used to thinking about the interrelatedness of human beings and creation but it’s also true of religious systems. No religion is discrete, independent, separate. Each one has emerged from another, reflects in some way the religion and traditions which have given it birth, is influenced by the culture into which it’s born and affected by its on-going relationship with other cultures and faiths. People of faith are indeed related to one another, belong in one community of faith.  If we truly believed and understood this perhaps we could relate to one another as brothers and sisters, rejoicing in our commonalities while respecting our differences. That would indeed form a bridge between the faiths. 

0 Comments

Interfaith Pilgrimage

19/2/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
​A popular interfaith activity is organising a walk round places of worship – often in a spirit of peace and friendship and sometimes even offering prayers for peace at each stop. Yesterday we had one here in the west end of Glasgow where I live. It was organised by the Bishops’ Committee for Interreligious Dialogue in partnership with the Ignatian Spirituality Centre and we limited ourselves to two places of worship.  In a real sense this was more than a walk – it was, in fact, a pilgrimage and we tried to walk in the spirit of pilgrimage, remembering the sacredness not only of the places we were going to visit but also the journey itself. Our context was peace.  Aware of the insecurities of the world in which we live, of the seeming impossibility of politicians to respond in a way that inspires hope and confidence we began with a reading from the Baha’i scriptures.  It was written by Abdul- Baha, the son of the founder of the Baha’i Faith, at the turn of the 20th century. More than a hundred years later it has a message of hope which shows a way forward for those of us perplexed as to how we respond to today’s political events. Here are some extracts:

“I charge you all that each one of you concentrate all the thoughts of your heart on love and unity. When a thought of war comes, oppose it by a stronger thought of peace. A thought of hatred must be destroyed by a more powerful thought of love.  Thoughts of ward bring destruction to all harmony, well-being, restfulness and content.  Thoughts of love are constructive of brotherhood, peace, friendship and happiness………….

Do not think the peace of the world an ideal impossible to attain! ……… do not despair! Work steadily. Sincerity and love will conquer hate. How many seemingly impossible events are coming to pass in these days!
Take courage! God never forsakes His children who strive and work and pray! Let your hearts be filled with the strenuous desire that tranquillity and harmony may encircle all this warring world”. 

With these thoughts in our heart, praying for peace for those places we were about to visit we hoped that our walking together and entering into the world of a faith different from our own would
“be a foreshadowing of what will , in very truth, take place in this world, when every child of God realises that they are leaves of one tree,  flowers in one garden, drops in one ocean, and sons and daughters of one Father, whose name is love.”

Our first visit was to a local Synagogue in time to share in their Shabbat service. What a wonderful welcome they gave us. It’s a privilege, I think, to be welcomed in to someone else’s world, whether it be their home or their worshipping community. It’s a risk because it involves a certain vulnerability as it’s possible others might be overcritical or judgemental. It demands openness and friendship and hospitality. Those of us visiting too need to be open and set aside our own expectations, assumptions and judgements and enter into the new experience. It was easy to do this at the Synagogue because the singing was so beautiful.  We could let the music waft over us even though we didn’t understand any Hebrew. Central to the service is the procession with the Torah Scroll  which is greeted with obvious joy and reverence before being read. For Jews this is a living Word which connects them to God.  Sitting there in the Synagogue I was very aware of being part of a great ocean of tradition going back centuries and felt quite sad when the Torah scroll was put back in the Ark and the curtain drawn for another week. Traditionally the service is followed by Kiddush i.e a  blessing said over bread and wine with tea and cakes which gave plenty of time to talk to the community who were so happy to have us with them. 

Our next visit was to a new Gurdwara about half a mile from the Synagogue. It’s a magnificent building, not long opened and central to it, too, is the Word of God contained in the Sikh Holy Book, the Guru Granth Sahib. We were lucky enough to be there on a day when there was continuous reading from the Holy Book.  Read in Punjabi we sat in the prayer hall and let the words waft over us and enter into us just as we had in the Synagogue.  While the Gurdwara was indeed magnificent it was also simple with the focus being on the Holy Book which, for Sikhs, is a living Word as the Torah is for the Jews.  Sikhs the world over are known for their hospitality. Second to the prayer hall in any Gurdwara is the Langar, the kitchen and dining area in which food always seems to be available. I don’t know how the community does it. Recently we had a Burns Supper there and the community happily and generously fed 138 of us. Yesterday we too were served a meal, generously and happily before being shown round the building.
​    
Yesterday’s pilgrimage was short but memorable. It allowed us to enter into the world of another, to see how central the Word of God is to both traditions even though they were different in so many respects. But it is the warmth of the hospitality offered by both communities that will stay with us. I hope we Christians are as hospitable when it comes our turn to welcome others. 

0 Comments

Dialogue - A Way of LIfe

12/2/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
 We had a visitor from the United Nations in Scotland this week – Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer at the UN.  The Archbishop was the guest of Archbishop Cushley of Edinburgh and invited to speak to an interfaith gathering as a good way to celebrate World Interfaith Harmony Week. It’s always good for those of use engaged in interfaith to have our horizons widened as so much of our work happens at a local level.

​The Archbishop spoke of how religion and interreligious dialogue has grown in importance within the UN. Formerly the emphasis was on social justice projects such as literacy, the elimination of poverty etc with no thought of collaborating with faith communities in achieving these.  This has changed as the UN has come to realise the importance of religion and interreligious dialogue for peace and harmony in the world today. So what has changed?  The Archbishop gave two reasons: firstly what he called the plague of terrorism and ideologies which use the name of God to perpetrate violence – something Pope Francis has described as blasphemy. But what this does show is that religion is a strong motivating factor for people’s actions (unfortunately for ill as well as for good) which have social consequences. It’s now obvious that religion isn’t a purely private affair and has a place in bodies like the UN which uses religious leaders and experts in many of their social initiatives.


The second reason for the change of heart vis-à-vis religion is the evidence based realisation of how much faith based organisations have contributed to development, particularly in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals with regard to education, health, the environment. The UN now recognises that religion has an important part to play in its development agenda and sees religious bodies and faiths as partners in this work.  It has also come to recognise that religion and dialogue has a part to play in what the Archbishop called statecraft, mentioning a book by Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson, “Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft.”  It’s as though the UN has come to realise the truth of  Hans Kung’s often quoted saying that there would be no peace in the world without peace between the religions and no peace between the religions without dialogue between the religions.  Archbishop Auza confirmed the UN accepts that there will be no development without peace. The reality of our world is that the countries in which there is religious conflict lack development and the societies in which religious diversity is not tolerated or respected  are violent. So the Archbishop concluded interreligious dialogue is no longer relegated to places of worship or academia but is now central to the work of the UN. He did also note that this dialogue needs to be done at all levels of society. He talked of how the Bishops of the Congo had recently mediated peace but any work for peace and development is compromised if there is no dialogue on the ground.

This was encouraging for those of us engaged in interfaith relations to hear and gave us a vision wider than the local. We are truly engaged in world peace even if our contribution is small and on a local level. As is usually the case the Archbishop was talking to the converted. His message was one that the wider community – both religious and civic – needed to hear. We’re lucky in Scotland because we have a government that does recognise the role religions play in its social fabric and shows its interest in dialoguing with faith communities even though there are always voices calling for religion to be relegated to the private sphere. Interfaith initiatives are undoubtedly growing but so too is a concern for our own community and a defensiveness and introspection that is the opposite of dialogue. It needs to be encouraged at all levels.


One of the things the Archbishop said that I particularly liked was in response to a question which quoted Henry Kissinger who said that we only need to dialogue with our enemies. Perhaps the focus on peace could give this impression. But the Archbishop was quite clear that while interreligious dialogue is a means to peace it is also a way of life. It is an achievement and an end in itself because it is a way of life which needs to be encouraged. For me and others engaged in interfaith this is certainly so. I have often thought that interfaith gatherings are prophetic in their own way and witness to the world that people of faith can meet, work together, respect one another and even be friends with one another. In fact it’s in the friendships that we are able to tackle difficult issues and points of disagreement between us. But not everyone understands dialogue as a way of life and people come to it with different motivations – some to defend their own faith and position, others to promote their own faith and position, some to get support for a particular social or community project. There are probably as many motivations as there are individuals. This doesn’t matter so much. What’s important is the coming together with respect, honesty and a willingness to listen to those with a different perspective from our own. To do this is to embark on a journey which can eventually lead to dialogue as a way of life.

0 Comments

Interfaith Harmony Week

4/2/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Interfaith Harmony Week takes place at the beginning of February. We don’t hear too much about it in Scotland because we put our energies into Scottish Interfaith Week in November. It's the initiative of King Abdullah II of Jordan who first proposed it to the United Nations General Assembly in 2010 and, within a month, it was unanimously adopted by the UN who declared that the first week in February would be observed as World Interfaith Harmony Week. The motivation for it was an important document published by 138 Muslim scholars and addressed to the Pope and other Christian leaders throughout the world. The document was a response to the upset caused by an unfortunate and obscure quotation from a 14thcy Byzantine Emperor used Pope Benedict XVI at Regensburg in 2006, which compared the rationality of Christianity and Greek thought with the violence and irrationality of Islam. It was a polemical quotation, probably directed more to the secular West than to Islam but it provoked polemical and violent responses within the Muslim world, leading of course to back- tracking, apologies and rapprochement on the side of the Vatican. 
 
Not all the responses were violent, however, and the more moderate voices within Islam published a document which came to be known as ‘The Common Word Initiative’ from its title ‘A Common Word Between Us and You’. It was drawn up and signed by 138 significant Muslim scholars and clerics from around the world. Now it has over 20,000 signatories on the web. It was a significant initiative because it came from Muslims determined to open up a dialogue with Christian leaders and has given birth to important interreligious dialogues, especially between Islam and Christianity, as well as World Interfaith Harmony Week. The Abridged version of the document begins 
 “Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world’s population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world. The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians.
The basis for this peace and understanding already exists. It is part of the very foundational principles of both faiths: love of the One God and love of the neighbour.  These principles are found over and over again in the sacred texts of Islam and Christianity.” ................“Thus in obedience to the Holy Qur’an, we as Muslims invite Christians to come together with us on the basis of what is common to us, which is most essential to our faith and practice.”

For academics there is much to discuss in the document – is love really the basis of Christianity, what about God’s love for us?  It opens the way for some significant  theological discussions but for us more ordinary folk it is a sound basis on which to base our desire and hopes to establish good relations with our Muslim brothers and sisters. And World Interfaith Harmony Week as well as Interfaith Week in the UK can be a focus for this.

The United Nations Resolution sets out the purpose of the week. Recognising the importance of interreligious dialogue for mutual understanding, harmony and cooperation it      
1. Reaffirms that mutual understanding and interreligious dialogue constitute important dimensions of a culture of peace;
2. Proclaims the first week of February every year the World Interfaith Harmony Week between all religions, faiths and beliefs;
3. Encourages all States to support, on a voluntary basis, the spread of the message of interfaith harmony and goodwill in the world’s churches, mosques, synagogues, temples and other places of worship during that week, based on love of God and love of one’s neighbour or on love of the good and love of one’s neighbour, each according to their own religious traditions or convictions;

The week is an attempt to highlight the good interfaith initiatives that are taking place all over the world. It would be hard to find anyone today who did not agree that good interfaith relations are necessary for peace but more difficult to find too many people willing to give time and energy to it. One off events are good, visits to one another’s place of worship interesting and maybe even disturbing for some, attending interfaith services an opportunity to pray beside one another if not with one another but if interfaith is to truly contribute to a culture of peace it needs, to be built on solid interfaith friendships. It’s only within the context of trust and friendship that we can begin to talk about some of the difficult issues that divide us and cause tension between us. And interfaith friendships, like all friendships, take time and energy.  In my experience this means simply spending time with one another and engaging in conversations, meetings, actions that of themselves don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Interfaith friendships mean being human together, sharing the high  and low points of one another's lives, sharing meals and above all learning about the faith of others as well as sharing my own. For me one of the joys of interfaith work has been the joy of making good friends. And sometimes I feel closer to friends in other faiths than I do to some people in my own and I know I’m not the only person to experience this. While good neighbourliness  and a sharing of aspects of our common life as citizens is authentic dialogue, interreligious friendships are more intentional and focussed on a sharing of faith, spirituality, experience and commitment. They're not a means to an end that is political or even social though I do believe they sow the seeds of peace in our world. They also bring about personal transformation as we learn to appreciate difference and gain insights into our own faith.

An effective way of doing this is to study and read the scriptures of other faiths with an open mind, open to the insights of others. Scriptural Reasoning is an approach that allows believers of different faiths to reflect on scriptures with a common theme from each of their faiths. It's edifying to hear how believers understand their scripture, to see the similarities and differences but also  the wisdom which we can all apply to our lives. I like scriptural reasoning  because it’s a simple way that  allows for some depth to a conversation that often gets to the heart of our faiths so that it is indeed a dialogue of heart to heart.  It's this kind of dialogue that develops the trust and respect that enables us to ask the hard questions. It also allows us to understand the complexities and tensions within religions and of the need for all of us to support what is best in each of our faiths. There is a strong anti- religious feeling around especially in secular Europe and religions need one another. They need to stand up for one another and to speak well of one another.   Just after his inauguration in 2013 Pope Francis  wrote to the Muslim community and  called on Christians and Muslims to think and speak respectfully of other religions and their followers and to do so not only in the presence of someone from another faith "but always and everywhere, avoiding unfair criticism or defamation”. This echoes a quote from Diana Eck that I often use "people of every religious tradition depend upon one another to interpret one another fairly and accurately. We are the keepers of one another’s image …. This is a sacred trust"
​It's a small step but one we're all capable of and one that will make its own contribution to world peace and harmony if we live by it.

0 Comments

    Author

    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.

    Picture

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    RSS Feed

    Categories
    Religious Performances
    ​​

    All

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.